As a way of explaining behaviour, Manny being Manny is right up there with the cornmeal theory of infectious disease. It’s the perfect shield for sports announcers who might otherwise be forced to give some kind of personal insight, some kind of tendentious offering, some kind of…you know…opinion.

The first time that I saw Santiago Casilla pitch, I rushed to one of my fantasy mags. I wanted to know what people were writing about a youngish eighth-inning guy with a mid-90s moving fastball and an unhittable power slider. “Dollar pick,” the magazine said. “Not worth more than late-round, reserve look.” Wrong.

We all know the power of nepotism. It’s why so many celebrities have children with gold and platinum records. It’s why Mordecai Richler’s family could build a cabin out of books they’ve published. It’s why Harvard’s endowment could build and launch into orbit a second, cheese-filled moon. But a baseball player getting a shot in the majors?

I’ve always hated “good at-bats.” If we’re talking about a hitter who gets himself into a good count, then goes the other way for a hit, the expression works. But if the hitter’s just not very good, and all he can is try to work a walk, then, no, that’s not a good at-bat.

I can’t help but wonder whether Matt Cain’s destined to be the next Jeremy Bonderman: a guy with great potential who’s always a start away from being a $20 pitcher; but a guy who, until he’s that $20 pitcher, will always be overhyped and overpriced.

On May 8 Josh Fields was sent to the DL with tendinitis in his right knee. For fifteen days, that’s all we knew. He had tendinitis in his knee. He wasn’t playing. He’d be back…eventually. Well, now he is back–kind of.

So it’s our second player versus player challenge and after your overwhelmingly positive response to our last poll, we thought we would stick with the baseball theme but move to the mound this time with two guys who are up and coming baseball stars.

For some reason one of the major search terms that sends people to our site is “fat pitchers”. Apparently you all have a preoccupation with who has made the majors yet still looks like you and I.

Griffin’s quiver has one arrow: J.P. Ricciardi is an idiot. He doesn’t say it in those words, but the thrust is clear. Ricciardi’s in his seventh year as the G.M. of the Toronto Blue Jays, and the club still hasn’t won a pennant.

Jayson Werth turns twenty-nine in three days…If only he’d been a December baby–in a left-handed world.

A few years ago Toronto fans met a new announcer. They hated him. He spoke like he was preaching from the mizzenmast, his voice booming from his bulbous head like waves of sounds echoing down Sinai rock…