A WILD otter attacked a farmer in a rampage across a village yesterday.
The furry beast pounced on farmer Joe Burke and bit his hand before he managed to trap him in a canvas sack.
But the creature then chewed through the bag and started munching on Joe’s VAN.
Probably worth clicking through to the article for the pictures. Via Tommy Bennett.
Apparently Bobby Parnell is struggling with numbness in the middle finger of his throwing hand, which probably explains his struggles this season better than the old “not cut out for New York” argument that has somehow reared its head.
Terry Collins didn’t say what the Mets would do, but with Jason Bay going 4-for-4 with two home runs in his rehab start tonight, it seems like a safe bet the outfielder is ready to go. And since the Mets should be about as desperate for Jason Bay as any team ever has been, it wouldn’t be surprising if Parnell is placed on the DL and Bay activated before tomorrow’s game. Bay was initially supposed to be back Thursday.
The other thing: A bunch of Mets fans seem really eager to show Scott Hairston the door, and I certainly hear that. He has looked awful at the plate and underwhelming in the field. The last time I said a guy needed more time he got cut (specifically: today), but I have to figure the Mets will have a longer leash with Hairston. Unlike Brad Emaus, Hairston has years of experience to show he can be a capable if unspectacular part-time outfielder. Cutting him because of 28 miserable plate appearances (again) seems a bit rash.
Terry Collins suggested Hairston is trying too hard to hit home runs with the Mets struggling like this, and Hairston agreed that was probably the case. The first step is admitting you have a problem, so maybe he’ll snap out of it. Of course, he struggled for almost all of 2010 too. So there is that.
I am dumbstruck. I am rendered silent by astonishment. If these Mets sucked any harder, they would… I can’t even come up with anything clever. They sucked really hard tonight.
And look: No one needs to remind me it’s early, and 17 games, you know, whatever. 0-1 in an NFL season. A bunch of these players can’t perform this poorly all year. There’s a whole ton of randomness at play. I get all that. I still don’t believe in any rational part of my mind that the Mets are going to lose 120 games like so many nabobs only-half-jokingly say.
But man, they’re getting harder and harder to defend. Scott Hairston makes Jeff Francoeur look like, I don’t know, someone who can actually hit a little. Tim Byrdak makes Pedro Feliciano look like Lefty Grove. Chin-Lung Hu is getting pinch-hit at-bats with runners on base.
When they hit, they don’t pitch. When they pitch, they don’t hit. On the rare occasion they both hit and pitch, they don’t play defense or run the bases. It’s miserable.
Hell, it’s one thing when you lose to a hot Rockies team while Troy Tulowitzki is homering every time he even looks at the ball. It’s one thing when you can say, “Oh, well Josh Johnson, that’s one of the best pitchers in baseball.” It’s quite another when you’re embarrassed at the hands of the Astros.
I’m overreacting, I know. But I’m about to go downstairs and hear Terry Collins try to rationalize this one, again, try to say the Mets are better than this and insist the Mets will eventually win games. And it’s just getting boring.
Not the baseball games themselves; those are never boring. Just the whole routine. I’m bored of trying to convince Mets fans that the team doesn’t suck when nearly everything it has done on the field so far suggests otherwise.
I probably won’t stop. I’m just not really up for it tonight. At least Carlos Beltran is still totally sweet.
In some sort of vague follow-up to the Army of McGwires scenario much-discussed in this space, I polled Twitter earlier this afternoon about which Met readers would clone if they had to field a team of 25 of one guy.
There were a ton of votes for a slew of guys, from Tsuyoshi Shinjo to Bobby Bonilla to Joe McEwing to George “the Stork” Theodore, all of which would be entertaining for certain.
The clear winner was Johan Santana, presumably for his athleticism, followed by Ike Davis because everyone knows he can pitch. Carlos Beltran, R.A. Dickey and David Wright got a couple votes each, and several people voted for Justin Turner, apparently excited about the redhead’s first day back with the club.
Three people ironically voted for Jeff Francoeur.
Problem with both Santana and Davis is that they throw left-handed, which would make for a good deal of awkwardness at every infield position besides first. A healthy Santana, you’d figure, could compensate some with great range, but Davis would likely be something of a nightmare in the middle infield.
Shockingly, only one person voted for my choice: Jose Reyes. Reyes, I figure, has the athleticism to play anywhere on the field and the arm strength and accuracy to succeed as a pitcher. The Reyeses wouldn’t score as many runs as a team of David Wrights, but they’d likely prevent more.
Plus, think of the dancing! Imagine the handshakes a clone army of Jose Reyeses could come up with. It’d be amazing for their fans and infuriating for everyone else.
Usually I don’t like to include polls after I’ve already shared my opinion, but I figure you’re all smart people who can think for yourselves. So let’s hear it:
[poll id=”22″]
State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer – freeze tag.
That’s right, officials have decided the age-old street game – along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball – poses a “significant risk of injury.”
And classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps.
– Glenn Blain, N.Y. Daily News.
