Hopper to White Sox
Reds trade OF Norris Hopper to the White Sox for catcher Corky Miller, a former Red. Miller will report to Louisville.
The Reds needed a catcher in AAA, and Miller is a veteran that makes some sense. I still think it’s a little much for Miller.
The White Sox need outfield help, and I hope Hopper gets a chance there. I’d rather have him than Willy Taveras, but, well, you know. I’d rather have Drew Stubbs up here, than maybe either.
I don’t think the Reds have ever been high on Hopper, seeing him as more of an reserve outfielder than anything. That said, he’s one of the few guys you feel good about getting a hit against a lefty (against a left-handed pitcher, he’ll always do that push bunt and it works more often than not, even when the other team knows it’s coming).
Good luck to Norris, a quality guy, who should get a chance to play there.
* UPDATE: The Reds promoted Chris Heisey to Class AAA, which makes sense. Hopper cleared out a spot for Heisey with the Bats.
Thinking out loud 6.26.9
So, some technical difficulties at Casa de Rosecrans today, but we’ll work through them.
* Yeah, might as well give you the rundown — for the next week or so, I’ll be on vacation. Vacation? you say? Yeah, vacation. How does one have a vacation when they don’t have a job? Valid question. Well, my girlfriend has a job, she’s taking vacation and I’m going along. Pretty much a tour de Georgia, nothing too exciting. We’ll hit Atlanta, Athens, her hometown and Savannah and then back.
I’ll probably post a few things, but no full-on TOLs, because, well, those take a lot of time. Really.
So, yeah, those’ll be scarce for a little. Time to actually get away, you know? Unemployment can be stressful. No, it can.
And, well, I’ll hopefully be putting that all behind me. I’ve never taken actual “vacation” time in 11 years of full-time workforce, so, it’ll be interesting. (And, even though I didn’t take it, I never got paid for it from those fine folks at the evil media conglomerate I was just canned by — the other media conglomerate I worked for previously, did give me all my unused vacation time in cash when they shut down my newspaper, so that was nice of them.)
* I guess I’ve got to start (sorta) with Michael Jackson.
I got this question yesterday from a regular reader: “If Farrah was the pop icon of the 1970s and Michael Jackson the ’80s, who was the ’90s and, with this decade coming to a close, who is for the 2000s?”
Interesting, really. Would I be wrong to say (and well, these are guesses, but I’m just thinking of people who sort of defined a decade) Kurt Cobain and Brittney Spears?
And does that make me superior because I had more formative time in the 90s (i.e., graduated high school and college in the decade) and the 2000s were really all about hype over substance, all really personified by Ms. Spears?
Just a thought.
(And well, old Greg Dulli on Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain, with a bit of MJ cover action from a decent show I attended)
* Speaking of hype, Homer Bailey pitches tomorrow for the Reds. Hype just doesn’t work as well in baseball, what works is time and finding out.
Will Homer live up to the hype? I don’t think he’ll ever live up to the hype — it was that much. Seriously, “Got Homer?” shirts when he was called up? That’s a lot on a 20-year old. And few can ever live up to that.
You know why he’s never lived up to your expectations? Your expectations were too high. Baseball’s a difficult game, and pitching is its most difficult part. To expect someone to master that so early is foolish.
Jay Bruce has yet to live up to the hype for the same reason — the hype was too much.
Remember, when a guy is named a top prospect, he’s just that — a prospect.
* Mark Buehrle doesn’t like Wrigley Field. If you’re an opposing player, or even a Cubs player, I can certainly understand that. The visitor’s clubhouse is tiny — smaller than most in the minor leagues. It’s cramped, it’s old, it smells. Yeah, not a pleasant place to go to work every day. And media-wise, working there sucks. But, that said, as a fan, I love it. Absolutely adore going there as a fan and would never want to see it changed.
* I feel bad for Derrick Brown, but can’t say I’m surprised.
* Oh, The Onion, you do it again.
* Kevn Kinney on the Georgia Theatre. Not as exciting as you’d think. But Kevn’s a pretty cool guy. He’d go to the same bar I went to all the time. He always orders a whiskey sour, and if Dave, the world’s best bartender, is working, he makes it from scratch.
