Sunday linkfest

After a slow week, I figured I'd throw together some links.

1. The media mocked Bush, and an pro-Sadr Iraqi journalist threw shoes at him, but the troops he sent to Iraq gave him a tremendous welcome. It's got to be heard to be believed. (via HotAir)

2. Ronald Radosh on Bush and the Jews.

3. From November, but still timely: Don Feder on the Jewish vote.

4. Almost as old but not quite: Mark Steyn on the murders at Chabad in Mumbai.

5. Coming soon to the Mets' bullpen: J.J. Putz. Next headline: "Some Putz blows the lead." Bonus: New York Times uses the P-word, the clinical term, in its article.

6. Gallows humor.

7. Mocking Time magazine may be easy, but it's still enjoyable.

8. This semi-earnest discussion of the grammar to be used when mixing a certain bad word with Gov. Blagojevich's name is quite amusing.

9. Invest in skateboards?

10. Well, at least Obama will receive excellent advice from his new science advisor. Just tell the Messiah not to invest with him. (via HotAir)

Click here to read more . . .

Grow up!

I have a joke for you that I just made up.

Q How many Phillies players does it take to screw in a light bulb.

A Two. One to install the light bulb and one to talk trash about Jose Reyes.

The Phillies finished first in the NL East this year over the Mets, went on to beat the Brewers, followed by the Dodgers. In the World Series, they beat Tampa Bay. OK, congratulations. Nice job.

Now, what's the deal with this?

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Jimmy Rollins made the most of another opportunity to take a dig at the New York Mets.

Speaking at Friday’s celebration for the Phillies’ World Series victory, the shortstop mentioned Mets left-hander Johan Santana and the crowd booed. But Rollins was loudly cheered after saying New York forgot one thing. As he put it: “It takes more than one player to bring home a championship.”

Let me get this straight. The regular season ended a full month ago, and the Phillies finished ahead of the Mets. The Phillies won three post-season series in a row to take the world championship. There's a celebration for them, and Rollins takes the opportunity . . . to "take a dig" at the Mets? WTF?

Look, this year, the Phillies won 92 games. The Mets won 89. Last year, the Phillies won 89. The Mets won 88.

Fine, you won, fair and square. But the fact is, your team is only one step above mediocre. The Mets are 3/4 of a step, maybe only a half a step, above mediocre. But powerhouse teams don't win a mere 92 games. These world champions won only 92 games. So let me put this a different way: If the Mets suck, the Phillies suck plus three wins. What's with the trash talk?

Seriously, there's something borderline pathological about this. As Matt Cerrone points out at MetsBlog, the Phillies are "obsessed" about the Mets:

Speaking of Reyes, during today’s broadcast on Comcast SportsNet of the Phillies World Championship parade through Philadelphia, host Michael Barkann asked his co-host, Mitch Williams, “I wonder if Jose Reyes is watching,” continuing, “Do you have anything to say to Reyes.”

Williams responded by saying, “This is what happens when you shut up and play.”

Did I say bordeline pathological? Make that full-bore pathological. It goes from the lowly fans to the broadcasters to the players all the way up to General Manager Pat Gillick (third item).

Phillies general manager Pat Gillick, in an interview with SI.com, expanded on his belief that the Phillies were aided by the animosity other NL East teams felt for the Mets. "I think sometimes it's good to be celebratory, but sometimes it reaches the point where they're taunting the other the team," Gillick said. "Everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate. But there's a fine line, and sometimes they tend to go over the line and taunt the other team."

Rollins agreed with Gillick's original assessment in the New York Daily News that the Phillies benefit in their division battle with the Mets by the hatred other NL East teams have for the Mets.

"Yes," Rollins said succinctly in answer to a question about whether the others in the NL East -- the Marlins, Braves and Nationals -- detest the Mets.

For those of you who live outside New York, you probably think we have a lot of palookas among our fans. And you're right. But there's nothing like Philadelphia fans in the realm of palookadom. In the 1960s, the Phillies brought up a great power hitter named Richie (later "Dick") Allen. It was said about the Phillies fans that if Allen hit three home runs and struck out his fourth time up, when he came to the plate for his fifth at-bat, the fans would boo him. I think little has changed.

Check out this photo (linked at MetsBlog). Better yet. check out this video of a fan who climbed onto a lamppost in downtown Philly, only to be knocked down by another fan throwing a bottle (via DPUD).

