MLB Bullets Knows The Way To San Jose

The irony of that song, of course, is that the premise is that San Jose, the third-largest city in California, is this bucolic small town where everyone knows everyone and there's "a lot of space." Admittedly, San Jose was a lot smaller in the 1960s when Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote that song, but it wasn't that small.

• That friendly little small town of San Jose is in a litigious mood, as they have sued Major League Baseball in federal court for antitrust violations that are the result of a "conspiracy" to deny the city a major league baseball team. The Athletics are not a part of this suit and publicly, at least, say they oppose the lawsuit. But four years after Bud Selig announced his "Blue Ribbon Panel" to study the issue of moving the A's to San Jose, the city council is finally fed up with nothing having been done and are trying to kickstart the process through the courts.
• Mark Purdy of the Mercury News may be biased, thinks the strategy is a good one, as both the Mariners and the Rays were a result of municipalities suing MLB over either losing or not getting a team.
• Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports writes "Two days after the (expletive) hit the carpet, it finally hit the fan." (I wish I could write a line that good.) He thinks this suit is what's necessary to finally get a resolution to the Athletics situation, and although it may not end in a move to San Jose, it will end better than what's currently going on in the Coliseum.
• Craig Calcaterra, on the other hand, has read the lawsuit, calls it "more full of crap than Bob Melvin's office" and thinks it should be tossed out of court.
• Wendy Thurm of FanGraphs was a lawyer in the state of California for 18 years and mostly agrees with Calcaterra. However, she notes that the State of California has its own antitrust law that complicates things. On top of that, she notes that the goal of the city of San Jose is not to strike down baseball's antitrust exemption, but to get the Athletics to move to the city. MLB would not want to get itself into a position where it would have to argue the suit should be thrown out because San Jose suffered no damages because baseball stadiums cost more revenue than they produce. So if San Jose can get the case into the discovery phase, MLB might be forced to look at negotiated solutions.
• Gwen Knapp of Sports On Earth looks at all the complicated politics, both of baseball and the State of California, surrounding any settlement. The nightmare solution is the Athletics receiving permission to move and the Giants spending millions to defeat any referendum to get the stadium built.
• Whether or not the lawsuit was timed to follow the sewage backup at O.co Coliseum, the stench of that permeates the discussion. The Mariners, for their part, seem to be in good humor about the whole thing. The A's, on the other hand, are mortified.
• Welcome back to The People's Court. Assuming Bud Selig goes ahead with suspensions in the Biogenesis scandal, the focus will turn to new MLB arbitrator Fredric Horowitz. Recently-fired arbitrator Shyam Das says Horowitz is in a no-win situation and that with few, if any, precedents, he's going to be flying blind in coming to a decision.
• On the other hand, MLB's case is not going to be strengthened by the man who leaked the original Biogenesis documents to the Miami New Times, who said "the people running Major League Baseball are the biggest scumbags on Earth."
• The San Diego Padres have played their way into contention. This is despite having almost their entire projected starting lineup having missed large amounts of time this season.
• Donovan Tate, the third pick in the 2009 draft, has returned to the Padres. He never reported to Spring Training in order to deal with a "personal matter."
• Vin Scully could have been the Yankees' announcer for the past 50 years. (h/t Hardball Talk)
• Mark Grace completed his four-month work release program and is now working as a hitting instructor in the Diamondbacks minor leagues.
• The Angels uncharacteristically poor defense is a big reason the team has struggled.
• Manny Machado is on-pace to shatter the single-season doubles record.
• Kevin Youkilis is going to miss 10-12 weeks. Also, Mark Teixeira is going back on the disabled list. The Yankees have also petitioned MLB to allow them to play an orthopedic surgeon as their DH.
• Roy Oswalt, like Sedaka, is back. He'll start for the Rockies tomorrow night.
• Gerrit Cole is the Pirates' Great Bumblebee Yellow Hope.
• As of this morning, Red Sox infielder Jose Iglesias has an 18 game hitting streak. David Schoenfield says it's a sham.
• Why so tense, Nationals?
• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie thinks the Mets stink, but he loves them anyway.
• Maybe Bob Costas is a secret Cubs fan, but I doubt it. But he did his cranky old man impersonation after the Mets celebrated their comeback win off Carlos Marmol. The Mets took exception to Costas' comments, and Costas has apologized.
• Manny Ramirez has become a legend in Taiwan. He has been a savior to Taiwanese baseball this season. Like everything Manny does, we'll see how long this lasts.
• Finally, Jayson Stark and ESPN.com made up a baseball rules quiz and had players, coaches and journalists take it. Brad Ziegler was the only one of those to get a perfect 10 on the test. Just for the record, I got a six, which is one better than random guessing.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Hopefully we'll beat the Cardinals again.