Given the nearly-forgotten controversy over his 2008 HOF ballot, and his recent spat with Jay the Joke, Rick Telander has been in the threads around here a bit. Well, he "sat down" with a sports blogger this past week and gave a pretty nice interview, ranging from his thoughts on how the Cubs have grown such a large fanbase:

The Bears are the unifying factor, but the Cubs are insane - the reason being that every young person who moves to Chicago, moves to the North Side-somewhere in Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Lakeview, Wrigleyville, Evanston, Bucktown, near DePaul - always the North side.

To the odd conditions under which he came to The Sun-Times:

I was hired away from Sports Illustrated in 1995 because Mariotti had been suspended by the Sun-Times and was out of the paper. I was told by then-sports editor Rick Jaffe, "He will never be back. Never." That’s why I took the job. He got an attorney, got busted down to reporter and somehow came back.

to his opinion of Mike North:

Instigators like North who take things out of context and screech are hard to deal with, since you have to set the record straight with facts, again and again. If people can’t understand nuance and hyperbole and symbolism, I don’t think they should read and make judgments.

And about that supposedly Dawson-indicting HOF ballot:

I show my readers what I do each year - hence alarmists seemed to think I had killed Andre Dawson with an axe this year, since I didn’t vote in protest over Selig’s head in sand on steroids. But unsent ballots don’t count against percentage needed to get in....I got Dawson’s number and called him - he was angry, but so was I over this disinformation - and I said, "Did you read my column?" and he said, "No, someone was going to send it to me but I didn’t get it." So I read my column to Dawson over the phone. "Now I see what you mean," he said.

All in all, a neat read and a interesting look into Telander's career. It's a shame he's the one getting censored by The Sun-Times whilst Mariotti is allowed to publish whatever puerile bullsh*t he dreams up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our long municipal nightmare is over: Mike North will no longer be over-nasally polluting our airwaves. In a statement on his own website, North briefly explained the situation:

I am now done at the Score. I met with management this past Friday and since I wouldn't accept the deal they offered; they told me I wasn't allowed to be on the air anymore. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye so here goes...

This morning, Mike Mulligan and Brian Handley were in North's time slot and basically said they would not be taking over North's time slot. Teddy Greenstein has a column about the situation in this morning's Trib, noting this interesting bit:

This was not a flimsy negotiating ploy by management. This was the equivalent of CBS Radio officials tearing up their final offer—the one that hadn't changed since April—into little pieces.

Which seems to contradict what most of the Score personnel seem to be saying. The Sun Times commented on the situation in their usual uninformative fashion. And, in the ultimate act of hypocrisy, Jay the Joke lauds North's exit:

We only can hope that the end of Mike North is the beginning of decency, professionalism and couth in Chicago sports radio. Oh, some desperate shop might hire him, hoping to capitalize on name recognition at the expense of dignity and wobbling ratings, but so what.

Sure, Jay, because you're the guy we all look to as a paragon of "decency, professionalism, and couth." We can only hope your tired, spiteful, blatantly dispassionate and wholly uninformed brand of sports journalism follows North's xenophobia right out the door.

The Hardball Times' Mike Fast (a terrifically apropos name) has an article out today that looks at the speed at which a pitcher works and checks to see if there is an correlation to the defensive support that pitcher receives. It's an old baseball adage that pitcher's who work quickly are a defender's best friend, and get better defense, while pitcher's who work slower tend to get their defender's flat-footed and complacent, which results in the slower pitchers getting poorer defense behind them. As Cub fans we've heard this debate in past; concerning Carlos, as to whether or not it's good for him to work fast, and concerning Dempster, as to whether or not his apparently quicker pace has played a significant role in his amazing resurgence. Fast draws some interesting conclusions, to wit:

For the bulk of the pitches thrown between 11 and 50 seconds after the previous pitch, there doesn't seem to be much of an effect. However, at the extremes, the pitches thrown within 10 seconds after the previous pitch have a notably lower BABIP (.281), and the pitches thrown more than 50 seconds after the previous pitch have a much higher BABIP (.366). This finding is definitely noteworthy, but further investigation is needed to determine how much of the disparity is due to defensive play and how much is due to other situational differences.