Really classy stuff.

And speaking of classy, check out what Chase Utley had to say:

Utley says he didn't even know he was going to address the crowd until 10 minutes before.

Utley smiled as he approached the microphone and proclaimed "World Champions!" The crowd cheered.

Then he smiled wider, leaned in and repeated the phrase, inserting an F-bomb between "World" and "Champions." The fans erupted and cheered for several minutes.

Later Friday, shirts and caps featuring Utley's phrase were offered for sale on the Internet.

Phillies Nation has more, including a video, if you give a [expletive]. Personally, I don't. When either the Phillies or the Mets climb out of mediocrity -- my not so arbitrary cutoff is 96 wins, minimum -- then let's talk again. Without expletives.

Meanwhile, I have some advice for the Phillies and their fans: GROW UP!

Or, as Chase Utley might put it, GROW [EXPLETIVE] UP!

Click here to read more . . .

2008 Mets, R.I.P.

I'm sorry to say this post-mortem is becoming an annual feature. (See last year's far more morbid post-mortem.)

The Mets entered the final game of the season today tied with Milwaukee for the wild card slot but lost ignominiously, while Milwaukee won.

I could say more, but I won't. I'll leave you with this description (hat tip: Right Hand Son) of the post-game ceremonies bidding farewell to Shea Stadium (1964-2008):

Nearly 30 minutes after Ryan Church made the last out at the stadium, most of the fans were still in their seats. They booed when Florida players came out to collect dirt from the basepaths. They booed every time the Mets announced anything over the public address system — “Our Shea Goodbye ceremony will begin in five minutes,” was particularly unpopular. And they booed Mr. Met.

Mr. Met had a particularly poor season.

Click here to read more . . .

A Met-aphor?

Being a Mets fan is a little like, well, being a Mets fan. If you're a fan, you know what I mean. At some point, something is going to go horribly wrong. Sometimes you can predict it. Sometimes you can't. But it will go wrong. Trust me on that.

With a handful of games left this season, the Mets, having fallen from their narrow lead over the Phillies (like the Mets, a team just above mediocre) in the NL East, have been trying to get back, or at least to make it to the wild card slot. Last night's game was, for me, a miniature of the entire season. I've called it a Met-aphor in the post title, but that's a pun and it's not technically correct. You lit majors, please help me with this. One part stands for the larger whole? Synecdoche?

Playing the Cubs, who this year have been about the only really good team in the National League, the Mets opened a 5-1 lead against Carlos Zambrano, their ace. But Oliver Perez and members of the Mets' fragile bullpen blew that lead. The Mets tied it in the 8th at 6-6. In the bottom of the ninth, rookie Daniel Murphy led off with a triple for the Mets. No one out, winning run at third base. The Phillies had already lost to Atlanta.

But David Wright struck out; the Cubs walked Delgado and Beltran intentionally; Ryan Church forced Murphy at home; and Ramon Castro struck out. The winning run at third with no one out failed to score. Needless to say, the Cubs won in the 10th inning.

This has been the Mets' season in a nutshell.

Click here to read more . . .

Staggering around

While American college presidents call for a debate on lowering the drinking age back to 18, the Russians have changed their zero-tolerance laws on drunken driving:

According to news sources, as of last month, motorists in Russia will be allowed to have a small drink before taking the wheel. Previously, even one drink was a serious infraction of the law. This alteration is surprising, especially considering that Russia has one of world’s worst driving safety records. According to government figures, more than 33,000 Russians died in traffic accidents in 2007, and drunken driving caused at least 15,000 road accidents.

"One for the road," as the Inventorspot article puts it.

Next up: Russia changes its law to allow it to invade one neighboring country. (At a time.)

Also on the general subject of driving, I really liked this Mets car. A serious fan painted his car blue and orange, with decals and slogans on it. Click here for a larger photo. The only trouble with the car is that it runs out of gas by the seventh inning.

Click here to read more . . .

Up to mediocrity

As I've told you before, I'm an eternal pessimist when it comes to my team, the Mets. Last fall, when the Mets collapsed, I saw it coming. It wasn't a collapse, after all; it was a return to where the Mets should have been all year long: at mediocrity.

