Rob Neyer: "So who benefits if Joe Jackson goes into the Hall of Fame? Apparently, it is two select groups. The first includes a few elderly ballplayers with too much time on their hands and not enough autographs to sign. Finally, they have a project! ... The second group includes the millions of men and women who get weepy when they watch 'Field of Dreams.' ... And who loses? Anyone who respects the integrity of the game." (ESPN Classic)

Twins trade Lawton to Mets for Reed. Good news for Mets fans, and Indians fans. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Joe Sheehan on the 'loyalty' double standard: "Matt Lawton never got a chance to be loyal. Lawton just busted his ass for bad baseball teams for five years, then finally got the opportunity to play for a good one and be part of something special. His reward was a one-way ticket to fourth place. Remember him when you want to get mad at your local free agent this winter." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 28-29. (Baseball Prospectus)

Steven Krasner on the Red Sox' inability (or unwillingness) to prevent stolen bases. "Blame it on the pitchers. Or, more accurately, on a philosophy embraced by manager Jimy Williams and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan. They don't want their pitchers using a slide-step when they pitch out of the stretch." (Providence Journal)

Art Martone: "Tiant had duende. Yaz didn't. Pedro has it. Clemens doesn't. Ken Harrelson, for one glorious summer, had it. Jim Rice, in spite of all the glorious numbers he accumulated over a number of summers, never did. Nomar Garciaparra? Oh, yeah. He's got it." (Providence Journal)

Joe Sheehan compares Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux. "Both pitchers are great, among the six or seven greatest ever, but at this point, Clemens retains a small edge in career value." (Bill James ranks Clemens 11th and Maddux 14th in his upcoming Historical Abstract.) (ESPN)

Pirates trade Schmidt, Vander Wal to Giants. Looks like a steal for the Giants, who gave up Armando Rios and pitching prospect Ryan Vogelsong. (ESPN)

Gary Huckabay on the new, improved wood bats. (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 26-27. "Like everybody else in the game, Bret Saberhagen is a complex human being, more than the sum of his stories, more than just an determined comeback. There's no point in calling him a hero or, if you're a Yankees fan or an ex-beat writer for the Mets, a villain. For the level at which almost all of us care or will ever interact with him, Sabes is just somebody who was really great once, and who might show us some small reminder of that greatness similar to the past desperate contributions of Tom Seaver or Bill Lee or Ellis Kinder. And if the Red Sox win this time, it will kill forever the romantic farfel force-fed to us by Ken Burns and his ilk, and that's a good thing." (Baseball Prospectus)

Joe Sheehan doesn't hate the Rally Monkey any more. (Baseball Prospectus)

Frustrated Pérez fumes after sweep. The Marlins are the most interesting .500 team in baseball. They look like the '86 Mets one week, the '62 Mets the next. Time is running out for them; they trail the Braves by 7 1/2 in the East and the Snakes by 6 1/2 in the wild-card race. (Miami Herald)

Mike Berardino: "Tributes to Cal Ripken are much deserved, but the Rangers might have gone a little overboard with theirs. Ripken's locker in the visiting clubhouse at The Ballpark in Arlington was retired this week. A jersey and some equipment will be on permanent display. Why not rope off his favorite seat in the dugout? Why not retire No. 8? I mean, where does it stop?" (Orlando Sun-Sentinel)

SportsJones is not kaput; it's just on vacation until August 1.

ESPN Page 2 readers vote for the worst free-agent signings of all time. The top 3 are all baseball: Mets sign Bobby Bonilla (1992), Pirates sign Derek Bell (2001), Red Sox sign Matt Young (1991). Young was certainly awful, and the Sox' other two signings that year (Jack Clark and Danny Darwin) were disappointing. But one reader goes too far in saying that Clark was a "complete bust" and Darwin was "at best, ineffective." He's not alone; it's common wisdom among baseball fans that all three of these signings were disasters. Here are the facts, though: In 1991, Clark hit .249/.374/.466 in 140 games, leading the team in home runs, RBI, slugging and walks. The team had a bad first half, falling something like 10 games behind, but caught fire in the second half, almost catching Toronto in early September. Clark absolutely carried the offense during that surge. He contributed nothing in 1992, and then he was finished. As for Darwin, he pitched only 12 games in 1991 because of an injury, but came back with a good year as a starter/reliever in 1992 (9-9, 3.96) and had an excellent year as a starter in 1993 (15-11, 3.26). I'm not saying that the Clark and Darwin signings were good moves, just that they weren't as bad as people seem to remember.

