If you missed it yesterday, I probably overreacted a little bit on Twitter to the news that Denard Span was finally going on the DL 18 days after injuring himself.  18 days of Twins officials claiming he was only day-to-day, while Span missed 12 straight contests and then played in three of the next six before succumbing to reality.  The most ridiculous part of it all was that the Twins made the move a day and a half before rosters expanded, because they felt the need to call up “an outfielder”, Matt Carson, despite the fact that Chris Parmelee, Ryan Doumit, and Darin Matroianni can all play in the outfield.  It’s just another frustrating example of the Twins misusing the Disabled List or mismanaging their roster, and while it ultimately matters little in the grand scheme of 2012, I’ve grown increasingly tired and dispirited by the Twins’ continued inability to grasp simple roster management, and increasingly convinced the Twins are employing one of the worst (if not the worst) medical/training staff in the game today.

Nick Nelson (who is a friend and does a tremendous job on Twins Daily) thought I was being pretty ridiculous.  Nick said a lot of stuff, and I don’t want to misrepresent his position, but his objection essentially came down to a few points that I’ll summarize.  If you want his full argument, and to make sure that I didn't take liberties with what he was saying, I’d recommend going to his generally excellent Twitter feed.

1)      The treatment of Span doesn’t matter because the Twins suck.

On one level, Nick’s right.  Span’s presence on the 25 man roster probably didn’t cost the Twins any games.  The Twins don’t pinch hit much and they had players who could handle right field.  But when you look at Span in the larger pattern of misdiagnoses, frustrating lingering injuries, and general misuse of the Disabled List, Span’s treatment is indicative of the larger pattern of miscues the Twins have made.  And in that, it’s incredibly frustrating.

2)      The Twins would be doing something different if the games actually mattered.

Would they?  We’ve seen this same pattern of behavior since at least 2010, and maybe back into 2009 as well, seasons in which the Twins were contending.  Players were held off the DL for a week or more until the club finally gave in, or they grinded through the injury and hurt the team with poor performance.  Even last year, the Twins insisted they were potentially in the AL Central race into July (remember #itshappening?) and made these same mistakes with Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Denard Span.

3)      This is Span’s fault anyway; since his claustrophobia has prevented him from getting an MRI, the Twins are forced to rely more on his own opinion of his pain level and how he’s feeling.

This is a valid point, and while I would not blame Span for his fear (claustrophobia is a mental illness), I understand the club’s frustration with not being able to look at Span’s injury in detail.  Let’s leave aside the Twins’ medical staff’s inability to effectively diagnose guys like Scott Baker and Carl Pavano even with an MRI, shall we?  Let’s instead focus on Span.  Yes, the Twins are left to trust him.  But given his history last year as he attempted to come back from a concussion, the Twins have plenty of reason not to trust Denard Span when he says that he’s ready or almost ready to play.  He wants to be on the field.  That’s laudable.  But the Twins know that he’s generally willing to say he’s healthy to get back out there when he’s not.  So trusting his analysis now is actually still a sign of this club’s poor judgment.

All of this leaves aside Nick’s point that we should be rooting for the Twins to lose anyway because it will improve their draft position.  I don’t think that’s a valid concern.  I refuse to regard the Twins as the Clippers of the Major Leagues, so I won’t accept an argument that the Twins shouldn’t be trying their best to win games, and that not using the simple roster moves at their disposal to put their best roster on the field is somehow a good thing.

So let's recap: Denard Span? Hurt since August 12. Went on the DL August 30. Eligible to come off on September 12.  Twins? Still a freaking mess.  And me?  I've had it.

In June, the Colorado Rockies decided to take an unconventional approach to improving their 25-40 record: A modified four-man rotation that outlined new expectations for starters and bullpen arms alike. With nothing to lose except more games, the experiment, which was thought to be a short-term solution to mitigate poor performance and injuries, has general manager Dan O’Dowd’s nod of approval to continue in the 2013 season, much to the surprise of…well, just about everyone.

