Josh Q. Public:  All over St. Louis.  Way down in New Orleans.  All the cats wanna dance with sweet little sixteen.  -Chuck Berry 

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  You know what time it is?  Time to get a new fence?  No.  It’s international signing time.  That’s what time it is.  It’s international signing time and the A’s are gearing up to make a splash.  Splish splash, I was takin’ a bath, long about a Saturday night.  A rub-a-dub, just relaxin’ in the tub.  Thinkin’ everything was all right.  The A’s think Michel Inoa is all right.  A cross between Sidd Finch and Danny Almonte.  Sixteen-year-old Michel Inoa.  Sixteen-year-old Dominican right-hander Michel Inoa has just agreed to a deal with the Oakland A’s for a bonus worth between $4.25 million and $4.50 million.  The past record holder for a non-Cuban signing bonus from Latin America is Wily Mo Pena.  In April 1999, Pena signed a $2.44 million bonus as part of a major league contract with the Yankees.  This kid is about to make almost twice that.  Yowza!  The A’s had never spent more than $350,000 on an international player before.  But this kid is special.  This kid is  6′7″.  This kid is an athletic 205 pounds.  A 6′7″ 205 pound righty whose fastball has been clocked as high as 96.  Rocked as high as 96.  Unlocked as high as 96.  Some folks are already projecting him to hit 100 in a few years.  Holy cow!  He’s got a dirty splitter.  A grimy splitter.  A putrid splitter.  He’s been called a, “once in a decade talent.”  He’s been called, “every scout’s dream.”  Sound too good to be true?  Who knows?  This is the stuff the legends are made.  The legend of Michel Inoa begins now.

MLB Trade Rumors                      Saber Scoutung                     Josh Alper

Public Spectacle:

Peace out homies.  Six Two and Even!

Peace out homies. Six Two and Even!

Josh Q. Public:  All my bags are packed; I’m ready to go.  I’m standin’ here outside your door.  I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.  -Peter Paul & Mary

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  A little football talk.  It’s summertime.  We need just a little somethin’ to break the monotony of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be a little bit out of control.  Let’s go Buffalo!  Let’s go to Toronto?  Is it true?  Are the Bills really gonna shuffle?  Shuffle out of Buffalo?  This may be old news to some of yous.  Not to me.  I’m a little slow.  A little to slow to know.  Apparently, there are businessmen in Toronto that are ready to plunk down mega-millions for the Bills and move them there.  When I move, you move.  Just like that.  The team already has plans to play eight games in Toronto over the next five years.  Bills Toronto Series organizers have already announced that more than ninety per cent of standard tickets have been sold for the first three of these Bills Toronto Series games.  Roger Goodell continues to strengthen his commitment to spreading the appeal of the NFL beyond the borders of the United States.  I don’t mean to brag.  I don’t mean to boast.  But I’m intercontinental when I eat French Toast.  After a successful regular–season debut in England last year, Goodell has announced a multi–year commitment to play a limited number of NFL regular–season games in the U.K. on an annual basis.  And now this.  The wheels are already in motion.  You can’t stop it.  You can only hope to contain it.  Bills fans cannot be happy.  I remember the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when this was happening to me.  When Robert Kraft and Connecticut Governor John Rowland signed a memorandum of understanding that would bring the Patriots to a new downtown stadium in Hartford.  Goodell says he does not agree with the perception that these games are the first step toward the team’s relocation to Toronto.  Goodell says he sees the Bills “being in Western New York for a long time.”   But, Goodell also says, “As far as the long-term future of the team, those are not issues we deal with, with respect to how an owner wants to pass a team on.”  What say you, Ralph?

Buffalo Bills In Toronto Blog                   Snopes                         Mark Gaughan

Public Acknowledgements:  Fresh Prince,  42nd Street, Ludacris and the Beastie Boys

Public Spectacle:

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!

Josh Q. Public:  A curve ball’s what my pitch is.  So here we here we come like dum ditty dum.  I keep all five boroughs in stitches.  -Beastie Boys

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  Good ole Rogers Hornsby always says, “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball.  I’ll tell you what I do.  I stare out the window and wait for spring.”  Clearly, good ole Rogers Hornsby wasn’t a  basketball fan.  Clearly, the Rajah was not a Celtics fan.  The Rajah didn’t have an NBA Championship to contend with.  Top of the world!  Didn’t have the draft to contend with.  I did.  Not no more.  It’s all over for now.  He gets it out deep and Havlicek steals it!  Over to Sam Jones.  Havlicek stole the ball!!  It’s all over… It’s all over!  Yup it’s all over.  It’s all over and I need to catch up.  Like the man says:  A good meal deserves a great ketchup.  What’d I miss?  What’d I miss? 

Everybody’s been yipping about the surging Rays.  Everybody been yapping about the resurging Yanks.  Yippin’ and yappin’.  Meanwhile back in Titletown, the Red Sox just keep on winning ballgames.  Keep on keeping on.  Keep on trekking.  Friday night, the Red Sox beat the Astros.  Friday night, the Red Sox became the first major league team to win fifty games this season.  So let them yip.  Let them yap.  But know this:  The Sox are still the team to beat.  And they’ll prove it tonight.  So take your shoes off.  Put your feet up.  And be a Sox watcher!  Sox/Rays tonight.  Be there!

On Friday, in the day game, your boy, Derek Jeter led off the third inning with a double.  Not just any double.  A special double.  A very special double.  Double trouble.  His 400th double.  That double made Jeter the third Bomber this season to reach the 400-double plateau.  Yowza!  He joins A-Broad and Johnny Damon.  Joins them for the first time in major league history that three teammates all reached 400 career doubles in the same season.  How about that?