Minor changes to the left column. The weblogs list is higher now, and a good new team site (ExposNET) has been added.

SportsJones has been near-dormant for a while; there's only been one new entry in SurfJones (a dodgeball story) since 7/13. I guess we'll have to buy Rob Neyer's book in the store now.

Report: E-mails illustrate pressure to umpires. Sandy Alderson called it a "misinterpretation" when the story broke, but here are some quotes from his messages to the umps:
"Why so many pitches in this game? And why did it take so long? Hunt for strikes HIGH, LOW and IN."
"You must get your pitch count down per game. In May and June you averaged 310 pitches per 9-inning game, which was the highest of all MLB umpires."
"The MLB average per 9-inning game is 283 and our average should be around 270- 275. In order to bring your pitch count down you must call more strikes HIGH, LOW and IN. Be aggressive, particularly, in your case, down. You'll be happy with the results!"
"You simply are not calling enough strikes from game to game. There must be more pitches up, down and in that can be called strikes. Look for them and call them!"
(ESPN)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 22-23. "[I]f the Phillies win, I know that I for one will be hoping that [Todd] Pratt gets to enjoy some postseason glory that makes him a latter-day Gene Tenace." (Baseball Prospectus)

Roundtable discussion of the Jermaine Dye trade from Baseball Prospectus. Gary Huckabay: "Why does Allard Baird even pick up the phone when Billy Beane calls? It's like Ricky Jay playing Three-Card Monte with Dubya."

Joe Sheehan with more on the trade. "This trade is...another reminder that the knowledge gap is just as significant, and just as important, as the revenue gap." (Baseball Prospectus)

Rob Neyer saw a strange kind of doubleheader yesterday. He watched the Royals' Triple-A team play the Mariners' Triple-A team in Tacoma; then he saw the Royals play the Mariners in Seattle. Here's his report, plus more on - that's right - the Jermaine Dye trade. (ESPN)

Tom Scocca urges the Orioles to trade Jeff Conine. (Baltimore City Paper)

Bill Peterson on the Astros and the Cubs. "The Cubs, if they wished, could name the price of the NL Central title every year, but the Tribune Company -- which posted $1 billion in profits on $5 billion in revenues last year -- probably would rather spend the money on bonuses for its top executives. It's no skin off Cubs fans, who think they're special because they're loyal to a historically faltering ball club and who, like the Enron patrons, view the game as an outing." (Cincinnati CityBeat)

Athletics add powerful Dye to lineup. All the Royals could get for a 27-year-old All-Star was Neifi Perez?? Did they shop Dye around, looking for better offers, and this was the best they could do? Or do they think Perez will be a cornerstone of their "rebuilding" program? Mike Sweeney must be counting the days till he's out of there. (ESPN)

Rany Jazayerli: "It's not fair to claim that Perez is no better than Rey Sanchez. He's actually worse. He's younger, and faster, and he's the reigning Gold Glove defender in the NL ... but he's not as good defensively as Sanchez, and he's not even as good offensively. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a worse hitter than Rey Sanchez? But Perez is the perfect Royal: he plays good D, he swings at everything, and he can't hit worth a damn." (Rob and Rany on the Royals, July 24 entry)

Bill Simmons: "We're only 100 games into the season, and Red Sox fans have learned more lessons than Ben Savage learned during the entire '96 season of 'Boy Meets World.'" Hilarious article, 100% baseball, much better than yesterday's Ramblings. (ESPN)

Seth Stevenson on Gold Gloves. "Win a Cy Young, and you still have to earn it again the next year. But win a Gold Glove, and chances are you'll win it again and again." (Slate)

Yankees get final out at plate to preserve win over Tigers. Memo to Roger Cedeno: You can slide right through the plate. No need to do a pop-up. And the pitcher doesn't wear shin guards, so don't be afraid to be aggressive next time. Good luck with the contract negotiations. Memo to Mariano Rivera: Nice phantom tag. By the way, how's the ankle? (video) (ESPN)