* I’ve got to say, I agree with this PopMatters review of Wilco (The Album): “A “solid” or “sturdy” album—which is certainly what Wilco (The Album) is—would be acceptable from many bands, but not Wilco. In the end, they may be their own worst enemy: they’ve not only set the bar unreasonably high for everyone else, but also for themselves.”
* So, you see the Heineken BeerTender for sale all over the place and the one problem I always have with it is that it only has Heineken and Amstel Light — not my favorite beers. However, that has changed. If someone wants to donate one of those BeerTenders to me, you’re welcome to come over for Newcastle anytime.
* And if you thought the Burger King ad was crass… try Hardee’s new biscuit holes ad
* Roger Ebert really hated the new Transformers movie — so much he wrote two scathing reviews: one and two. And I say this as a kid who loved Transformers: the first movie (I mean, the Michael Bay movie, not the awesome 1986 cartoon version of the movie
Thinking out loud 6.25.9
Being American, there’s really not that often we can ever feel like underdogs in international sport — that’s just one of the many reasons I love the US Men’s National Team. In soccer, we are underdogs. And yesterday, the underdogs won.
I planned my entire Wednesday around this game, with zero hope of the US actually winning. But still, we lucked into the semifinals, and that was pretty amazing in its own right. I wasn’t going to miss this.
And then, well, just as I was thinking they were hanging in there and not embarrassing themselves, Jozy Altidore scored and gave the US a 1-0 lead. And I still didn’t think they’d win, but I was amazed — it had been 451 minutes since anyone had scored on Spain.
But then, the US got to halftime. And then, they withstood a flurry of chances — the defense and Tim Howard kept the lead. I was amazed… they kept it.
Only when Clint Dempsey put in a cross from Landon Donovan (who was awesome all night — just everywhere), did I think, hey, they might win. And, well, they did. I held my breath from Altidore’s score to the end, and it reminded me why I love sports. Spain was clearly more talented and the US just played better. It was beautiful and thrilling to watch — now I’m looking forward to Sunday.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sport Report - Soccer, Tennis & Brett Favre | ||||
|
||||
* Tom Archdeacon of the Dayton Daily News writes about Joey Votto. Another good read.
* Forbes on the most ejected managers. And as a sidebar, Chipper Jones told an umpire he had a ‘porn stache’
* Kinda the opposite of Sampson — Vlad and Mags cut their hair
* The rosters for the Futures Game come out today.
* I read the screenplay (not Soderbergh’s, apparently) for Moneyball, and, well, it wasn’t awful. I didn’t like the last scene, but that’s about it. It was entertaining. Go there and you can get the PDF. (And if a Moneyball movie doesn’t work, how about a movie about Facebook?)
* An interesting comment by Brian Kelly to Josh Katzowitz: “If Nippert looks like this in five years, I’ll be very disappointed.” And I’ll be very surprised if he’s on the sidelines in five years.
* I’m sure some Bengal fans are gonna scream about Andre Smith not having GPS and how that it’s all Mike Brown’s fault and how he shoulda worn a shirt and blah, blah, blah.
* CNBC’s sports twitter rankings, with @OGOchoCinco in the top 10
* A great story from Jeff Pearlman about Elivs Grbac and People Magazine
* 10 films will be nominated for best picture next year
* Another article on the resurgence of vinyl
* Musician Amanda Palmer has found it easier making money off of Twitter than off of records
* Dinosaur Jr. is on Jimmy Fallon tonight
* An interesting profile of Chunklet’s Henry Owings
* This headline from the Enquirer sounded like it was from The Onion: “Skeptical scientists tour Creation Museum” — but I’m guessing Onion readers wouldn’t believe such a thing as a “Creation Museum” actually existed.
* I saw this earlier on Wednesday, but dismissed putting it in TOL because it’s from Singapore. But, well, it ended up everywhere. Yeah.
* You can now get bobbies on your iPhone — well, through an Apple-approved app. You had Safari before, so it’s not like it was a bobbie-less iPhone before this.