You would think that signing Johan Santana in the off-season would have changed things, but you would have failed to take into account the general aging of the otherwise already aged squad.

With this weekend's 3 wins out of 4 against the first-place Phillies and last night's shutout of the Giants, some people are starting to get excited. The Mets are only 1-1/2 games out of first.

Wake up! The Mets are also only two games over .500, at 46-44. That's called mediocrity. You don't strive for mediocrity; you want to be good, if not great.

I still remember the Mets' 11-game winning streak in June 1969. It was the first time they went over .500 that late in the season. Ever. But Tom Seaver, then in his third year in the majors, said that being .500 is nothing to celebrate. The goal was to win. (I recently searched the NY Times for June 1969 and couldn't find anything resembling this quotation, but I distinctly remember it. Maybe it was reported by the Mets' announcers on TV.)

So the goal is for the Mets to win. If they can't do that, and I suspect they're a few position players and a few starters short (to say nothing of the bullpen), it's time for them to recognize as much and build their farm system. Santana was an excellent acquisition, but if it takes two or three years to develop some players in the minors, that'll have to happen. New York is a win-now kind of environment, but the Mets have been trying to win now for years, with only a rare visit to the playoffs. The time to build is coming soon, and maybe it's already here.

UPDATE (7/13): I think I'm going to have to take credit for the fact that the Mets have won four more in a row since I wrote this (at 8 in a row now). I guess I provoked them, or else they wanted to make me look like a whining jerk.

Click here to read more . . .

Reason #326,441 why baseball is great

This is probably the all-time most absurd statistical record I've ever seen, but ya gotta love it.

"Padres Become First Team Ever To Win Four Straight 2-1 Games."

Even if the final three of them were at the expense of the Mets.

Click here to read more . . .

Mets botch an easy one

Last night, I had a chance to see my first game at the new Nationals' Park in Washington. The Mets were in town, and since I'm a fan, I took a friend for his birthday, along with my sons. This photo is taken from the plaza in left-center field, where you arrive if you come in from the Metro.


I bought the tickets online about two weeks ago. Although it turned out there were many empty seats at the game, for some reason the only seats they would sell me two weeks ago were up in the Goodyear blimp, if you know what I mean. At least I had a partial view of the Capitol dome.


It seemed as if most of the people there were Mets fans, at least up in the Mets Ghetto, where I was sitting in nosebleed territory. Whenever the few Nats fans would start a cheer, we'd shout them down. My own contribution was to shout, "Boring! Boring!" We used to do this in college, when the other school's marching band was performing at half-time. This, I want you to know, is called highly mature behavior.

The seats may have been in the stratosphere, but they were otherwise not too bad. For example, if you wanted an aerial, bird's eye view of the Carlos Delgado shift, we were in exactly the right location. This is a picture from the fifth inning, showing the infielders on the right side of the diamond. (The third baseman was slightly to the left of second base.) Delgado grounded into a fielder's choice at second base -- 6-5, shortstop to third baseman. Seriously. (Considering Delgado's hitting below the Mendoza Line these days, the whole shift is a waste of time.)


The worst thing about the seats was that people kept coming and going, forcing the folks in front of us to stand and block our view.


The Mets blew a 3-run lead with abysmal pitching and failed to catch up with lackluster hitting. Totally pathetic. But we saw Felipe Lopez hit a grand slam for the Nats. Yes, THE Felipe Lopez. (Earlier this week, the Mets gave up a grand slam homer to THE Ronny Cedeño of the Cubs.)

Here are reports on the game from Yahoo and MetsBlog. I can't stomach any further description myself.

Click here to read more . . .

Wednesday linkfest

This is the place where I drop links that I've been collecting but haven't had time to write about while I've been trying to figure out my mother's taxes.

1. From the distaff side of the moronosphere, S.Weasel has a delightful tribute to Charlton Heston. Well, to his buttocks, anyway.

2. Speaking of the moronosphere, check doubleplusundead regularly for his daily roundups, called "around the moronosphere in 80 iq points." I think the Moron-in-Chief was responsible for that name.

3. Since it's tax time, I'd like to bring you this: "Woman Apologizes for Pitbull Attack on IRS Employee." (via TaxProf Blog)

4. Here's the barbecue guy who loves the NoKos. The FBI already knows about him, thanks to his dad. Really. Will there be a place for him as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration? And this: A coincidence?

