Wednesday Thoughts

- I really enjoy it when people try to rationalize that something far-fetched can happen even though they know the possibility of success is as slim as Calista Flockhart on a hunger strike. It happens all the time, from volunteers for Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign to people playing Powerball to the 15 guys hitting on the hot chick at the bar. Each of these groups knows in the back of their head that they won’t be winners at the end of the day, yet holds onto a thread of hope in the infinitesimal chance that they will.
People that think the Pistons can be the Lakers also fit into this group.

- Leave it to Sidney Ponson and the Baltimore Orioles to get Derek Jeter off the schneid (4-5, 2 HR’s last night). Sir Sidney (can you believe the knighted him in Aruba? If they’re doing it to Sidney Ponson, I’d have to assume that the winner of the Employee of the Month at Dairy Queen also gets similar recognition.) is without a doubt the worst number-one starter in baseball. Good things the O’s locked him up for three-years at $7.5 million per.

- Any team in the market for a slow and lazy middle-linebacker who plays great in a three-yard box, but can’t make any plays out of said box, and gets outplayed by guys making 1/10 of his salary, get your checkbooks out: Jeremiah Trotter is available to the highest bidder.

- What do Gaston Gaudio, Anastasia Myskina, Paola Suarez and Elena Dementieva all have in common? They’re all in the semifinals at the French Open. But if you had said names of James Bond villains, I might have given you partial credit.

- Pardon the Interruption is being pre-empted today for an airing of Around the Horn. This would have been comparable to NBC in 1996 dropping Seinfeld from a Thursday night in order to show a re-run of Veronica’s Closet.

- The first voting totals for the baseball All-Star game were released yesterday and surprisingly Alfonso Soriano was the leading vote-getter for all of baseball (729,949). Some other interesting results:
- Red Sox CF Johnny Damon is third in the voting for AL Outfielder ahead of Carlos Beltran, Magglio Ordonez and perennial fan-favorite Ichiro.
- The Astros have a player in the top three of every infield position and three of the top seven outfielders. Houston has played 28 games at home this season, tied for the most in baseball, and without doing any more research, I’d guess that they’ve played the most since balloting began in early May.
- Contradicting what ESPN.com polls say, the All-Star balloting (as usual) has taken a decidedly un-Yankees turn. (Why do you think Joe Torre is able to put seven Yankees on per year? Because the position players rarely get voted on to the team.) Only Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez (both deservedly so) are in position to start the game, while guys like Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui will have to wait for Torre to select them.
- Even though he hasn’t played a game this season, Nomar Garciaparra leads the AL balloting at shortstop. It’s a little unfair to guys like Miguel Tejada and Michael Young that Nomar will probably get the start, but you have to admit: even sitting on the bench Nomar has still had a better year than Derek Jeter.