Today's secret word is "Surreal"

Sometimes, when I'm hauling my nets across the web in search of a fresh catch of links for my readers, the stories of the day will all seem to cluster around a theme. It is, of course, just an example of the human brain playing tricks on its owner/operartor, but if you'd still like to take today's false pattern recognition for a test drive, read on:

*This isn't really a new story, but it was new to me, and since I managed to miss it despite a pretty substantial interest in both baseball and politics, I figured I might as well repost it here anyway in case it slipped past any of you guys, too. In the early 1950s, Honus Wagner was living in Carnegie, winding down his career as hitting coach for the Pirates. At that time, he had his milk delivered by a teenager from Greentree, the fifth son of a German immigrant who opened a dairy farm. And that young milkman grew up to be... Texas congressman and fringe presidential candidate Ron Paul. Huh.

*It's been a while since we've seen a good trade rumor, and while this next item isn't a rumor (or, for that matter, good), it's still kind of entertaining. Belleville News-Democrat writer Scott Wuertz thinks that it'd make sense for the Pirates to trade Bay to the Cardinals for Chris Duncan or Skip Schumaker, Anthony Reyes, and either catching prospect Bryan Anderson or a "prospect pitcher", because such a move "would give the Pirates an infusion of young talent". For the record, Reyes is 26, Duncan is 27 (and in his final pre-arb year), and Schumaker is 28. Bay is 29. When you're trying to make a package of young talent, I've generally found that it makes sense to focus on players that are actually, y'know, young. And in the case of Schumaker, some talent wouldn't hurt, either.

*From the mouths of babes:

A few days ago, Gunnar came home from kindergarten and had this conversation with his mother:


Gunnar: "Mom, Josh said something mean today."

Mom: "What did he say?"

Gunnar: "He said the Pirates stink."

Mom: "Well, honey, they do."

Gunnar: "They do?

Mom: "Yep."

Gunnar: "Oh."

-John Steigerwald, The Observer-Reporter

*The previous three items were kind of funny. This one isn't funny at all. Remember what I said about MLB slamming Forbes's numbers without ever providing any of their own? Right on cue, here's Frank Coonelly providing the requisite lies-and-slander quote (via Rob Biertempfel at the Trib). He also spun out a pretty bizarre explanation for the team's planned use of their annual welfare check:

The Pirates expect to receive about $35 million this year through Major League Baseball's revenue-sharing system, Coonelly said, adding that it's incorrect to believe that money must be used only to increase player payroll.

"The revenue-sharing plan says you have to use those proceeds to improve your performance on the field," Coonelly said. "That's written extraordinarily broadly, and we did that on purpose. Paying down debt can help you improve on the field. You can't get any better while you're taking a (huge) interest hit on all the debt you have."

I'm sure that Coonelly's process interpretation is probably correct - if there's one guy you can trust on the rules of baseball, it's probably a lawyer who's the former VP of MLB. Still, any standard that includes debt service as an approved use for the money is so vague as to be completely meaningless.

Jayson Stark at ESPN wrote a column during the labor troubles a couple of years ago that does a really nice job of addressing some of the same issues addressed by Coonelly's quote. I'd like to crib a bit of Stark's work here:

[T]he only meaningful issue in this labor tug of war is competitive balance. And any attempt to harp on anything else is, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, an indication that the competitive-balance talk is nothing but a smokescreen.

"What you're seeing," says one longtime baseball man, "is inconsistent messages. On the one hand, Bud's saying, 'We need more revenue sharing so we can have competitive balance.' On the other hand, you're hearing him talk about all this debt.

"But if these clubs are going to spend that revenue-sharing money on their debt, how does it allow them to spend money on players? If it's about competitive balance, the money has to be spent on the players. And if it's not, what this really is all about is increasing franchise value."

If the industry as a whole is losing money, says another baseball person with no ties to the union, then more revenue sharing doesn't solve that problem. It only changes the problem -- because it doesn't bring any more money in. It just redistributes the money that has already come in.

