Tim Lincecum believes the balls in Colorado are juiced. That the Rockies are secretly giving the visiting teams balls that have not been properly kept in the stadium's humidor in order to increase offense. He's so sure of this, in fact, that, during a game last week, he received a ball from the umpire and, after saying loudly to himself "f*ckin' juiced balls", he asked the umpire for a new one. When pressed about it by the media after the game, he did not back down.

Heath Bell is also sure that the Rockies are messing with the balls. In fact, he thinks that they "cheat". On Sunday, Bell tweeted a message saying "SF are the nice people." A follower of his on Twitter interpreted from this that he was saying that the Rockies were cheating and, when he asked Bell if that's what the tweet meant, Bell said "yes they do."

That should solidify it then, right? Two star pitchers on two different teams are both absolutely certain that the Rockies are cheating - manipulating the balls that are put in play for their own advantage. So certain, in fact, that they're even willing to talk about it in public. These are men who are on the field of play. If anyone could be said to be experts on the topics, it's these guys. It's certainly not us bloggers in our mother's basements, or even the old guys in the press boxes. Our speculation is meaningless compared to the authority of the guys who play the game.

The ballplayers know the truth, and we would be foolish to ignore them.

Except, of course, that's ludicrous. For some reason, everyone seems to want to defer to the expertise of the ballplayers when it comes to these things. Is David Eckstein a great player? His teammates seem to think so, so it must be true. Should we be using machines like Questec to help review umpires' performances? Curt Schilling says no, therefore it's got to be wrong. Instant replay? BatGloves? Bigger helmets? Stupid ideas all - the players tell us so!

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

This afternoon, I went to the final home game of the season for the Brewers. Behind two home runs by Ryan Braun and a solid performance from Chris Capuano, the Brewers went out on top 7-1. It was an interesting game to watch as a fan. Not only did we get to see Braun hit two home runs by the third inning (thus securing a third straight season of 100+ RBIs), we all saw Lorenzo Cain hit his first career home run, Chris Capuano pitch in his final start in Miller Park as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers, Trevor Hoffman walk out to Hell's Bells for the last time in his career (in what was almost certainly his final appearance in a Major League Baseball game), and Prince Fielder make his final appearance as a Brewer in front of the home fans. There were ovations galore.

All of that is worth a post of it's own, so look for that later in the week. What I wanted to talk about here was another "final" that I witnessed today: the final sausage race of the year. It being a Sunday, the sausage race was a relay race between the regular sausages and a group of "mini-sausages" - little kids dressed in smaller sausage suits. The mini-chorizo ("el chorizito", if you will) legged out the final half of the race to give the Chorizo his 15th victory of the year. In those 15 Chorizo victories, the Brewers ended up with an 8-7 record, becoming only the second of the five sausages this year to inspire a winning record from the Brewers.

The only other Racing Sausage to herald a Brewers win in a majority of his races was the Bratwurst who, in 11 racing victories, inspired the Brewers to a 9-2 record.

How in the world do I know this? Earlier this season, I used the power of Google and Twitter to go backwards through the season and find out who had won the Sausage Race on any given night. That gave me the definite winners of all but two games this season (June 10 and June 22). After that, I just followed Twitter on a nightly basis to find the winners and keep the standings updated (I have to give a big "thank you" to Bob Brainerd, the Brewers blogger from Fox Sports Wisconsin, who very helpfully announced the Sausage Race winners every night over on Twitter @fswbrainerd).

For those Brewers fans who, like me, are just dying to know how well the team did under their particular favorite sausage's banner, I compiled a nifty little calendar. Click on the image above to be taken to the 2010 Milwaukee Brewers Sausage Race Standings, where Italian and Polish fans can argue over which of their favorites helped the team more.

After all, Brett Wurst's 9-2 record as a racer is no less meaningful than Felix Hernandez's 12-12 record as a Seattle Mariner...

I should have put this up a couple of hours ago when it would have been an advance notice, but I wasn't able to get to it in time. I'll just have to live with that.