Joe Sheehan looks around the NL. "Bad backs don't go away. The Mets need to send Edgardo Alfonzo home and tell him to not do a damn thing baseball-related until February. Their season is over, and their hopes for 2002 rely heavily on a healthy Alfonzo." (Baseball Prospectus)

Billy Altman on the Mets' lack of offense. (Village Voice)

Clemens passes Seaver for fourth place on career K list. And they didn't stop the game for a ceremony? Sheesh. (Yahoo!)

Sean McAdam on the A's, the Dodgers, the Rockies, Trot Nixon, ex-Expos who've become executives, and the pitch-count fiasco that has made me, for the first time in my life, sympathize with major-league umpires. (ESPN)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 16-21. "The Cubs have an opportunity to win, and while I admire a parsimonious unwillingness to deal any of their top prospects, acquiring Michael Tucker is a fraud." (Baseball Prospectus)

Adam D doesn't like the Tucker trade either. (Cub Rants)

Giants won't face Red Sox in interleague play in '02. They will face the Yankees, Orioles, Devil Rays, Blue Jays and A's. I don't like interleague play, but I'm glad they're starting to rotate the division matchups. (San Jose Mercury News)

Bill Simmons: "Bud Selig seems like the kind of guy who would be excited about having a utility monopoly during a Monopoly game, doesn't he?" Simmons used to be Boston Sports Guy, now he's just The Sports Guy, and he'll be writing three times a week for ESPN.com's Page 2. This is his weekly Ramblings column.

Eric Enders interviews Pedro Martínez. (Baseball Primer)

Bruce Markusen on Tony Conigliaro's 1971 retirement. (Baseball Primer)

Miscellaneous stuff from Gary Huckabay. "Who's more crack-addled? The Detroit Tigers for offering Roger Cedeno a three-year deal worth $4.5 million annually, or Cedeno for turning it down?" (Baseball Prospectus)

Miscellaneous stuff from Joe Sheehan. "Trot Nixon has a higher EqA than Ichiro Suzuki, and isn't that far behind Suzuki as a defender. If you're a parishioner at the Church of Ichiro, that's fine, just understand that he's a good player, not a great one, and that he's not even the best player in the Safeco Field outfield this year." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 10-16. "Which cynical bit of Mets nonsense do you want to believe? The part where Timo Perez was a top prospect, or that Tsuyoshi Shinjo is more than a fourth outfielder, or that Jay Payton is a future superstar?" (Baseball Prospectus)

The Baseball Crank looks at the reasons behind the Mariners' great season. (Providence Journal)

Rob Neyer takes a look at catchers who switched positions mid-career. He thinks Mike Piazza should stay behind the plate. (ESPN)

Mayor tells investors: Devil Rays stay or else. A Washington group is interested in buying the team, but St. Petersburg mayor Rick Baker won't let them out of their lease. (St. Petersburg Times)

Art Martone on the trade rumors surrounding the Red Sox. (Out: Carl Everett; In: Jermaine Dye and Jeff Cirillo.) (Providence Journal)

Joe Sheehan on rumors that the A's might trade Jason Giambi even though they are back in the wild-card race. "One of the things that really makes my blood boil is baseball owners who, once in this exclusive club of 30, treat their new property as a cross between a grocery store and a tax shelter." (Baseball Prospectus)

Glenn Dickey: "It seems the Giants are not quite good enough this year, and general manager Brian Sabean is going to have to be strong to resist pressure to make a really stupid move: Trade pitching for immediate help from a position player." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Keith J. Scherer reports from the Triple-A All-Star Game. (Baseball Prospectus)

Where Have You Gone, Derek Jeter? Allen St. John says that Jeter hasn't lived up to his early promise. (Village Voice)

Joe Sheehan argues that Roberto Alomar is having a better year than Bret Boone, despite Boone's awesome RBI total. (Baseball Prospectus)

Backstage with Scott Spiezio. Interview with the Angels infielder who fronts a heavy metal band (Sandfrog) in his spare time. (ESPN)

Sandfrog's homepage.