When the Rockies began the experiment, it made a lot of sense to shake things up a bit. Their starters were already the worst in the league, and the bullpen had a much heavier workload because of it. They suffered injuries, fatigue, and poor performance throughout the first half of the season when the unbalanced workload became too big to ignore. Since adopting the four-man rotation on June 20^th, the Rockies are 28-36, which isn’t a great record, but a slight improvement. The starters are pitching better (6.28 ERA down to 5.61) and the relievers are getting worse (4.00 ERA up to 4.52), but even though the experiment has yielded marginal success, O’Dowd and manager Jim Tracy are convinced that the unconventional approach is worth pursuing—if for no other reason than no one else is doing it. "I felt like we had to do something non-conventional,” Tracy has said.

Until the 1970s, the four-man rotation was the norm, when experimentation by the Dodgers and Mets proved fruitful, eventually rendering the four-man extinct. But the Rockies’ four-man rotation isn’t your father’s four-man rotation. In the modified version, there are four-starters with their own piggyback relievers and a couple of bullpen arms. In other words, the Rockies’ four-man rotation is really an eight-man rotation, though the identity of the piggy varies from game to game.

The blueprint for the Rockies pitching staff is simple. Starters work every four days and are capped at 75 pitches. Even if the starter is getting results, Tracy is adamant that they exit the game before 75 pitches, since they will work four days later. The Rockies intended for their starters to be able to make it through five innings while staying within the limit. Actual practice has been more complicated. On a good day, the starter will actually go five, but there haven’t been very many good days for Colorado, with some starters going as few as 2.1 innings. When a starter is removed, the piggyback reliever enters the game and is capped at 50 pitches. From there, Tracy manages the remainder of the bullpen in a more traditional method, paying attention to match-ups, high leverage situations, and of course, using a closer. Since the adoption of the four-man piggyback rotation in mid-June, Tracy has strayed only a few times, staying the course as outlined.

While it seems unlikely the four-man rotation makes a big difference for the Rockies this season given they are now 17 games behind the wild card leaders, entering 2013 with the four-man piggyback rotation as the plan from the outset is an intriguing prospect:  Given an offseason in which to prepare, can the Rockies build a staff which can exploit this design?

Despite what the Dodgers-Red Sox megadeal might lead you to believe, there's very little chance of a huge trade being worked out in August.  It's the nature of the beast.  Teams are only able to exchange players who have passed through waivers (or are forced to deal claimed players to the teams that won the waiver claim).  The best players, with the most tolerable contracts, are all claimed, but there's little incentive to make a deal when the team trying to acquire the veteran has no one to compete against as they try to build an acceptable offer, teams are able to block their rivals by making claims they have no intention of following through on, and the teams with veterans on waivers can pull their players back at any time.  The structure, except in the rarest of cases (such as over last weekend), doesn't exist to allow for real blockbusters.  But due to the complicated rules of August trading, that's not terribly apparent to the casual fan.

So when news leaked yesterday morning to Ken Rosenthal that Joe Mauer had been placed on trade waivers (even though such things are supposed to be confidential), Twins fans understandably (but not justifiably) freaked the freak out.

So let's get this out of the way:  There's almost no chance that Joe Mauer will play for any other team in 2013.  For one thing, his contract is a huge deterrant for a team that's acquiring him.  Joe's going to be paid $138 million between 2013 and 2018, when his current deal expires.  That's a long time and a lot of money to be on the hook for a player with as many injury problems that Joe's had.  So even if a team does claim Mauer, there's even less of a chance that that team will give the Twins enough of a return to make unloading the future Hall of Famer worthwhile for the Twins.

That's not to say, by the way, that the Mauer contract is a bad contract.  I mean, it's a dirty little secret that most long-term contracts don't wind up paying for themselves.  You tend to have to overpay for future production as a type of penance for young players being underpaid relative to their value in their early years.  Elite talent becomes expensive.