The regularly scheduled, bi-weekly podcast with Bill and The Common Man from the Platoon Advantage just wrapped up. Bill wasn't able to make it, but we were able to rope the wonderful Joe Tetreault from TetreaultVision.com into joining along. We talked about Tyler Colvin and broken bats around the league, the worthy & presumptive AL/NL MVPs, the most devastating potential playoff injuries, and JD Drew. We even threw in some Buffy/Joss Whedon talk for good measure. Be sure to give the podcast a listen when it's finally able to download over at Blog Talk Radio.

I also wanted to take a moment to share some links about the Tyler Colvin incident from earlier in the week. As you can expect, I wasn't the only person to want to talk about it. Jason Rosenberg, from It's About the Money, Stupid - who has been all over this broken bat thing for well over a year - had quite a bit to say about it. Check out his archives.

And a lot of credit is due to Jason for helping steer the national conversation around the topic. SBNation Chicago, the Chicago Tribune, Buster Olney, Big League Stew, and Jeff Passan are just a few of the bigger entities to give the issue some play. The more discussion on something like this, the better.

Lastly, I wanted to point out this post over at the essential Hardball Times. The 2011 version of The Hardball Times Annual is now available for pre-order and will be shipping in early October. The Annual is always great and includes terrific pieces from some of the best writers around. Which confuses me, because I'll be contributing two pieces myself: one covering the home runs hit in the league this year and another discussing the fan experience in the 21st century.

I'm very excited to be a part of this (as you can well-imagine). If you're at all interested in the Annual, give Dave's piece a read and think about pre-ordering it.

While doing some basic, run-of-the-mill web browsing this weekend, I stumbled upon Vin Scully's IMDB page. I glanced through the listing and something interesting caught my eye: "Mister Ed - Announcer, 1963" in an episode called "Leo Durocher Meets Mister Ed." There was an episode of "Mr. Ed" where Vin Scully and the Dodgers were featured enough that Leo Durocher's name was listed in the title? Now that's something I have to see!

Thanks to the wonders of the future, I didn't have to go very far at all. The entire episode is rather easy to find on YouTube. Now, I've never seen an episode of "Mr. Ed" before, so I didn't know what to expect. It is absolutely ridiculous (and dumb) at times, but, considering we're talking about a show whose main character is a talking horse, I think that's par for the course.

(Click "Read More" to continue reading... and to watch the video.)

Update: If the video is unavailable for you, check out this Deadspin article. I'll see what I can do about finding something embeddable.

I was driving around all afternoon yesterday, so I was nowhere near a computer when Tyler Colvin, trying to score from third on a ground-rule double by Welington Castillo, was impaled on the left side of his chest by the sharp end of the barrel of the bat after it shattered in Castillo's hands. Luckily, the bat didn't make too deep of an impact. As the AP report puts it:

Colvin, 25, was listed in stable condition at a Miami hospital. A tube was inserted into his chest to prevent a collapsed lung. He is expected to remain hospitalized for two or three days, and his promising rookie season reportedly is over.

The bat, as you can imagine, was no small thing. You can see it in the picture to the left. When a two-foot long, 2-pound piece of wood comes flying out of a batter's hands at upwards of 90 mph (the swing, at least - I'm sure the bat moves slower than that once it leaves the hands) with a broken, jagged edge leading the strike, there may be no more dangerous single item in any major American sport. If a player is struck in the wrong way with one of those, there may not be a lot that can be done.

It may not have happened with Colvin, but, if something isn't done about it soon, there is a very real chance that something terrible will happen. Of course, I'm not the only person to say this. With the seeming increase in broken bats in the last few years since maple bats became popular, there's been quite the outcry about the epidemic. Jeff Passan wrote a great piece about the danger back in May. And my friend, Jason, over at It's About the Money, Stupid!, has been talking about this for a while.

In fact, Jason has been trying to educate everybody about a fascinating product available called the Bat Glove. It's a simple, cheap fix that can be applied to any bat that has shown to prevent 100% of bat shards from flying down the field. I highly recommend reading Jason's post about it.

In the meantime, if you don't believe that these broken bats are a major problem, I've compiled a video of about 20 different broken bat plays over the last two years. I've chosen these ones mainly because they're easy to find, not because they're extra-special. There are many, many more broken bat plays that I wasn't able to find as easily that aren't included here. If you can really believe, after watching this video, that broken bats pose no dangers to players, then you're not watching close enough.