5. Will you be more in love with your wife if she learns to play poker? This article says you will. It sounds totally asinine to me, because you play poker precisely to be alone with the boys, but there are some other tips for women that sound a little better than that.

6. If you live in Minnesota, your tax dollars are funding what may be a madrassa.

7. Ace writes about a post by a user at Obama's site attacking the Jews. A commenter finds the cached link after the post is taken down.

8. From the Department of Old: "Woman's Lawsuit Claims Bra Injured Her / Victoria's Secret Denies Claims." (via Ace's headlines last week)

9. From the Department of Not So New: Starbucks won't let you customize your card with "Laissez Faire" but will let you use "People Not Profits"? (via Volokh)

10. Child "maths" genius-ette becomes a call girl (with probably NSFW photo) (via Fark)

11. Get your ice cold Mets motivational poster, courtesy of Baseball Crank. Not that I've already given up on them -- that'll take another few days like yesterday.

Click here to read more . . .

Wednesday linkfest

I've been pretty busy, so the best I can do for you is another linkfest. I would apologize, but that would presume there's anyone actually reading this to whom I can express my regrets.

That said now, let me catch you up on some interesting articles. There are a bunch of unrelated topics here, so stay with me until the end.

1. The science is settled, but the facts are apparently unaware what the science is. "All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously." Supposedly, the one-year temperature drop has nearly wiped out the past century of temperature increase. Look, I'm not a scientist; I don't even play one on TV. And maybe this is a temporary drop in a long-term rise. At the very least, though, it tells us we shouldn't be as certain as we seem to be.

2. If the fourteen Starbuckses on your block were all closed at the same time last night, that was deliberate. Memo to Starbucks: The word "re-education" has some horrible connotations. And it wasn't a coincidence that a billion newspapers used the term; check this from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. In case you missed the three-hour closing yesterday, I hope these two old posts will make up for it: Mr. Smith goes to Starbucks (photo comic); O.J. Simpson goes to Starbucks.

3. An article (via MetsBlog) discusses great brawls in Mets history, including my all-time favorite, a duel between Ray Knight of the Mets and Eric Davis of Cincinnati in 1986. There were so many ejections that when the game went deep into extra innings, the Mets had to use one of their relief pitchers in the outfield -- well, actually, two of them. Relievers Jesse Orosco (a lefty) and Roger McDowell (a righty) alternated on the mound, depending on whether the batter was righty or lefty. The pitcher who wasn't on the mound would then take his position in the outfield, in the position opposite from the batter's side, to reduce the chances he'd somehow have to field a ball that was hit out there. So Orosco and McDowell kept trotting back and forth from the mound to the outfield. It doesn't get any better than that. (Note: The article says that Cinci manager Pete Rose "furiously tried to find a rule that prevented the Mets from rotating pitchers, to no avail. The Mets won the five-hour, 14-inning marathon on a three-run Howard Johnson bomb.")

4. Scary toilet alert: "Don't Sit on That Toilet!" (via BOTWT) "An employee of an Auburn nursing home called firefighters for help on Tuesday because the toilets were exploding with steam." A boiler explosion set off a sprinkler system, which led to flooding of the nursing home.

5. Always looking for ways to support this country, Hollywood has developed (with the able help of the ACLU) the orange ribbon and wristband, to protest our treatment of Al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo. See this, too. (both via HotAir) And if that were not enough, we get the "Torture Playlist" of music allegedly used by the military "to induce sleep deprivation, 'prolong capture shock,' disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams." (via BOTWT) I'm sure I'd confess to anything if I had to listen to that dreck.

6. While Hollywood is blaming us for detaining Al Qaeda members and fellow travelers, the British are showing us what happens when you follow Hollywood's advice: "Terror trial exposes network of terror camps in picturesque rural England." (via LGF) The trial described in this article "exposed a network of alleged British terrorism training camps with a serious intent to prepare recruits for mass murder."

Click here to read more . . .

Soccer Dad: Different Directions

Posted by Soccer Dad

While Attila's away, I was invited to guest post here. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance until now.