Hold on: Wiffle Ball? How can Wiffle Ball be deemed dangerous? Even if you were using Wiffle equipment as weapons it’s still hard to figure how you could actually hurt someone. I’ve been hit hard with a Wiffle bat on multiple occasions and I can’t remember even seeing a bruise. The hole in the bat’s knob does make it a perfect device for launching bottle rockets, but, you know, the object is to keep bottle rockets out of kids’ hands, not Wiffle bats.
Plus it’s difficult to determine why the sports the state deemed safe — Frisbee, sack races and tug of war — are any less dangerous than the inherently disappointing Steal the Bacon. You can easily fall on your face in a sack race and get rope burn in tug of war.
When I was young, we played with fire. Like, a lot. Don’t do that at home, it was remarkably dumb. One time my neighbor and I got caught dipping the tips of our Nerf bow-and-arrows in lighter fluid and igniting them so we could play Robin Hood. Another time we doused a dead basketball in lighter fluid, lit it up and played flaming soccer. Best part of that was that the air inside the ball expanded from the heat, so once the flames went out it was a good basketball again for like 20 minutes. But point is I’m sure our parents would have much, much preferred us playing Red Rover.
Also, I know there are places that ban dodgeball because it’s humiliating, and it can definitely be that. But the way I see it, pretty much every single human from ages 11 to 16 is going to face a good deal of humiliation and general miserableness. It’s kind of how you grow up. I certainly wasn’t the most physically gifted dodgeballer in my class, but learning that taught me to play dodgeball smarter, and once I did, dodgeball became really fun. We risk plenty of humiliation in adult life too, and to me it seems like we prepare to deal with it by enduring the universal awfulness of middle school.
Link via James K.
Remember what I said this morning about how Brad Emaus should get plenty of opportunities to prove his merit as a Major Leaguer? Forget all that. The Mets have DFA’d him and called up Justin Turner from Triple-A.
Seems like sort of a knee-jerk move to me. We’ll see if the Blue Jays don’t want Emaus and he can pass through waivers, but it’s hard to figure why 42 plate appearances would be enough to give up on a guy to whom they were willing to hand the starting second-base job not even a month ago.
Like I said during Spring Training, Turner has done more than Emaus ever did in the Minors and is probably a better hitter right now. The move likely improves the Major League roster, it’s just not great for organizational depth. If the Mets’ front office concluded Emaus is never going to be any sort of Major League contributor, then yeah, might as well send him packing. But it’s unclear why 16 games, no matter how bad Emaus looked, would convince them of that if Spring Training didn’t.
Anyway, the good news is this paves the way for the Murphman-Turner Overdrive scenario I suggested back in November. Turner and Daniel Murphy, in a platoon, should combine to hit like a pretty good second baseman. If they can cut it defensively, they represent a pretty big upgrade over Luis Castillo and some of the dreck the Mets have trotted out to second base over the past few years.
If you follow Johan Santana on Twitter — which you should, because it’s Johan Santana — you may have noticed that he recently changed the “name” part of his profile to say “El Gocho believe it!”
Santana also has “El Gocho” embroidered in script on his glove.
So what does it mean? Technically it comes from a word for pig. But a brief Internet search reveals that it was the nickname of former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, and that it is Venezuelan slang for a native of the Andean parts of Venezuela from which Santana hails. In fact, by this list Santana is the only active Major Leaguer from Merida, Tachira or Trujillo, the nation’s Andean states. He comes from Tovar, a town of about 33,000 in Merida.
The term “Gocho” has its own page on the Spanish-language Wikipedia, and using Google Translate reveals it is at least vaguely controversial. Some people believe it has a derogatory connotation and suggests that Andean Venezuelans are less sophisticated than their urban compatriots. Others claim to say it with love.
I guess a decent comp in American English would be the word “hick,” since plenty of people use it dismissively while others proudly self-identify as hicks. Santana probably uses it with a touch of irony, since he’s undoubtedly a smart dude, and you’ve got to be pretty sophisticated to pull off a vest like that.
Another fun fact revealed from a Johan Santana-related Wikipedia tangent? Santana was discovered and signed by Astros scout Chance Partin, the brother-in-law of Cheech Marin.
My thing is, any time that gets brought up, the misperception is, “This guy’s a head case” or, “There’s something wrong with him.” I know that two guys that Harvey talked to were Greg Maddux and Roy Halladay. There’s not anybody in baseball — that knows baseball — that can say those guys are head cases. I’m not saying we were talking about the same things. But even those guys, I think they understood the value of having somebody around like that.
– Mike Pelfrey.
Nice job by Adam Rubin at ESPN New York, chatting with Pelfrey about the way psychology is stigmatized in sports. As I’ve said before: Pelfrey admitted to seeing a psychologist to combat that stigma, and his reward is that every time he struggles we all assume it’s because he’s crazy. To me, I don’t know, his willingness to put himself out there seems like it would take a damn good deal of confidence and stability.
But Emaus was removed as the everyday starter after only six games. And he’s started half of the last eight. It’s pretty easy to see why — he’s posted an anemic 162/.262/.162 in 42 PA — but is it the right decision, based on such a limited number of plate appearances?…
Face it, the Mets aren’t going anywhere this season. Daniel Murphy isn’t the answer, even as a stop-gap option. If the Mets did the unthinkable and attempted to demote Emaus, the team would have to offer him back to the Blue Jays and have him clear waivers. There’s no way the Mets hold onto him under those circumstances.