Rob Neyer on "Generation K" (Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson). Back in the mid-90's, when they were with the Mets, they were expected to anchor a great starting rotation. But they've all had arm trouble, and now they're all battling their way back as relievers. (ESPN)

Jeff Gordon says the Astros, not the Cubs, are the team to beat in the NL Central. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Blogger has added Baseball News Blog to its "Blogs of Note" list. Cool!

Tom Haudricourt on MLB's injury epidemic. At the All-Star break, 163 players were on the DL. Sixty of them were on the 60-day DL. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Bill Peterson looks at the Reds' rebuilding project, and disses interleague play. "The appeal of two separate leagues was at once anachronistic and futuristic. Limited interaction between these parallel leagues rooted in gilded history created a comic book multiverse during the big events. It's been a shame to watch baseball sell off the arrangement, a precious natural resource that could never be duplicated." (Cincinnati CityBeat)

More good stuff in Peterson's archive. There's some good sportswriting to be found in alternative newsweeklies. Try New York's Village Voice or Kansas City's Pitch Weekly. Skip the Boston Phoenix.

Sean Forman defends Fred McGriff's decision to stay with the Devil Rays. "The Devil Rays gave him a no-trade willingly and presumably for a discount on his asking price. If they weren't prescient enough to foresee a situation where they would want to trade him, that is their fault and not his. His priorities lie with his family, and in a time where we often assert players are money grubbing this is something a little different." (Baseball Primer)

Tens of thousands of Red Sox fans make pilgrimage north to Montreal. "'It's not a bad drive up here, and it's impossible to get tickets to Fenway,' said James O'Connor, an 18 year-old from Springfield, Mass., who admitted the fact he could legally buy a drink due to the 18-plus drinking age was also enticing." (Montreal Gazette)

Joe Sheehan looks at eight interesting young players. (ESPN)

Derek Zumsteg reports from the All-Star Game. Good: The game itself, and the Futures Game. Bad: Showboating renditions of the national anthem, the Celebrity and Legends Softball Game, the Home Run Derby, Chris Berman, being told by the scoreboard to MAKE NOISE!, and the retirement ceremony that interrupted a great game. (Baseball Prospectus)

Art Martone says that losing Pedro Martinez for two months isn't the end of the world for the Red Sox. (Providence Journal)

Joe Morgan: "If Boston gets Nomar, Pedro and all their guys healthy, they will be in a race with the Yankees." Joe, they're already in a race with the Yankees, even with all those guys injured. (Chat wrap, ESPN)

Giambi: No more hometown discount for A's. If they won't give him a no-trade, then they obviously don't consider him a hometown player, so why should he give them a discount? (ESPN)

Pending rehab progress, Pedro could be out till Sept. The Red Sox are seeking a second opinion from Dr. Nick Riviera. (ESPN)

Joe Sheehan assesses Randy Johnson's chances of breaking Nolan Ryan's strikeout record. (Baseball Prospectus)

Gary Huckabay criticizes Derek Jeter's defense, but stops short of suggesting the Yankees move him away from shortstop. "If you can get another great bat into the lineup by taking that defensive hit, it may well make sense to keep Jeter in there in the six spot. It certainly hasn't hurt the Yankees too badly for the last five years." (Baseball Prospectus)

Tracy Ringolsby on the Rockies' disapointing first half and their prospects for the second half. (Rocky Mountain News)

Chris DeLuca revisits the Wells/Sirotka trade. It's not looking so bad for the Blue Jays any more, with Sirotka expected to fully recover and be the Jays' number 1 starter next year. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Rob Neyer's All-Star Game memories. "The 1989 All-Star Game marked the last in which a Royal did something truly memorable...[Bo Jackson] led off the contest with a 450-foot home run against Rick Reuschel (and No. 2 hitter Wade Boggs followed with a homer of his own)." All while Ronald Reagan was babbling in the broadcast booth. I remember thinking, "Can't they do this before the game? Or between innings? Or, at least, between batters? Or interrupt the guy, just for a second, to call a #^%$&@ home run??" (ESPN)

But that was nothing compared to last night's show, the All-Star Baseball Interview Special and Cal Ripken Tribute. Did they have to keep interrupting the interviews to show that stupid baseball game? At first it reminded me of the NBC 2000 Olympics coverage, but I think it was really more like an MTV Rock-n-Jock softball bash, without Jaime Pressly (too bad) or Kid Rock (good).

