Friday LinkFrogging – 10/8/10

Welcome back kids.

Another week in the books.  With them came the MLB playoffs.  Roy Halladay threw a no-hitter in the first game of the Phillies’ series with the Reds.  That’s gotta sting.  The Yankees are doing their annual pummeling of the Twins.  And, the Rangers are 9 innings away from eliminating the (Devil) Rays.

Sorry Matt.

Oh yeah, and Randy Moss got traded from the Patriots to the Vikings.  Let’s see if this makes Moss a better receiver and/or Brett Favre a better QB.

It’s a mad, mad, mad world kids.

Speaking of madness, say hello to this week’s cheesecake, Christina Hendricks.

Ms. Hendricks plays Joan, the real power behind the throne, on AMC’s critically acclaimed Mad Men.  She also showed up for a couple of episodes of GonzoGeek favorite, Life, to bedevil Adam Arkin.

While I’m a latecomer to the Mad Men party, I have to say the show is growing on me.  There is something watching the ugliness under the 60s version of the American Dream.  My wife and I are playing catch up thanks to Netflix whilst our trusty DVR collects season 4 for us.

As if that wasn’t enough geek cred for Ms. Hendricks, she was recently cast as the voice of Superman’s main squeeze, Lois Lane, in an upcoming DC animated movie.

And earlier this week, it was revealed, to nobody’s real suprise that Ms. Hendricks’ appeal hits all the demographics.  Everyone, it seems, digs a curvy redhead.

On to the links.

Hate the White Sox

‘My name is Stephe, and I’m a Kansas City Royals fan.’

‘Hello, Stephe.’

‘Um, yeah, it’s been like forever since we’ve played meaningful games in, gosh, I don’t know, July, so it’s been pretty tough on us.’

‘Uh-huh.’ ‘Yup.’ ‘We’ve been there brother.’

And so it goes when you’re a small-market fan. Year in and year out you’re served a big bowl of prospect pudding, hoping something comes together to give you hope…for next season. When a player blows up, he’s gone, traded for a whole heap of upside and players to be named later.

Reimagining Major League Baseball – Take 2

A while back I wrote a lengthy post about my idea to realign Major League Baseball along geographical lines.  My idea was to group teams in a way that made sense based solely on their physical location (ie both New York teams in the same division).

Shortly after that, Stephe and I started talking about how it might also be interesting (and probably funnier) to realign along fiscal lines.  Think about it.  What drives the game these days?  Is it fan loyalty?  No.  Its dollars.  Salaries continue to escalate in a handful of markets while others suffer as they try to remain competitive.

 
Free agency essentially killed the idea of “the team.”  Its gotten much easier to go out and overspend to fill a need than to grow a team using the farm system (again I’m looking at both New York teams).

To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, at some point we’re just cheering for the uniforms.