Dumping Grounds

The Common Man has bigger posts he's working on for later this week. Otherwise, he's pretty swamped today. In the meantime, check out:

The Daily Something, where Bill names his teams of the half-decades. But who led the decades in wins and batting average, Bill? Ye gads, what about Saves?

Wezenball, where Lar posts a delightful picture of Mark McGwire and Oddibe McDowell (one of my all time favorite baseball names), includes a now-ironic quote about how big McGwire is, and also recounts the 1984 Olympic baseball team.

Via Craig at HardballTalk comes the awesome beard of Wild Man Jayson Werth.


Fig. 1 The official RF of The Common Man.com.

As TCM tweeted earlier, it appears that Werth has forsaken the company of women, or at least wants to find a sturdy one with child-bearing hips to move into his small shack in the hills of Montana. Also, it gives me an excuse to link back to The Common Man's review of Jeremiah Johnson.

John Bonnes reminds us of the best four words in baseball, in verse.

Drew Silva caused a minor riot over at HardballTalk this weekend when he came down against guns in a major league locker room. The comments read like an NRA and Daily Kos propaganda-fest back and forth. The Common Man falls in the middle. Despite the fact that Ryan Franklin (the pitcher quoted in the story) is a steroid-using, mouth-breathing moron who can't find his chin with a razor (seriously Ryan, if you want a beard, look how Werth gets it done),
TCM thinks ballplayers are welcome to their legal personal firearms, but thinks that employers have a right to keep you from bringing those firearms into their place of business, as it affects their liability and the rights of other employees.


Fig. 2 Ryan Franklin, at his calmest.

Besides, why would any Cardinals fan want a firearm anywhere near Albert Pujols? Any risk to Prince Albert is too great. He should be wrapped head-to-toe in bubblewrap under a kevlar vest when he's not on the field.

This is about a week old, but you owe it to yourself to appreciate the digging done by Baseball Researcher in figuring out why in the hell the 1914 Braves had a swastika on their caps. This is archive researching at its finest and offers a great insight into the culture of baseball around the turn of the century.