That's interesting, but here's our bit: the Cubs rank second among fast-working staffs, with Jon Leiber being the fastest at 17.8 second between pitches, and yet, as cwyers noted over at GROTA, the Cubs infield defense hasn't really been that great.

So, here's what I want to know:  what do you think of Fast's study?

Cub fans, for better or worse, seem to have an odd affinity for bad ballplayers. There are likely several reasons for this, none of which are important enough to note here, nor valid enough to be argued for in the comments. The bottom line is that we've all, as Cub fans, been the fan of a pretty bad ballplayer at some point. One need look no further than my chosen moniker: Gary Varsho:

via bp3.blogger.com

That's right, the guy who posted a .244/.294/.355, OPS+ of 78

That's some bad baseball right there, and I loved every minute of it. For this foolishness, I offer no excuse. So, today let's confess to our basbeall vices. Why? Because somewhere out there, there's a Felix Heredia fan.

The Cubs are taking the day off, maybe we should, too. So, for this "Off Day Fun," I want to know about the dumbest thing you've ever seen on a baseball diamond. It could be a managerial decision, like so:

via bp3.blogger.com

That's Adam Dunn squaring to bunt with one out, two on and the Reds down by one in the bottom of the ninth. This isn't an invitation to Dusty-bash, but that move right there is d-u-m-b, dumb.

It could be Neifi "surprising" the Washington Nationals with a two-out, bottom of the ninth bunt .

It could even be steroid-fueled ineptitude:

via trsullivan.mlblogs.com

And considering that we have a number of folks here who've played the game above a level where one shouldn't be laughed at for on-field idiocy, maybe you'd like to share a case of your own baseball blunders!

Okay wahtever SBN did with the servers, it sucks. MY browser kept crashing in the game thread, so for you at work, I'll run the PBP over here.

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It's been a bit bitchy and a bit glum around here, so let's break up the gloom with some off day fun. There was a lot of talk this week about Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game in 1998; for my money, it's the most dominant, incredible thing I've ever seen on a baseball diamond. Baseballs aren't supposed to move like that. Additionally we saw Gavin Floyd come really damn close to a no-hitter against the Twins with just a wicked, filthy curveball of which he had amazing command. So, here's the question: What's the most amazing thing you've ever seen, and I stress "seen" because I want eyewitnesses. Watching on TV counts, but no secondhand accounts, no "I listened on the radio"--none of that. What I'm looking for are eyewitness accounts of baseball greatness.

And this guy's 3-HR Opening Day Doesn't count.

via www.baseball-reference.com

No doubt most of us saw Buzz Bissinger's vitriolic confrontation with Deadspin 's Will Leitch on Bob Costas' HBO "State of Sports Media special.  I voiced my displeasure here, as did several others. Well, Buzz sat down for an interview with...a sports blog! Somehow, The Big Lead got him to sit down and do this interview and I must say, the candor and openness with which Buzz confronts the situation is refreshing. I found this nugget particularly compelling:

I am a man of passion and my passion truly got the better of me. I should have considerably toned it down, in particular in terms of my treatment of Will Leitch. Without going into details, I have taken steps to remedy that. I have also publicly apologized on several radio shows that have been widely disseminated. Those apologies are sincere, just as my passion was sincere if terribly misplaced. I treated Mister Leitch like the worst kind of blogger.

...

I should also point out, just for the record, that I have gotten many emails applauding what I said because they feel that Deadspin in particular does routinely go too far. But still does not excuse profanity on my part.

I've been a fan of Bissinger's for a long time and I was pretty disappointed with the way he carried himself on that interview, so here's to you Buzz, for taking responsibility for your actions and being willing to change. It gives me hope for your medium.

We've all seen them. Some of us have purchased them. Fewer of us have liked them, but over the years, Major League Baseball has seen some putrid unforms. For example, there were the all-maroon Phillies uniforms:

via www.cnnsi.com

The White Sox shorts:

via www.mopupduty.com

And Cubbie pajamas:

via mlb.imageg.net

So, for some off day fun, and since there's no game thread for pictures to slow down, what are the worst MLB uniforms you've ever seen?

(The Tampa Bay hologram disaster is too easy, BTW.)