For it’s one…two…three strikes you’re out at the old ball game.  Ryan Howard is well on his way to break the single season strike-out record.  One damn record he damn set his own damn self.  Wanna know why?  Huh?  Do ya?  Sure you do.  He strikes out ’cause he’s scairt.  Yella.  A lily livered varmint.  That’s what he is.  You can see it in his eyes.  You can see it in his eyes when a lefty comes in with that slider.  Just embarrassing. 

Did you hear about the midnight rambler?  The one that shut the kitchen door?  By now, we all heard about the Houston Strangler.  We all heard about Shawn Chacon.  We all heard Chacon grabbed Ed Wade by the scruff of the neck and threw him to the ground.  Fine.  What I didn’t hear, was that while with the Phillies, Wade was nicknamed “Eddie Highpants” by his players due to the fact that he wore his dress pants extremely high.  Now that’s funny. 

Call me Dr. Feelgood.  Felt good about Jon Lester.  Felt good about Josh Hamilton.  Now I’m feeling good about Brad Ziegler.  Side-arming Oakland reliever Brad Ziegler.  Ziegler took a line drive to his right temple less than four years ago in a minor-league game.  Ziegler was lucky to live let alone pitch again.  Now he’s up in the big leagues.  Getting his turn at bat to pitch.  Ziegler overcame two fractured skulls and a stint with the Schaumburg Flyers in the independent Northern League but finally made it to the Show.  He hasn’t allowed a run in his first month in the Show.  Yeah, I was in the show.  I was in the show for twenty-one days once.  The twenty-one greatest days of my life.  Life, I love you.  All is groovy.

Orlando Hudson remains the best defensive second baseman in baseball.  The best I’ve ever seen.  Maybe the best there’s ever been.  Just a glove machine.  And he won’t work for nobody but you.  Year after year.  Game after game.  Web gem after gem.  Simply the best.

Evan Longoria has arrived.   Baseball America called him the best pure hitter among college players in the 2006 draft.  The Devil Rays gave him a $3 million signing bonus.  We all waited.  Waited with baited breath.  The waiting’s over.  On Friday, Longoria had four hits and a bomb in the Rays’ win over the Pirates.  That gave him three consecutive games of at least three hits and one ding.  That made him the first rookie to have three straight games like that since the inimitable Johnny Frederick of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1929!  Holy cow!  He leads his team in homeruns.  He leads all American League rookies in homeruns.  Big homeruns.  Long homeruns.  Light tower power.  In Texas he hit a blast into the upper deck.  In Anaheim, he cleared both bullpens.  Against the Cubs he hit one off the front of the Tropicana Field touch tank in Tampa.  But what might be more amazing is his prowess in the field.  I glove to love you baby.  Yes sports fans, Evan Longoria has arrived.

So has this kid.  Well look who it is.  Look at Tim Lincecum.  We all knew he was gonna be good.  We all knew he had a blazing fastball.  An amazing fastball. A Rutherford B Hayesing fastball.  We also knew he had a knee buckling, mind bending, world beating Uncle Charlie too.  But we knew that about Todd Van Poppel.  We knew that about Brien Taylor.  We knew that about B.J. Wallace.  We knew that about a lot of folks.  This kid is different.  This kid is the real deal.  Lincecum improved to 9-1 Saturday.  He is just the third Giants starting pitcher since the team moved to San Francisco to win nine or more of his first ten decisions in a season.  Yowza!  In 1966, Hall-of-Famers Juan Marichal (10-0) and Gaylord Perry (9-1) both did it.  Lincecum is the first starting pitcher in franchise history to start 9-1 or better while striking out more than nine batters per-nine innings (9.4).  How about that?

Jermaine Dye is one of the most underrated guys in baseball.  He’s a two-time All-Star.  Get the papers, get the papers.  He’s a Gold Glove winner winner chicken dinner.  He’s a World Series MVP.  He’s on fire.  Going into Sunday, Dye hit eighteen bombs.  Eight bombs in the last fourteen days.  The only other player with more than five over that span is Mark Teixeira, who has six.  Chipper who?

Decisions, decisions.  Time for the question.  You know the question.  If you were starting a team…?  That question.  At this point in time, I think it’s fair to say it comes down to two guys.  At this point in time, I think it’s fair to say it comes down to Chase Utley and Hanley Ramirez.  Utley plays the game hard.  Utley plays the game right.  He plays with a quiet confidence.  Then, boom goes the dynamite!  He’s one of those rare cats everybody loves.  Top Cat.  Guys on his team love him.  Guys on the other team love him.  The fans love him.  I love him too.  Then there’s Ramirez.  Ramirez may be the best leadoff hitter I’ve seen since Rickey.  That’s saying something.  That’s saying a lot.  Ramirez is the epitome of the five-tool ball player.  He’s fast.  He’s strong.  He’s got a cannon for an infield arm.  He is everything you want your shortstop to be.  And then some.  I’m all that and then some.  Short, dark and handsome.  Bust a nut inside your eye, to show you where I come from.  I dig both these guys.  I really do.  But if I had to pick.  But if you made me choose.  If that were the case.  You put a gun to my head.  Which isn’t very nice by the way.  If you did that.  I’d take Hanley.

Peace out homies.  Six two and Even!

Peace out homies.  Six two and even!

PS:  Thanks Hugging Harold Reynolds