Posted 4:19 PM by Sean
After more than two glorious months, I got my first spam on the purgatoryonline@yahoo.com address. Two pieces, actually, including a breathily conspiratorial note in German that someone I know very well is dying to contact me for live online chat, but doesn't have the courage to contact me directly. Apparently, all I have to do is download their chatting software to find out who it is. Gee, how can I lose?

Anyway, I'll be offline doing the nog n' presents thing for the next few days, so no more updates until Thursday. In the meantime, have a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, kwazy Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate.

Posted 10:45 AM by Sean
The Angels may release Brad Fullmer rather than risk arbitration. This would be a mistake. Fullmer's the first DH they've had in a long time who was (a) content to be a DH and (b) reasonably good at it. They might be able to get David Ortiz, who was released by the Twins, to take Fullmer's spot, but I don't think I'm totally sold on Ortiz - they're the same age, but Fullmer's played a lot more games and seems to have established himself as a more reliable hitter (hence the $2 million difference in their salaries, I guess).

Posted 10:27 AM by Sean
Benji Gil re-signed for one year. Not much to say about that except "good." Again, though, it'll be interesting to see what happens throughout the year, with two second basement who both want to play full-time.

Posted 2:18 PM by Sean
Judge Kevin McCarthy has ruled that Barry Bonds's 73rd home run ball of 2001 should be sold, with the proceeds split evenly between Alex Popov (who initially caught the ball) and Patrick Hayashi (who ended up with possession after the ball came loose from Popov's glove in the ensuing melee). Personally, I didn't give a rat's ass which of them ended up with the ball. Two things about this story did catch my eye, though:

1. According to the story, "the judge made a point of saying that if he awarded the ball solely to Hayashi, it could send the wrong message to fans about civility in the stands." So the proper message is that being a brutal thug will only get you half a fortune?

2. Why not cut the ball in half? And not for some neo-Solomonic attempt to determine which of the two truly cares about the ball, either. I'd bet that the two halves of that ball would be worth more than the undivided ball, plus we'd get to look forward to some bozo with more money than sense eventually "reuniting" the pieces.

Posted 3:01 PM by Sean
The Braves reload. Likely 2003 rotation: Greg Maddux, Mike Hampton, Paul Byrd, Russ Ortiz, Kevin Millwood. Anybody previously arguing that the Mets or Phillies should be favored to win the East, please report to Joe's Bird-on-a-Bun for your complimentary helping of crow.

Posted 9:29 AM by Sean
Bad news for Cubs fans: the Cubs are suing the owners of the rooftop bleachers overlooking Wrigley Field.

If you've never been to Wrigley Field, or never seen a picture, or never talked to anyone at all who's got a vague notion of what baseball might be, part of Wrigley's unique atmosphere comes from the fact that there are thirteen buildings across Waveland and Sheffield Avenues that sell rooftop seats overlooking the game. They're generally rented out to parties at about $100 per person. They're unbelievably crappy seats - far worse than the worst upper deck, corner-of-right-field, crane-your-neck-and-squint seats - but of course at Wrigley watching the game is, shall we say, not paramount in the minds of some people. You can see some typical views from a Sheffield Avenue rooftop here, and a page that includes photos of the Sheffield and Waveland rooftops here. What started out as an informal, tailgate-style atmosphere on the rooftops has, over the years, become a fairly lucrative business for the owners, who have spent quite a bit of money installing professional-looking bleachers (in a couple of cases, they're even double-decked).

Now, the Cubs are looking to expand the bleachers (the ones inside Wrigley Field), a move that will block the view from some of the rooftops. This has touched of a good old-fashioned Chicago political streetfight, with the rooftop owners and the City seeking to have Wrigley declared an "historical landmark," which would greatly complicate the bleacher expansion project, as changes to landmarks have to meet various stringent requirements to ensure that whatever makes the structure "historical" remains in place. So now, after months of negotiations, the Cubs have apparently decided that they're not nearly loathed enough, so they're suing the rooftop owners.

The legal rationale here seems laughable. The Cubs are making two arguments: first, that the owners are providing stealing their product by providing seats to the game, and second, that they're infringing on the Cubs' copyright by showing the game on television so the folks on the rooftops can watch replays. Now, I didn't go to no fancy-pants law school, but even I can see some pretty big problems with these charges. First, I suspect they Cubs are going to have to do some serious 'splaining as to why, if this is such a grievous injury, they ignored it for decades. Second, someone should explain to them that their second argument undercuts their first - I mean, if the people watching the game from the rooftops need televisions to see the action properly, how the hell can you claim that they're seeing the same thing that people inside the stadium are seeing?

The larger issue, however, is that the rooftop bleachers actually enhance the atmosphere inside Wrigley Field. They're an utterly distinctive feature - no other ballpark in the majors has anything nearly as extensive. Along with the ivy, the hand-operated scoreboard, and the tradition of throwing back home run balls hit by the opposing team, the rooftop bleachers are what make Wrigley unique. Visitors coming to the park for the first time are always impressed and always find it funny. And Lord knows that Wrigley Field needs as much off-the-field fun as it can get, because the product on the field surely stinks to high heaven, most years. I can't believe that the Cubs' management doesn't realize that the only reason they consistently draw well is Wrigley Field - take the Cubs and put them in, say, Comiskey Park on the South Side of Chicago and their attendance would be cut 50% if they were lucky. If I were the Tribune Company (which owns the Cubs), I'd be thanking God every day that my team got to play in what will soon be the only truly historic park in the major leagues, and the last thing I'd want to do is screw around with the things that make it special. Because once you start getting rid of that stuff, the fans might get bored enough to watch the game. And when that happens...God help them.

Posted 2:10 PM by Sean
So I saw an episode of "She Spies," the show on which some of the Angels will be appearing, this weekend. It's actually pretty funny - it comes across like a spoof of stupid undercover cop/detective shows. The writing's pretty good, and the humor is bizarre enough that you don't know what to expect ten minutes ahead of time. The first scene of the episode had the three beautiful ex-cons who now secretly work for the FBI hanging in chains while interrogated by an evil mad scientist:

EVIL MAD SCIENTIST: I'll ask you one last time - who do you work for?

BEAUTIFUL EX-CON #2: And I'll tell you one last time - yo' mama!

EVIL MAD SCIENTIST (puzzled): Yo-Yo Ma? You work for the cellist?

Okay, so it's not The Kids in the Hall. It's still better than I thought it would be.