Some Links You May Enjoy

This is what Andrew was like as a kid (link).

Another reason to love Giambi (link). 

New Mexico, Red Lobster, Murder, Intrigue, CSI? This is a Morgan O'Brien story through and through (link)

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Neat story about Lupica from Deadspin (more on the All Star Game coming this week):





An All-Star game attendee emailed Deadspin this report from deep within the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium. Apparently, New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica was having a tough time gaining access to the lower level — where the important people sit! — during Tuesday night's game. :


Great all-star game story with some pictures...i was sitting by the entrance to the concourse in the lower level and i hear someone screaming at security so turn to look up the tunnel. It's Mike Lupica and he wasn't being given access to get to the lower field box level so he decided to throw a fit...he pulled a, "do you know who i am" to the guards and ultimately got nowhere, but it was easily an enjoyable moment watching his face turn bright red and freak out during the game...


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Speaking of Lupica, I sent this letter to the Daily News about 10 days ago. Unfortunately, the News protects the rat and his inappropriate, uniformed political rants and Yankee potshots so it wasn't run:

To the Editor:
I want to take issue with one of Mike Lupica’s one-hitters from the end of this week’s Sunday Column. Lupica writes, “You know why the Brewers can make a big play for C.C. Sabathia when they want to make a run? Because they have real prospects in their system, not Yankee prospects.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Lupica unfairly besmirches the excellent work of one of baseball’s best front offices. While the Brewers and Indians made the Sabathia trade Sunday night, the reasons for the deal are most certainly because the Brewers had what Cleveland needed, and not because of a dearth of talent in the Yankee farm system. In fact, according to the 2008 Baseball America Prospect Handbook, the Yankees have baseball’s fifth best group of prospects, 16 spots ahead of the 21st-ranked Brewers.

In all fairness to Mr. Lupica’s assessment, Baseball America explains that Brewers’s relatively low 2008 ranking comes from the fact that many of their top prospects made it to the major leagues; therefore not figuring in the 2008 rankings. That said, even when you include Milwaukee’s crop of impressive young stars, both the Brewers and Yankees still land respectably in the top fifth of prospect rankings, much better than Mr. Lupica would have his readers believe.

And if Mr. Lupica needs Baseball America’s to establish its bona fides, he need look no further than one of his personal favorites, Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. Epstein wrote the foreword in the 2008 guide, writing “I can think of no better resource…than Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook.”

Morgan O’Brien