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I tried out for Jeopardy! when I was in law school.  I passed the quiz and got to play the little pretend Jeopardy! game with the real buzzers and everything and was put in the contestant pool. Sadly — and unlike my former boss and unlike long time CTB reader Sara K — I never…

That idea from Dave Pinto from this morning? That one about making Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes 100-inning a piece relievers, thereby allowing the team to have a 10-man staff and add a bench player or two? Well, Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll asked someone in the Yankees front office about it: Pinto (@statsguru) mentions Yankees…

A billboard company in North Dakota has decided to give Roger Maris his due: A North Dakota billboard company has erected a pair of signs in Fargo honoring local hero Roger Maris, whose record 61 home runs in 1961 have long been clouded with an asterisk. Because he clubbed the homers in more games than…

I missed this one the other day, but our colleagues over at Out of Bounds pass along news of that lady who — allegedly! –  tried to get World Series tickets in exchange for sex. The news:  her lawyer is totally, totally awesome: Even if Finkelstein intended to trade sex for tickets – which she…

UPDATE: Now Jon Paul Morosi reports that, yes, they M’s and Bedard are close to a one year deal, though at this rate that could change five times by dinner. And with that I’ve just about had it with the Hot Stove season.  Someone sign Johnny Damon, everyone else start playing long toss and doing…

Many thought that Bobby Valentine’s return from Japan would mean a manager’s job. Washington? Pass.  Cleveland?  Pass. Queens? Pending.  In the meantime, however, it’s good to see that he’s keeping busy: Bobby Valentine has guided baseball teams to championship titles in faraway countries, helped professional baseball players gain free agency rights and won a National…

Walkoff Walk runs an excellent weekly feature called “This Tweet in Baseball” in which the week’s finest real ballplayer tweets are collected.  The latest is up today.  Sadly, it was posted before new Twitter user Matt Holliday decided to tweet thusly: “Big fan of the new Creed album, helps me get through long bike workout”…

F-Mart channels Johnny Fontaine: “When [Carlos] Beltran had surgery, I thought I had a chance, and maybe they would give me a chance at center, but they get Matthews Jr., and now I’m not sure where I am.” To be fair he followed that up by saying a lot of positive things about not giving…

The Cubs and Carlos Marmol have avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $2.125 million deal that splits the difference between their competing demands. Marmol stunk on ice as the setup guy last year, but once he took over for Kevin Gregg as closer in August he stopped hitting as many guys and throwing the…

I’m not a fanatic about it — I think some of the more unique interpretations of the National Anthem are kinda neat — but MLB.com’s Mike Bauman has a point: “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been trivialized, tortured and trampled upon at ballparks throughout America. Obviously, there are completely acceptable renditions of the anthem sung before…

But . . . but what excuse will I use to get out of mowing the lawn now? For the first time in the network’s 15 years of broadcasting Major League Baseball games, FOX has scheduled two nights of regular-season games as part of its 2010 Saturday schedule, according to a news release issued Wednesday…

If the Yankees are hellbent on keeping Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes in the pen, David Pinto has a great idea of how to maximize their value: It strikes me that both in the pen could radically alter the Yankees roster. The Yankees would only need nine pitchers, maybe ten. The starting staff is more…

Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch, in response to a reader’s question about why the Cardinals front office has been so quiet since the Holliday signing, says “Though the club won’t confirm talks, negotiations with Pujols are also taking up time.” That’s got to be encouraging for Cards fans, though I wonder if any real progress…

That’s not just some jerky Braves fan saying that, according to Murray Chass, the people that try to deal with them are saying it: But more than one agent cited the Mets’ inability to deal with more than one free agent at a time as the primary reason they lost out on free agents. “We’re…

So, how are those pre-arbitration negotiations goin’, fellas? To say the recent discussions between the Giants and Thurman [Lincecum's agent], who exchanged arbitration numbers featuring the largest gap in the history of the process, have not gone well is an understatement. According to several sources, what’s been going on between the Giants and Lincecum/Thurman shouldn’t…

On Tuesday Andrew from NYaT imagined what it would look like if every bat in the Yankee lineup went sideways.  Yesterday he moved on to the pitchers: CC Sabathia: What it would look like: Alex Fernandez after Marlins won the 1997 World Series. In December of 1996, the Florida Marlins General Manager Dave Dombrowski brought…

You’ll recall there was a bit of a hubub last spring when it was revealed that Manny Ramirez’s contract with the Dodgers required him to donate $1 million to Dodgers’ charitable foundation.  At the time Frank McCourt said that, going forward, all Dodgers contracts would contain similar provisions. It was later revealed that over 100…

We had some fun with Adam Jones earlier today, but I just received a comment that provides much more in the way of background.  Except where the Mets are involved I’m nothing if not fair, so take it away Mrs. Bradley: Let me clarify any misconceptions that are currently out there with reference to my…

Steve Bisciotti owns the Baltimore Ravens. He also either doesn’t know jack about baseball or is so blinded by salary cap politics that he feels he has to pretend that he doesn’t. Here he is today talking about the Yankees’ payroll advantages: “It certainly doesn’t show up in the standings. If I’m a Yankees fan,…

Senators McCain and Dorgan introduced some new legislation today that proposes to more closely regulate the supplement industry in the wake of reports that many products contain designer steroids and other such nasties which aren’t disclosed to the public.  Bud Selig just released a statement on it: “On behalf of Major League Baseball, I would…

UPDATE: Street reports that the deal is for $3.5 million.  Hmm, that’s $17,500 on the high side of the midpoint!  I hereby declare this a resounding victory for team Kotchman! And I get the fail of the day for getting my math wrong. This is why I am a blogger. 2:29 P.M.: Casey Kotchman and…

Orioles’ outfielder Adam Jones was being interviewed via telephone on XM Radio’s MLB Home Plate show a few minutes ago. Not just via telephone, but via cell phone, and not just via cell phone, but via cell phone while driving down the freakin’ highway.  MLB Home Plate producer Brent Gambill tweets the details: Adam Jones…

Russel Branyan doesn’t have a job yet. Neither does Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye and a bunch of other corner outfielder/DH types.  Brian Giles’ agent, however, says that he’s probably gonna sign a deal soon: Brian Giles’ agent said Tuesday that he’s optimistic his client will have a contract for the 2010 season soon . .…

As far as pre-spring training time-wasters go, this is one of the better ones:  lar from Wezen-Ball ranking the best baseball statues on a ballpark-by-ballpark basis. He has the Pirates’ first, and it’s hard to disagree with that.  Nice statues with clean lines and bold poses. A lot of generic, no-name ballplayer statues bring up…

If it weren’t for that “the Braves shouldn’t have kept Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz” thing earlier this morning this would have been the silliest thing I read all day: [Manny] Ramirez complained toward the end of last season that playing the outfield wore down his legs. He seriously considered opting out of his contract to…