There are others around the web today who will offer their thoughts and possible solutions to this problem. I feel very strongly that Major League Baseball needs to look into this more thoroughly, and the ideas that Jason and the rest of the blogosphere are putting out there are worth exploring. If you have any ideas yourself, please feel free to include them. Let's hope we don't have to live through another Mike Coolbaugh incident (or Steve Yeager) before the Commissioner's Office does something.

Home Run of the Day: Luis Hernandez, New York Mets (Trot Time: 33.08 seconds) [video]

On the second pitch of the fifth inning, Luis Hernandez fouled a ball directly off the inside of his right foot. He immediately fell to the ground in pain. The trainer came out and, five minutes later, Hernandez was back in the batter's box waiting for the next pitch. It came and Hernandez quickly deposited it in the right field seats. His trot wasn't so quick.

With a foot that was in so much pain the Fox team mentioned that it "could be broken", Hernandez did his best to trot around the bases. He reached first base in only 6.5 seconds, which is a slightly better than average speed. As he rounded the bag, though, you could tell how much pain he was in. It took him nine more seconds to get to second base and another eight seconds to touch third.

The pain was most evident as he turned for the home stretch, where he hopped on the non-hurt foot for a couple of steps. He eventually made it home without once pausing on the basepaths, becoming the second longest trot of the year. His possibly broken foot was a pretty decent excuse, though.

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

How many times have you seen the "fake to third, throw to first" move work? It seems that every time a pitcher makes the move, the runner at first doesn't even blink. It's almost laughable, right?

On Friday night, Tim Wakefield picked off Toronto's Fred Lewis with the much-maligned move. Jordan Bastian, the Blue Jays' terrific MLB.com writer, immediately tweeted this:

That seems to be everybody's reaction whenever they see the move work. And I mean everybody. Because, as I've followed Twitter throughout this baseball season (follow Wezen Ball here!), I've noticed that this move might be more successful than you expect. It's still not very successful, mind you, but it's successful enough. Check out these tweets:

April 16 - Yovani Gallardo picks off Willie Harris

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

Fans today can complain for hours on end about how the loud, pre-recorded music is ruining the fan experience. With the likes of Vanilla Ice, Linkin Park, and Lady Gaga all having an equally good chance at making it on the speakers during the three-plus hour ballgame, I can understand the argument. It should be remembered, though, that this argument is at least thirty years old.

In the June 30, 1980, edition of the New York Times, this article appeared: "The New Sounds of Music at Shea Stadium".  The article begins with this fine piece of writing:

They are getting ready at Shea Stadium. Al Jolson is flexing his knees for one more chorus of "Swanee," Judy Collins is practicing the high notes, and Bob Dylan is tuning up his guitar. It's time for baseball again.

They never know when they will be needed, but they must be ready, in their dust jackets and their cassettes in the announcer's booth. These minstrels, these troubadors have become as essential to baseball at Shea Stadium as the umpires and ground crew.

Most other ball parks resort to organ music, but Shea Stadium has become an open-air discotheque, featuring a wide range of singers - Frank Sinatra, Chuck Berry, Dolly Parton. All season long there has been a pop song for every occassion.

"Rock Around the Clock", "Send in the Clowns", "Take This Job and Shove It", and "Joy to the World" are all mentioned as songs played at Shea.

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

Home Run of the Day: Jason Giambi, Colorado Rockies (Trot Time: 20.57 seconds) [video]

Boy, this NL West race is getting super-tight. With the Giant's 3-1 series victory over the Padres concluding yesterday, the two teams are in a virtual tie (though the Padres are up a game in the loss column). Adding onto that are the Colorado Rockies, who won their 10th game in a row yesterday off the walkoff bat of Jason Giambi. They are now only 1.5 games back. September promises to be another fun month in the life of the NL West.

(Click "Read More" to continue reading.)

Is it really possible to go wrong with the Muppets? And is it really possible to go wrong with Bo Jackson? Combine the two and you have video gold (even if the audio is kind of wonky).

Have a good Friday.

"Bo knows cookies!"