Everyone’s getting into the baseball act

I know it’s hard to believe, but even the monthly customer newsletter of the service that hosts baseballrelated.com wants in on the baseball commentary action…

Baseball is a weird sport because it’s quite often the cheapest sport to attend, yet the players are paid the most of any pro sport. For example, I believe they were paying people $12 to attend the Giants games this weekend, but at the same time Alex Rodriguez earned $20,000,000 per attempt to swat away the ball while being tagged on his way to first like a little girl!

The way baseball can afford to pay its athletes so much while at the same time keeping ticket prices and stadium refreshments so reasonable is actually through a number of quite-unrelated side businesses. The most lucrative of which is the bulk purchasing and re-selling of highly desirable domain names! I KID YOU NOT.

It USED to be that only the richest sports franchise-owning billionaires and the president of the United States could get into this literal GOLD MINE of easy profits. But now, thanks to DreamHost lowering the price of .com, .net, .org, and .info domain registrations to just $9.95/year even YOU can now get in on this GUARANTEED PAYDAY! (You still get one free domain registration with every shared hosting plan too of course.)

Just remember, you are required by law to send all profits made through the resale of domain names to the New York Yankees. With the playoffs beginning tomorrow, they need this money more than ever to offer complimentary tickets to the starving children of the rest of the league’s players.

Yes, the newsletter is always written in this style, although it’s usually not about baseball.

Rumors and reports of rumors

With Major League Baseball’s trading deadline edging up on us, I am beginning to feel skittish. Talking last night to Dan Rivkin, who will be covering the hoped-for frenzy on Saturday for MLB, I confirmed that he’s heard the same rumors that I’ve heard trickling in all week: Baseball-Related Program Activities 2004 is considering trading me for a player to be named later and the usual “cash considerations.”

I thought it was odd when Jim started talking about reviving No, No, Nanette, but it was only in the last week, when I discovered that Ken Jennings would be taking a break from driving the Jeopardy question writers around the bend, that I began to worry.

I can’t really even blame Jim. Think about it: what do I bring to the trip that Ken Jennings can’t? I’m sure he even knows St. Louis Cardinals history better than I do. Taking me on the trip is like writing Rey Ordonez into the lineup when Alex Rodriguez is available.

But then I remembered my little version of the no-trade clause: I do have the Cardinals tickets. And I bet Ken Jennings’s family doesn’t live within convenient driving distance of Busch Stadium.

Maybe I’ll get to stay on the roster after all.

P.S. One more thought about the deadline. I really dislike that MLB has moved it up to 4 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. I think it should be the stroke of midnight on the 31st, and that at that moment, Bud Selig’s voice should come over the speaker phones of every general manager: “Time. Put your pencils down.”

Original comments…

Jim: As far as I know, Ken Jennings is unavailable for the trip because “Jeopardy!” is taping shows on August 24th and 25th. But even if he’s lost, you don’t get your “Jeopardy!” winnings check from Sony until after your last air date (and it can be up to 120 days later), so it’s not like he’d be able to spring for, say, rooms in the SkyDome Hotel.

Also, he may be the fun, easy-going type of Mormon, but he’s still a Mormon, and for all I know, he might spend the trip berating me for drinking caffeinated beverages. True, Levi might spend the trip berating me for eating hot dogs, bacon, hot dogs wrapped in bacon, and other meat products, but at least I know how to deal with him — distract him with some sort of reading material, and he’ll be quiet for hours (why do you think I made sure to get all those AAA Tourbooks?). Ken Jennings seems to like movies better than reading, believe it or not, and there won’t be a DVD system in the rental car.

Jason: I would think Ken Jennings would be Jim’s nemesis. (Or is that ‘arch-nemesis’?)

Toby: I say trade Levi for me. I have a press pass.

Toby: …And I eat nothing except meat!

Basebrawl, the fun version

Now, even if you didn’t enjoy Jason Varitek’s attempt to pluck out Alex Rodriguez’s eyes on Saturday, I think you’ll enjoy the brawl from last night’s White Sox/Twins game as presented by Batgirl.

What, you say? There was no brawl? Well, she thinks there should have been, after Corey Koskie was hit by pitches three times in the game. And she’s got Lego men and a digital camera, all she needs to make her own brawl.

By the way: what do you think Varitek was going to do with A-Rod’s eyes if he got them? At first I thought he was planning ahead to use the hidden ball trick, but I don’t think that would work as well with eyeballs as it did with a potato that one time.

Original comments…

Dan: I think I read Varitek was going to threaten to throw his eyes into the Tigris River unless the Yankees withdrew their club from first place.

Jason: I think he was confusing Alex Rodriguez with Bette Davis.

Just ask Kim Carnes.