Attila and I have a lot of shared interests, such as sports. Tennis playing bison for example. Another sport we both like is baseball. Truth is we don't discuss it much because, for me, it is quite painful. Since we've gotten to know each other, his team, the Mets has been pretty good and my team, the Orioles, stink. (Yes, I know that the Mets suffered a historic collapse last year and that can't have been fun to suffer through. But at least they collapsed from the top of their division to second place; the Orioles collapsed from barely adequate to positively hopeless spurred by a historic 30 - 3 drubbing.)

To make matters worse the Mets traded Kris and Anna Benson to the Orioles for John Maine. Benson provided the Orioles with one perfectly mediocre season before suffering an injury and Maine has gone on to be the Mets #2 or #3 pitcher.

Another sign about the relative strengths of our teams are the blockbuster trades they've made recently.

The Mets, with apparently fond memories of the Frank Viola trade, traded five prospects for Johann Santana of the Twins. Now Baseball Prospectus thinks that the Mets might be the best team in all of baseball.

The Orioles though - and still in that seeming passive aggressive mode - traded their best pitcher, Erik Bedard to the Mariners for five prospects. On one hand the team did the right thing. The Orioles were not going to be very good this year even with Bedard. Instead of attempting to reach .500 by signing the likes of Jay Payton or Aubrey Huff, the Orioles finally realize that they need to blow things up and start from scratch.

And that's what bugs. Sure it was correct to trade Erik Bedard and acquire a guy who might well be the second member of a top notch outfield. But there's something frustrating about a team that hasn't been able to operate competently for so long that it becomes necessary to trade someone like Bedard instead of keeping him and giving the fans someone to cheer about. Like Mike Mussina. (Whoops, they didn't keep him either.)

Click here to read more . . .

Another Wednesday linkfest

Some days are good days for drive-by links. Some days are bad days. Today was a good day.

1. If you really want to become a millionaire, don't bother following these rules. You'll become a millionaire in about 40 years, which doesn't really count if you adjust for inflation. Better advice: To become a millionaire, start with $2 million.

2. Why Heidi Klum fell for Seal. (via HotAir, with lots of comments) Hmmm, I wear bike shorts when I ride, and this never happens to me. Back at my high-school reunion, some people were talking about padded bras -- you know, the usual topic of conversation at high-school reunions -- and the gay "partner" of a classmate of mine explained to me that gay men often pad the areas that others are interested in. Not that this explains the Heidi Klum situation.

3. The math of teenage sex: "If you do the math—worthy of an SAT prep course, with fractions and large numbers—you'll find that early sex plus the Pill equals sexually transmitted disease and maybe even pregnancy."

4. There's something peculiarly Japanese about this: "Cell phone message warns train gropers." Huh? Well, read this: "The application flashes increasingly threatening messages in bold print on the phone's screen to show to the offender: 'Excuse me, did you just grope me?' 'Groping is a crime,' and finally, 'Shall we head to the police?'" The only thing more Japanese would be robots.

5. Does this campaign photo of the month remind you of this one -- I mean, the evil grin? (via HotAir, where Allah says, "Mitt should fire his advance team")

6. With the World Series finally underway, we have this year's best baseball injuries from Ken Levine (via Ace). Line of the day: "Somehow in June Washington reliever, Jesus Colome suffered an 'abscess on his right buttock'. The team's General Manager, Jim Bowden is quoted in the Washington Post as saying, 'We pray for his buttocks and his family.'" There's no link to the Post, but I've verified the Bowden quotation here. My own personal favorite baseball injury story was related in Lindsey Nelson's book from the mid-60s called "Backstage at the Mets." Grover Powell, a young left-handed pitcher who'd made a great splash for the abysmal Mets, injured his pitching arm while combing his hair. Casey Stengel quipped: "Greasy kid stuff."

7. If you're a kid who lives in Boston, they want to teach you how to duck to protect yourself against gunfire. (via Fark)

8. You might not want to meet this Australian barmaid in a dark alley, although rumor has it that she's very entertaining in the bar. (via about a million sites)

9. Yiddish makes a comeback in Lithuania, as demonstrated by this syntax: "I feel a very rich person by knowing this language." (via Fark)

10. I just had my 100,000th visitor at Pillage Idiot this evening. Needless to say, it was someone who had been searching for images of the Thai transvestite pageant, which I wrote about two years ago. Somehow that seems appropriate.

Click here to read more . . .

Opening Day 2007

The Mets narrowly lost to the Cardinals in the seventh game of the National League Championship Series last fall, and the Cards, not the Mets, went on to the World Series and greater glory.

