If you somehow missed this, go. Hilarious.

Marshall, the former Dodgers outfielder now managing the Chico Outlaws of the independent North American Baseball League, was suspended three games for fighting Monday with Tony Phillips.

Yep, that Tony Phillips, the one who played in the major leagues for 18 seasons. And is still playing for the independent Yuma Scorpions — managed by Jose Canseco….

Marshall may regrettably be best remembered as the player who sat out a game for “general soreness” and dated Go-Go’s lead singer Belinda Carlisle.

– Steve Dilbeck, L.A. Times.

Ahhh… Wait, no. First of all… No, no, first of all — OK, OK…

Yeah, there’s just nothing I can add.

How much are flights to Yuma these days?

At Grantland, Jonah Keri takes a thorough look at the allegations that the Blue Jays have been stealing signs with the help of a mysterious Man in White in the Rogers Centre center field seats.

I planned to write something with similar themes on the same topic, but Keri does a better job than I would have anyway, so check that out. The crux of it:

1) There’s not much evidence the Blue Jays benefited from sign stealing.
2) Every team tries to steal signs, as they should. It’s not against the rules, and players are going to do everything they can do gain competitive advantages.
3) There’s just no way you can chalk up Jose Bautista’s improvement to sign-stealing because lots of players have presumably enjoyed stolen signs before and very, very few — including all the other Blue Jays — have improved as rapidly as Bautista has.
4) I really hated that movie Signs.

So in the amazingly unlikely event Dan Uggla breaks DiMaggio’s record, who writes the song about him? I vote Cee-Lo Green. He’s from Atlanta, he’s both popular and accessible, and like Uggla he’s a role model for stocky people everywhere. Of course, I’d probably vote for Cee-Lo Green no matter who broke the mark.

I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and had to leave the office early. Enjoy the weather if you’re in New York.

Hitting streaks come mostly due to randomness and good fortune. Think about it: Plenty of hitters wind up with more than 162 hits in a season, averaging more than a hit a game. It stands to reason that every so often a player will put together a run of 30 or so straight games with a hit by chance alone.

We know how well-struck balls sometimes find fielders’ gloves and dribblers sometimes squeak through holes in the infield. Sure, occasionally a guy enjoys a hitting streak when he happens to be going well, but plenty of hitters take an ofer in the midst of a hot stretch due to a bad luck or good discipline, and many times we’ve seen guys lauded for very empty hitting streaks reaching into the double digits.

That’s all a long-winded qualifier to say I don’t put too much stock in Dan Uggla’s current hitting streak except as the entertaining baseball novelty that it is. And Uggla’s run in particular is interesting because Uggla does not profile at all as the type of hitter to produce such a streak. He walks a lot, he strikes out a ton, and he never posts a high batting average.

Using baseball-reference.com and the Daily News‘ complete list of players with 30-game hitting streaks, I compared Uggla’s season and career batting averages to the other men who have hit in at least 30 straight games.

Turns out Uggla is the lowest in both categories — by a wide margin in the former. Of the 32 guys on the list, 26 hit at least .300 for the season.

I am off to Citi Field. Reader Dan passed along this idea for reconfiguring the MLB playoff system, and I like it better than most I’ve seen proposed. He’s cool with me re-posting it here, so what follows is Dan’s plan. What say you, The Internet?

I offer the following as a suggestion for “fixing” the baseball playoffs, which, in my mind, have three key problems:

1. The cheapening of the division title — Winning the division used to be a championship of sorts, in and of itself. Now it is a mere footnote on a season, because of the wild card (and, of course, because one division actually has only four teams).

2. The inequity of scheduling for wild card competitors — Teams in tough divisions, like the Blue Jays, have an inherent disadvantage when compared to teams in easier divisions, like the Angels. Competition for playoff spots should be on equal terms, if at all possible.

3. The “early coasting period” for elite teams – Both the Yankees and the Red Sox are currently coasting to the playoffs, because of the division/wild-card model. In a better system, the two would still be battling for position.

I offer the following proposal:

1. Switch the Arizona Diamondbacks to the American League, and the Tampa Bay Rays to the National League.

2. Realign the league as follows:

NL East – Mets, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Nationals, Pirates, Reds, Rays
NL West – Giants, Dodgers, Padres, Rockies, Astros, Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals

AL East – Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Blue Jays, White Sox, Indians, Tigers
AL West – A’s, Mariners, Rangers, Angels, Royals, Twins, Diamondbacks

3. Division winners get into the playoffs. The second and third place teams in each division play each other in a one-game playoff in the home stadium of the second place team. Winner goes to the playoffs; loser goes home. This gives you four elimination games per season. I agree with Joe Maddon’s objections to the concept of a one-game play-in — it certainly is not a fair approximation of the marathon that is a baseball season. It is the best method, though, because it reestablishes the importance and significance of the division title.

This system addresses the major problems of the current system. You can now have a fair unbalanced schedule, because teams only compete for playoff berths against their own divisions.

As far as objections, the Rays would probably not be happy to lose the nine sellouts to the Yankees, but they would gain a potential revenue stream by increasing their playoff odds as they move to the easier league. The Diamondbacks would be moving to the tougher league, but the AL West is no better than the NL West, and does not have the financial imbalance issues of the AL East.

This system also ensures that the Orioles and Blue Jays, the two teams most disadvantaged by the current system, always have a legitimate chance to get into the playoffs (as the #3 team in the AL East).