Emphasis mine. So, like J. Wellington Wimpy, the Pirates will gladly give you a competitive club on Tuesday for another $5 today. It's just a con game. Don't be the mark.

I did not know that

This an' that:

*Mariners pitcher Miguel Batista is an unusual dude. Lots of players write columns or diaries for newspapers, but Batista has a sideline as an honest-to-God professional writer: he's penned two Spanish-language books, a collection of poems (Sentimientos en Blanco y Negro) and a crime novel (Ante Los Ojos De La Ley). We selected Batista in the 1992 Rule 5 draft, and returned him shortly thereafter when our attempt to hide him at the back of the pen Meek-style proved unsuccessful. Apparently, however, we were interested in him a long time before that:

Dominican native Batista says it's nothing new for players from his country to lie about their age, something the sport has cracked down on in recent years as U.S. immigration laws became tougher. He says today's younger players from his country face pressures to lie because scouts have unrealistic expectations of them.

"They expect a kid who's 16 or 17 years of age to have a 95 mph fastball," he said. "How many Americans can do that? They're forcing kids to lie."

Batista says it wasn't the same way when he was coming up in the early 1980s. Back then, at age 15, he had only a 79 mph fastball but couldn't sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates because he was too young. He waited another year and landed a professional contract. -Geoff Baker, Seattle Times

If his dates on B-R are correct, we were looking at him in late '86 or early '87. He signed with the Expos ten days after his 17th birthday. He bounced around a fair bet after we sent him back, but he did eventually turn into a pretty good pitcher.

*Congratulations to longtime Pirate minor leaguer (and Altoona fan favorite) Josh Bonifay, who's in line to graduate with honors next month from UNC-Wilmington. A 33rd-round pick in 1999 (and the son of then-Bucs GM Cam), Bonifay had a pretty good bat, but medical issues gave him trouble on defense, and eventually led to his retirement in the spring of 2007. After Bonifay graduates, he's going to join the coaching staff at Hickory.

Back when Bonifay was still playing, he used to keep a player diary on the web, which I enjoyed reading. This 2003 interview in the much-missed Pirate Report is pretty good, too.

*In an interview about pitcher Brian Bannister, former Pirate coach Rusty Kuntz had an interesting observation about Matt Capps's approach:

Royals coach Rusty Kuntz told McClure that when he was with Pittsburgh, Pirates closer Matt Capps had the ability to decipher an opposing hitter's swing pattern and be able to pitch above or below it. That's one of the traits that so far has set Bannister apart, too. -Scott Miller, CBS Sportsline

Not sure whether it's true or not, but Capps certainly does get plenty of swings-and-misses.

*Jonesin' for a Clemente fix? You're in luck. PBS is going to show a new one-hour documentary on Senor Roberto this Monday night at 9, as part of their "American Experience" series. If you miss the broadcast, there's a webcast available here. On the downside, the director interviews George Will, but on the upside, it's narrated by Jimmy Smits, so that probably cancels out. If your tastes run more toward children's theater, and you're willing to take a road trip, there's a new play in DC called "Looking for Roberto Clemente" that's getting pretty good reviews.

*This isn't strictly Pirate-related, but I wanted to link to it anyway, so I am. A lot of good info there about the pay scale for minor-league players. Seriously, take a minute and look it over.

*Congrats to Charlie at Bucs Dugout, whose site just got linked (in an article about someone else) by the Washington Post.

*Another month, another new Pirates blog. Our army grows! Certainly can't argue with the title of this one...

Go read this site, right now.

I haven't been able to post any of the things that I've been meaning to post for the last few days. I came down with what can only be pneumonic plague about six hours before the Super Bowl, and I still haven't stopped coughing. Seriously: right now, I look and sound like one of those 90-year-old smokers who checks for little black shreds of lung in his handkerchief every five minutes.

If you need something to keep you occupied in the meantime, though, I found a great Pirates blog. I want to steal everything on it. Decent writing, solid logic, nice range of topics. 16 good-length posts in three weeks... with a grand total of three comments. That's just not right.

