Daily Links - Happy Bacon Day Edition

To make your very own Daily Links, take a side of bacon, add bacon bits, bacon beer, Bac-Os, bacon ice cream, another full side of bacon, and any extra bacon you have lying around. Place in bowl. Remove from bowl. Eat. Repeat until sick.

Link time!

The Red Sox never ending managerial search lurched forward towards inevitable infinity today with the news that their presumptive preference, Dale Sveum, was likely headed for the Cubs. Now wait a minute... where have I heard that before...? Hmm... Oh well, no matter, the Red Sox now have to either pick one from their remaining Gang of Four (interviewees) or start interviewing other people for the position. WEEI.com's Alex Speier goes over the possibilities here. The upshot is that they don't want anyone from last year's staff, they can't interview any current managers, the list of available former managers reads like Omar Minaya's rolodex, and the people they interviewed already, non-Sveum division, are so exciting they want to interview more people. So basically, nobody is ever going to get the job.

In more karma neutral and less frustrating news, the Globe's Chad Finn details five moves the Red Sox should make. Making it more interesting is the fact that the whole article is under a banner photograph of an obviously cheesesteak-crazed Jonathan Papelbon. I'm behind the whole move Daniel Bard to the rotation thing, but does anyone actually in the Red Sox organization think that could work?

Over at Fan Graphs, Dave Cameron looks for similarities in players whose production has dropped off at a time when it would not be expected to do so. Think Carl Crawford and Jason Werth. Mr. Cameron has assembled a top-of-the-head list of young-ish players who were very good and then suddenly ceased being so. The article is more a beginning to some longer and potentially more time consuming research, but there doesn't seem to be much of a connection between the players Mr. Cameron has listed. About the only conclusion to draw seems to be, 'It happens sometimes.' I trust the blogosphere can do better than that given some time.

The aforementioned Alex Speier discusses the possibilities inherent in a post-Papelbon world. Incidentally, the 29th Over The Monster Podcast will be up later today and Marc and I discuss the heck out of the Papelbon deal, and what it means to the Red Sox. But as to a post-Paps Boston, well, first of all it's totally poopy. But beyond that, the Sox are as well positioned to whether the loss as could be. The market for relievers is very team friendly with more closers looking for work than any time in recent memory, and if that doesn't pan out the team has Daniel Bard. Though Bard could do with a more menacing beard.

Ever read a blog written by a fascist dictator? Other than this one, I mean. Well, this could be your first time. I'm a bit late to this party (I know Craig Calcaterra linked to this earlier), but, in the wake of the team's most recent calamitous General Manager search, the blog Mr. Destructo goes into great detail to paint a picture of Orioles owner Peter Angelos. The Orioles are the funny but sad uncle who you see at family reunions. You get older, graduate school, get a job, get a better job, get married blah blah blah, but he's always working part time at the mall and dropping his dough on cases of what ever light beer is on sale at the gas station. Sure, maybe he'll hit the lottery one day, but even if he does you know he's going to waste the money on dumb crap.

Finally, for all you history buffs, and with a fedora tip to the always excellent Joy of Sox, here is some recently found video footage of the 1917 World Series. It's pretty incredible stuff. The scene starts outside Comiskey Park in Chicago. You can see the street cars coming and going next to the ballpark. You can see the managers taking to the umpires including John McGraw who was managing the New York Giants at the time. The crow shots are incredible too just for the way the patrons are dressed if nothing else. The same site has rare footage of game one of the 1916 World Series, which featured the Red Sox who beat the Brooklyn Robins four games to one. The Sox played their home games at Braves Field, home of the Boston Braves, as it was larger than Fenway Park.