– Eric Seidman, FanGraphs.com.
OK, here’s the first thing that strikes me about this: Why is Murphy simply dismissed as “not the answer, even as a stop-gap option”?
I know Murphy is not an aesthetically pleasing defender at any position — he knows it too. But he looked to be a rangy defender at first base and hasn’t yet shown he can’t handle second. At 26, Murphy is only a year older than Emaus. And unlike Emaus, Murphy has 741 plate appearances of not embarrassing himself at the Major League level.
The crux of Seidman’s argument is correct: Teams should not give up on young players with promise because of a handful of crappy at-bats. But considering the personnel in the Mets’ case, I’m not sure why it’s so terrible to give Murphy at-bats against certain righties and an opportunity to show can cut it at second base.
It’s true that Emaus, like all young players, would likely benefit from regular at-bats. But Emaus is 25, so it’s not exactly like the Mets have again called up Ruben Tejada to ride the pine or Jenrry Mejia to pitch in mop-up situations. And since it’s entirely likely Emaus will prove to be little more than a platoon player, he’ll probably need to be able to succeed in irregular at-bats, too.
As Seidman notes, Emaus is still starting about half the Mets’ games. With enough time, he should have plenty of opportunities to show whether he’s worth keeping around. And since the Mets have another youngish player at the same position working to prove his merit as a Major Leaguer, it’s unclear why Emaus should be prioritized.
Tristan de Cunha was in the news a couple of weeks ago due to an oil spill, and my man Ted Burke tipped me off to its Wikipedia page.
From the Wikipedia: Tristan de Cunha.
Tristan de Cunha is the name given to both an archipelago in the South Atlantic and the main island of the group, the only one that is inhabited by people. The “big” island of Tristan de Cunha is nearly twice the size of Manhattan and, with roughly 275 residents, has about .02% of Manhattan’s population. Everyone in Tristan de Cunha lives in the largest city, Edinburgh of the South Seas — known locally as “the Settlement.”
The island is the most remote inhabited island in the world. It lies 1,750 miles west of South Africa and 1,510 miles south of Saint Helena, with which it is linked (along with Ascension Island) as part of a British territory. The territory is called “Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan de Cunha,” which is pretty much the least clever you could possibly come up with for it. It used to be known only as “Saint Helena and Dependencies,” but in 2009 someone determined that the 275 people in Tristan de Cunha and the 880 people on Ascension Island deserved equal footing with the 4,255 people on Saint Helena.
Tristan de Cunha is represented by the governor of Saint Helena, which you figure must be something of a logistical nightmare because Tristan de Cunha is really hard to get to. You can only get to and from the island by boat and you pretty much have to boat to South Africa before you go anywhere. One boat trip a year connects Tristan de Cunha with Saint Helena and Ascension.
Of course, it’s probably not too difficult to govern a population that’s roughly the size of a suburban high school, especially when you figure everybody knows everybody and many of them are related. In fact, residents of Tristan de Cunha have only eight last names, seven of which came from its original 15 settlers. The eighth is Patterson, because a woman from the island left and brought back a husband named Patterson. The Settlement has one full-time police officer and one resident doctor.
The islands were discovered and named in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha. Apparently he also wasn’t particularly clever, though I guess it’s hard to fault someone for naming an island group for himself.
The islands pretty much just sat there until 1810, when a guy named Jonathan Lambert from Massachusetts showed up, claimed all the land for himself and renamed the islands “The Islands of Refreshment,” which sounds like something from a Fruitopia commercial. The Wikipedia does not say how Lambert came to Tristan de Cunha or how many people accompanied him, nor does it provide any detail of the boating accident that killed him two years later in 1812.
It is at least a tiny bit suspicious that in that same year, the United States military began using the islands as a base for the War of 1812, which also lacked a clever name. In 1816, the British formally annexed the islands to prevent the French from using them as a base to help Napoleon escape from his exile on Saint Helena, which, as mentioned, is over 1500 miles away. The Wikipedia does not detail how that would have worked, exactly, nor why the most remote inhabited island in the world would be a significant upgrade from exile.
Oh, one of the other islands in the Tristan de Cunha group is called “Inaccessible Island.” The Wikipedia entry contains this gem: “Attempts to colonise Inaccessible Island failed.”
Historically, the island has mostly been used for military stuff. Until at least World War II, its currency was potatoes.
One time a prince visited Tristan de Cunha, and Lewis Carroll’s younger brother lived there for a few years. It is not a great place for celebrity spotting.
It is a good place for bird-watching, farming, lobster fishing and philately. The Wikipedia says that the sale of postage stamps to overseas collectors is one of the main sources of foreign income to Tristan de Cunha.
The smattering of people that live on Tristan de Cunha speak a dialect of English. Because three of the original 15 settlers had asthma, many Tristanians suffer from the disease, much in the same way many Amish have polydactyly. Tristan de Cunha’s flag features a rock lobster, which is also the name of a song by the B-52s.
Tedquarters 