Baseball Blotter for 5/14/10

Well, it's Friday in the city, and a few precious work hours remain before the weekend begins. It's going to be sunny and warm out here in the Northwest...so an excellent opportunity to sit on the sofa and watch some baseball and play some "Show"! Since the mailbox continues to be lacking anything mysterious and package-shaped, here are a few things happening around baseball...

Lincecum Log. Timmy takes to the mound tomorrow against the Houston Astros. This is going to be a rematch of the season opener against Roy Oswalt, where Lincecum was near perfect, with 0 runs allowed and 7 K's. It's been a long couple of weeks for Big-Time Timmy Jim watching helplessly as his bullpen throws gasoline all over the field...especially the DEEP parts of the field. Hopefully a little home cookin' is what is needed to get over the bump and get his 5th win of the season. Unfortunately, Saturday means Fox baseball day, which means the Triple Play gets blacked out until the afternoon games. Normally Fox would probably show this game, except that the Sub-Mariners play the Tampa Bay Gods of Baseball at the same time. Regional takes precidence, I am afraid. We'll see though.
Who wants to fight Mike Sweeney? One of the joys of baseball is the goofy and irrelevant stories that seem to pop up each season. It's a long season and occasionally reporters stretch to have something for deadline. Enter Tickle-Me Ken Griffey and his clubhouse nap time antics. Do I think it happened. Sure, what benefit would the reporter get from such a ridiculous fabrication. Do I think that the information was leaked from a couple Mariners? Yep! We are talking about guys that light each others shoes on fire and do shaving cream pies like four year olds...do you honestly believe that they are going to be able to hold their tongues when the old man falls asleep in the barc-o-lounger. NO. It was probably hilarious to them and they treated it as such, and a reporter took it and ran with it. Big deal. Griffey is a non-factor, Seattle is rapidly becoming a non-factor, so it is just another story.

Enter Mike Sweeney...

Photo of Mike Sweeney shortly after the players-only meeting this week

Who? Batting .189. Used to play for Kansas City. No? Okay, how about this. Oh, THAT Mike Sweeney.

So Sweeney goes into the all-team meeting and dared any player that said something to the press to step forward and meet him at the bike racks. Hmm, nobody stepped forward. By Sweeney math, that calculation looks something like this...

No teammate admit ratting out Ken = Never happened = Press is lying=BOYCOTT PRESS!

New teammate Cliff Lee, actually believing that Sweeney has some significant pull with his teammates, actually went along with the ban by not contuing a press conference until the perpetrator of the "false" story left the room. Silly Cliff.

Field of Dreams for sale!

The Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa is up for sale a reported $5.4 million. That's a whole lotta Strasburg rookie cards!

What's Ray Kinsella up to these days, anyways? Why he is saving the Gulf Coast from impending disaster, of course!

Enjoy the weekend!