My favorite thing about Thanksgiving dinner is:
a) Grandma falls asleep in her soup. Is she dead? Check for bubbles.
b) The brutal stare of Mom's sister Jennifer at Dad's mom because she once called her a whore because she used the big fork first.
c) Mom wants the family to spend quality time, which to Dad means watch [burp] bourbon and drink football.
d) Midnight runs to the grocery store to find some obscure herb so it can be drowned out by butter are fun!
e) "Dishes don't clean themselves..."
Link time!
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement will do some damage to the rules you know and don't quite love that govern baseball's business side. Fortunately, Daily Links has you covered. Here they are in bullet point form:
- First, I'll direct you towards Peter Abraham's bullet points at the Globe...
- ...which will refer you to Maury Brown's piece at The Biz of Baseball. Ain't it beauty how that works?
- Hardball Talk's Craig Calcaterra revises his thoughts on the CBA here. Short version: was a fan, then he thought about it. Now... maybe?
- Baseball Nation's Wendy Thurm breaks down the new CBA in a comprehensive way.
- ESPN's Jayson Stark gives it a go as well.
- My favorite read on the subject was Jason Wojciechowski's over at The Platoon Advantage, a site which I'm shocked to find out is not in fact, a fan site for the popular Vietnam War drama.
- My favorite listen on the subject was Fan Graphs Audio's Carson Cistulli and David Cameron. My only complaint: not enough personal insults.
- Lastly and leastly, ESPN's Jerry Crasnick gets into the details of the testing for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) that will implemented under the new CBA. Summary: ESPN: no HGH in CBA. FWIW, LOL.
The upshot of all this is the rules, they are a-chang'n. There are now hard soft caps on both the draft and international free agents. There is instant replay and draft pick trading. Some of each anyway. There will be two more playoff teams and two one game playoffs. The Astros are moving to the AL West where they'll continue to finish in last place for the foreseeable future. Like my grandma's meatloaf, it's a lot to digest.
Back closer to home, the Red Sox are still managerless. If someone doesn't look out, this rudderless ship could run aground! Fortunately, someone is doing something and that something is, like it or not, interviewing Bobby Valentine. Valentine is an interesting and not all together irredeemable choice... so why do I feel unclean typing that sentence?
OTM's own Marc Nornandin, writing at the mother ship, delves into Bobby V's past and find that, aside from a few un-returned library books and two severed limbs in the back of his rusty Ford Econoline, there isn't much to be afraid of. The Globe's Mr. Abraham has some personal experience with Valentine as he covered him when Valentine managed the Mets back in the early aughts. Valentine sounds like a crazy person. Still, it's good to read if for no other reason than it humanizes the man more than his shouting stints on ESPN do.
Alex Speier of WEEI chimes in with his take on the whole Bobby V situation. Could it really not be as awful as it once seemed? Could it even be... good? Could Nick Carfardo *gulp* have been right? Even if accidentally so? The mind reels!
Finally, for those of you who, even in the face of a new CBA, still sweat the little things, this is for you: Squirrel bridge!