Hyzdu HQ. Go to it.

Other people's work

Here are a few Pirate-related links from the past week that I found interesting, useful, or both.

*Both Charlie and Pat posted responses to this post of mine, making some good points. In fact, Charlie is making something of a series of it (Part II, Part III). It's good stuff.

*Eight years after Francisco Cordova and Ricardo Rincon combined for a no-hitter against the Astros, Damaso Marte did the same thing. Pitching for the Licey Tigers in the Dominican Winter League, Marte teamed up with Ervin Santana and Carlos Marmol on a 2-0 no-hitter against the Oriente Stars. Marte struck out three Stars during his 1 2/3 perfect innings.

*The use of ADD/ADHD medications such as Ritalin and Adderall has skyrocketed over the last year. MLB granted 28 waivers (called "Therapeutic Use Exemptions") to players for the drugs in 2006, but that number increased to 103 last season. That's more than 8% of the total player population, where the estimated incidence in children is between 3% and 5%. ADD/ADHD meds simulate many of the salutary effects of amphetamines, which were used widely throughout baseball before their inclusion in the latest round of drug testing. This is an issue for all teams, of course, but I bring it up here in part because Adam LaRoche was prominently diagnosed with ADD and treated with Ritalin in early 2006. It seems likely that LaRoche is among the legitimately afflicted, but if there's some kind of crackdown as a result of the report, he could get caught in the crossfire.

*When I said that I wanted to see less of Ronny Paulino next year, this isn't what I meant, although I'll take it. Paulino has apparently lost a fair bit of weight: The P-G pegged it at ten pounds a week ago, while the Trib thinks that it's closer to fifteen. That's pretty good, but it's not in the same league as former Pirate minor leaguer Jeff Bennett (lost in the Rule 5 draft in 2003), who claims to have lost a whopping 60 pounds. Even the fat version of Bennett was a pretty decent pitcher, so it'll be interesting to see how he does this year after dropping so much dead weight.

* Former Pirate Don Cardwell has died. As always, the NYT obit is a good place to start reading. Cardwell, who played for the Pirates from 1963-1966, came to Pittsburgh in the deal where Dick Groat was sent to the Cardinals. Cardwell pitched a no-hitter in 1960 and won a World Series in 1969, but his most important accomplishment in black and gold was leading the league twice in hit batsmen (1963 and 1965), no easy task during the Bob Gibson era. To honor him, why not throw something at someone's head during your lunch break?

* Ex-Buc Marc Wilkins has started a baseball academy in Ontario, Ohio. Ex-Met Joe Crawford (NOT the ref) is part of the staff. Wilkins apparently decided to make the jump after visiting the academy run by ex-Buc Jeff Wallace in nearby Alliance, OH. Rumors of a feud with Jeff Tabaka's academy remain unconfirmed.

*Remember Jermaine Allensworth? One of our many past center fielders of the future who didn't pan out, he was a Pirate from '96-'98 (as well as one of my late grandfather's favorite players, god rest his soul). I was mildly surprised to notice that Allensworth, now a grizzled 35-year-old veteran, is still active. He last played in the affiliated minors in 2002, but has kept busy in independent ball since then, and just this week he signed a new deal for 2008 with the Schaumburg Flyers of the Northern League. In this respect, he's following in the footsteps of fellow ex-Buc OF prospects like Will Pennyfeather and Trey Beamon, both of whom had long Indy-league careers. I have a lot of respect for those guys. There aren't many rewards to that lifestyle beyond long bus rides and baloney sandwiches, and you don't take (and keep) a gig like that without having a deep and abiding love for the game of baseball.

*Shane Youman is apparently a class act, not that we would've expected any less. Also of interest: In the article, Youman says that the Pirates "told [him] they took a calculated risk" in putting him on waivers. Not a big thing, but it does provide confirmation both that they would've kept him in the organization if he'd cleared waivers, and that they knew there was a chance he might be picked.