Last night, the Mets opened the 2007 season in St. Louis and had to watch the Cardinals receive their championship rings.

Then, the Mets proceeded to kick their butts, 6-1. Chris Carpenter is a great pitcher, but the Mets hit him hard. The Mets also kept Pujols and Rolen quiet and made several very slick fielding plays. A New York Times article about the game is here. Nice photo at the top, by the way, showing Paul LoDuca tagging David Eckstein out at the plate.

I didn't actually see much of the game. We were busy cleaning our kitchen and kashering it for Passover at the time, but we had the TV on in the next room.

Nice start to the season.

Quotation of the day: "'A lot of guys know what's coming,' Glavine said. 'I know they know it's coming.'" (via MetsBlog)

Click here to read more . . .

Most talented Mets ever?

MetsBlog links to the New York Post's sports blog, which has an entry entitled "Most Talented Met Ever." Without a question mark.

Mike Vaccaro says: "Carlos Beltran reported Monday morning, and it begs the question: who is the most talented man to ever wear a Mets uniform?" He's got his list, which you can view if you click the link above, but let's try to deal with definitions first.

First: Does talent mean raw ability or statistics? If it's raw talent, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry have to be near the top. But both succumbed to vices and ruined their careers. For talent plus a successful career, I don't see how you can top Tom Seaver. Most people who put him lower than first are simply too young to have seen him pitch.

Next: Ever wear a Mets uniform? If you take this literally, you have to go with Willie Mays, who played part of 1972 and all of 1973 with the Mets. But he was finishing out his career at the time, and no one would argue that he was more than a shadow of his Hall of Fame self. I would normally dismiss this interpretation, but Vaccaro ranks Carlos Beltran first, who's played only two years with the Mets. That makes no sense to me.

Related: How long does the player have to have played for the Mets? Nolan Ryan pitched his first four-plus spotty years with the Mets but went on to pitch Hall of Fame baseball for 22 more years with three other teams. So Ryan shouldn't count. But what are we to make of Vaccaro's inclusion of Jose Reyes and David Wright, two young stars, in his top 10 list? He's basing his ranking as much on a prediction of their abilities as on their showing in the limited time they've been in the majors. To a lesser extent, I think that explains his ranking of Beltran as well.

The only thing I get out of Vaccaro's post is that it's another parlor game. It might be a lot of fun if we only knew what the rules are.

UPDATE (2/21): Since everyone's clamoring for my picks, let me first define my terms. I require that the player have spent at least five years on the Mets, and I lean toward performance over raw ability.

1. Tom Seaver.
2. Dwight Gooden.
3. Mike Piazza.
4. Darryl Strawberry.
5. Keith Hernandez.

I don't think I'll go any farther than that. Yes, I've put Gooden and Strawberry in there at the top. I guess I wouldn't have mentioned it yesterday if Vaccaro had given Seaver top billing, as I have.

Honorable mentions go to Jerry Koosman, Gary Carter, David Cone, and Tommie Agee (who's a sentimental favorite as much as an actual "most talented.")

Click here to read more . . .

BDS goes to MetsBlog

Earlier today, Matt Cerrone, proprietor of the invaluable MetsBlog.com, cited a NY Post article on David Wright's dinner with President Bush. The article noted: "The Mets All-Star third baseman was invited to a 'baseball dinner' along with San Diego's Trevor Hoffman, Toronto's Vernon Wells, Cubs manager Lou Piniella, broadcaster Tim McCarver and journalist George Will." Wright was allowed to bring his father to the White House. The article quoted Wright about how exciting it was to meet and dine with the President and to see the Oval Office.

You won't be surprised to learn, New York being a deep blue state, that Cerrone's readers immediately weighed in with anti-Bush comments. The first was: "Wright shoulda smacked George W. in the head, for the sake of America." And it went down hill from there. My favorite exchange went like this. One commenter: "Unfortunately, most baseball players (and professional athletes in general) seem to be Republican. Remember when Piazza compared meeting Rush Limbaugh to meeting George Washington? I still cringe about that." Next commenter: "amen. if i find out that d-wright is a republican i dont know what im going to do."

Stop rooting for the man, that's what you'll do -- "for the sake of America."

Click here to read more . . .