Manny in his younger days.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently reprinted a nearly fifty year old piece about Manny the Noodle and a supposed conspiracy to get the Dodgers into the World Series by slipping a mickey into a certain Giant’s outfielder’s oatmeal. A notable quote from the bookie incredulously asked “So baseball is different from everything else? Honest or something? Money wins every time, kid. You ride with the money or you’re dead.”

If only to enjoy more elite-level wordsmithing, we caught up with Manny, now fast approaching the century mark and enjoying his lime rickeys in Vero Beach. He had a few more revelations for us.

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As a Google Image search has quickly revealed, Ryan Barry — that’s Barry with an a — is an underwear model with a seriously devout gay following.

For all of Barry-with-an-A’s muscular muscles, however, I feel very comfortable in stating that Baltimore Oriole right-handed pitching prospect Ryan Berry — that’s Berry with an e, America — is more photogenic than both (a) his quasi-namesake and (b) basically everybody else.

Allow this click-and-embiggenable image (courtesy Gallery 2) to serve as Exhibit A:

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Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse is popular among the country’s literati.

When it became clear that a certain hard-hearted colleague was unwilling to host my wife and me on the eve of our Thanksgiving-morning flight from O’Hare to Boston, necessity dictated that we find lodging in the vicinity of the airport. And when it became clear that the Holiday Inn and Suites in nearby Rosemont, Illinois, offered not only reasonable rates but counted among its amenities Harry Caray’s World Famous Italian Steakhouse, good sense dictated that we make a reservation there (i.e. the Holiday Inn and Suites) post-haste.

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Yahoo! Answers is probably the best thing about the internet, and certainly the best place to go to get a good gauge on the hottest topics in baseball.  Just quickly dipping into the ether is an immediately gratifying experience, but I would also like to encourage you to proceed with a certain degree of caution, and to echo the sentiment of the opening words of American Psycho: “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.”  Now, just a few of the many questions posed, all in the last 24 hours:

Who is the quintessential replacement player?

Why is Yuniesky Betancourt considered a terrible player?

If you have ordered “wholesale jerseys” from japan how was your experience?

I need a Video of Mike Schmidt on the Internet?

What do you need to be able to do to make a small high school team like Troy, OH with a pop. of 25,000?

How would you persuade a cubs fan that the cardinals are a far superior team? 

How much would a Louis Tiant singed baseball be worth? 

What are my chances of making it to the MLB? 

What do you say to old ladies when you see them at a baseball game? 

Why do most players steal a lot fewer bases as they approach and pass 30 years old?

Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!

You may or may not be familiar with former New York Times sportswriter Murray Chass, and his blog. (That link to Wikipedia gives a decent summary: in short, Chass not a huge fan of statistics, bloggers, and Mike Piazza.) I leave it to others to cast broader judgment. I write this post only to express a little bit of confusion regarding his latest blog entry, featuring the headline:

WITH THIS WOULD-BE MANAGER,
V IS FOR LOSER

(Referring to Bobby Valentine, and his possible hiring by the Red Sox.)

Are there really no words starting with the letter V that mean loser, or something close?

Because that seems like an awfully weak headline if there’s any chance at all to find a word that starts with a V — or even has a V somewhere in it.

Faced with no better ideas for a post today, I decided to look for some possible alternatives. You may be able to do better in the comments.

My contenders:

1.
With this would-be manager,
V IS FOR VERBOSE,
which he is, often to the detriment of his players

2.
With this would-be manager,
V IS FOR VAUDEVILLIAN PERFORMANCES,
like wearing a disguise in the dugout

3.
With this would-be manager,
V IS FOR THE VOMITING
he inspires in me

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If you prefer your news to be five days old, then you’ll be gobsmacked to learn that White Sox GM Kenny Williams had his posh Chicago townhouse robbed and violated recently. This of course sounds like bad news, but thanks to the efforts of a certain plucky urchin we’ve learned a few things about Mr. Williams. To damn wit:

• Mr. Kenny Williams drinks beer.
• Mr. Kenny Williams enjoys the occasional lobster dinner, and, yes, you may box that up for him.
• Mr. Kenny Williams owns a fur.
• Mr. Kenny Williams drives a Cadillac.
• Mr. Kenny Williams owns a fur and drives a Cadillac.
• Mr. Kenny Williams will wear a championship ring even if it has recently been worn by a smelly hobo.
• Mr. Kenny Williams does not have a record of “sexual abuse charges dating to the 1980s,” but SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN IN HIS HOUSE DOES.

The great Bill Veeck had a habit of referring to front-office execs as “operators.” In light of this and those, you may now regard Mr. Kenny Williams as a “smooth operator.”

The character Doc Wilson proclaims in David Mamet’s 2000 comedy State and Main that “You should never trust anybody who wears a bow tie,” and continues: “Cravat’s supposed to point down to accentuate the genitals. Why’d you wanna trust somebody whose tie points out to accentuate his ears?”

That, along with the above tweet, are the two most notable items in my file folder marked “Rosenthal, Ken.”

It’s been a while since we checked in on the Baseball Card Tourney. It’s time to call the battle between Andre Dawson and Craig Biggio. Maybe it was never a battle — the three seed had a name that rhymed with awesome, after all. The rook and his disgusted look didn’t stand a chance. Dawson moves on.

In our next #3 versus #6 battle, we have two lesser known players getting ready to do battle. One of them won 100 games in the major leagues, so he gets the #3 seed. But maybe we’ll get a close one this time. Eh boys?

#3 1981 Topps Doyle Alexander
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And today, a Thanksgiving post on what else: Everything I’m thankful for.

This list will vary wildly on things I’m very thankful for, and things I’m meh-thankful for. You get to figure out which are which!

BEGIN THE (horribly formatted) SLIDSHOW:

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One backup catcher, 30+, on-base skills sold separately. Similar products have been flying off the shelves. (So if you missed out on Barajas, Blanco, Doumit, Laird, Schneider, Treanor, act fast, or Jason/Ramon Kendall/Castro will soon be yours!)

One outfielder, highly used, for the price of ten. $4,500,000 [SOLD OUT]

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