David Schoenfield on the Astros' Lance Berkman. (ESPN)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 5-9. "While nabbing Ken Caminiti is fun on all sorts of levels (heck, now that he'll be on WTBS all the time, his farewell tour will be more widely seen than either Cal Ripken's or Tony Gwynn's), this is not a net gain for the Braves." (Baseball Prospectus)

Rob Neyer on "a wild ending at Fenway and a memorable dinner with Buck Martinez," from his upcoming book. (SportsJones)

The Village Voice reviews the latest baseball books.

Bruce Markusen on the 1971 All-Star Game, probably the best one ever. Twenty future Hall of Famers. Six home runs. (Baseball Primer)

Sports Illustrated has an archive of all its World Series wrapup stories dating back to 1954. This is from William Leggett's 1971 article: "Weaver explained why he had relieved Palmer way back there in game No. 2 despite an 11-3 lead. 'I took him out because he had thrown 168 pitches and was beginning to feel twinges of pain in his arm,' he said." Wow. Weaver left him in for 168 pitches in a blowout, and he needed to explain why he took him out so soon? Times change. And did Palmer really throw that many pitches? Did warmup tosses count?
Here's another classic: "'I was so nervous the night before [Game 3] that I lay in bed for hours without being able to sleep,' Blass said afterward. 'When I got up in the morning I was still so nervous that I blew a $3.40 breakfast. What was it? Toast, rare.'" Normal jitters, or the first recorded manifestations of Steve Blass disease? Probably the former, since he pitched two good games in the Series and went on to have a good year in 1972. But who knows?

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 3-4. "[The A's] picking up Ron Gant is sort of like the experiment with Ron Cey in 1987 or Don Baylor in 1988: he's an ex-famous dude who can only fulfill low expectations." (Baseball Prospectus)

Joe Sheehan says that Kevin Brown is on track for the Hall of Fame. (ESPN)

Don Malcolm examines the old adage that says the team in first place on July 4th will go on to finish first. Turns out it happens about two-thirds of the time. (Baseball Primer)

King Kaufman explains why he doesn't like Ichiro. (Salon.com)

Red Smith (in 1946): "The report is that Hank Greenberg will retire after this season, and if this is so then baseball is about to lose one of the greatest players of our time, one of the most unselfish team men, one of the finest gentlemen." (SportsJones)

Red Smith on Tony Lazzeri. (SportsJones)

A radio interview with Lou Gehrig from 1939. "I don't see how [a players' union] possibly could work," opines Lou. Also, "I would say there are no ballplayers that hit better at night than they do in the daytime. Now you look at comparative averages at the close of the season and I believe that you will see it's strictly a pitcher's game at night." (SABR)

Jay Jaffe backs up Gehrig's hypothesis with a look at Mariano Rivera's day/night splits. "There are two easy explanations: 1. Small sample size. 2. Mariano is a vampire." (Futility Infielder, July 7 entry)

Jim Baker, a former contributor to Bill James's Baseball Abstract books, has an entertaining e-mail newsletter. You can subscribe by sending an e-mail to buick8@aol.com with "Baseball Preview" in the subject line.

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for June 24-27. On the Blue Jays' Tony Batista screwup: "This is a team less than ten games out; good decisions would help them take advantage of the Red Sox and Yankees as those two teams limp along. Instead, Jays fans get this and now Freon Deion. Time to take the bird off the ballcaps, and replace it with Sideshow Mel. The Blue Jays have made themselves irrelevant." (Baseball Prospectus)

Gary Huckabay hates rotisserie baseball. (Baseball Prospectus)

Keith Law on the Yankees' recent transactions. "A smart and self-aware team would look at [the 2001] season and say, 'Well, we squeezed every last drop out of that roster, so now it's time to work the next generation into the lineup and plan for the future.' The Yankees, however, appear to have started to believe their own hype." (Baseball Prospectus)