But elite talent also performs at an elite level...at least for a while.  And that's what Joe's done this year.  Mauer's hit .312/.405/.431, good for a 132 OPS+, while playing more than half of his games behind the plate, and starting 118 of his team's 130 games.  According to FanGraphs, he's been worth 3.8 WAR this year already.

So no, Joe Mauer's contract is not horrible (unlike what some people might have you believe).  And it certainly isn't the reason the Twins are losing in 2012.  As long as Joe Mauer is productive and healthy, and even after he isn't, he'll be a Minnesota Twin.  So settle down Twins fans, this is exactly the sort of reason why trade waivers are supposed to be secret in the first place.  Dozens and dozens of players that clubs have no intention of parting with go on them, and their revelation only results in a lot of sound.  So feel free to direct your fury at those reporting this as actual news and stirring up a panic.

Underdogs. Everyone loves them. I am not without my affinity for the lesser, but recently I find myself drawn to two particular teams that are in the playoff hunt in spite of the fact they were thought to have no business being there. I am not enamored with them because of their underdog status, per se, but because their contention defies logic. I'm talking of course, about the Orioles and Athletics.

The Orioles have been sticking around all season, though everyone has been waiting for their inevitable demise. The Athletics started poorly, but have rallied and now have a solid chance at a wild card spot, and an outside shot at even winning the division.

I don't know how they're doing it. No one does. You know why no one does? The Orioles and Athletics started Lew Ford and Seth Smith at DH last night, respectively, and won. This last month or so is going to be so fantastic, you guys.

Hitter Who Hit Well Last Night: Pedro Alvarez, 4-5, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 R

Have a day, Pedro Alvarez. He looked like a prime candidate for a demotion after the first two months of the season, but has posted an .839 OPS since June. The Pirates may not make it all the way to the end, but Alvarez's turnaround has to be encouraging for the front office and the fans.

Pitcher Who Pitched Well Last Night: Yu Darvish, 7 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, 10 SO, 0 R

Darvish has had command issues all year, but had it going against the Rays. His WHIP wasn't great, but if Darvish can pitch like this the rest of the way, their offense should have no problem racking up wins for the team.

Yesterday, the Atlantic published a study by Seth Amitin that suggested that baseball announcers, as a group, speak differently about foreign-born Latino players in the game than they do about American or Canadian players.  According to Amitin,

“The analysis reveals that foreign-born players—the vast majority of whom are Latino—are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to receiving praise for intangibles. Latino players are almost 13 percent less likely to be praised for intangibles than their white counterparts. Announcers are nearly 14 percent more likely to praise a US/Canadian-born player for intangibles than they are their international counterparts. (snip)

Indeed, it is not so much that announcers are unwilling to praise non-white players, but the terminology they use in so doing falls into a set of pre-defined "code words." For example, if a player is described as being a "guy next door," or "regular guy" there is a greater than 80 percent chance that player is white. If a player is described as "impatient" or "over-aggressive," there is a greater than 50 percent chance that player is not white.”

As Amitin points out, all of these snubs add up over the long haul to generate a biased portrait of Latino players.  And that, as fans of the game and of the men who play it, should be something we fight against.  We want fans to see the people who play the game accurately and fairly, and to judge them by the content of their performance (both on the field and off) and not the color of their skin, to paraphrase Martin Luther King.

Not everyone seems to find the study worthwhile, however.  The blogfather, Rob Neyer took to Twitter last night to sarcastically note,

Hey guys, human beings are slightly biased against foreigners. And The Atlantic is ON IT. theatlantic.com/entertainment/…

— robneyer (@robneyer) August 28, 2012

This seems unfair.  The data itself is important, at least as much as it allows for reflexiveness on the part of the broadcast industry and for, hopefully, a correction of the behavior.   Rob went on to express his discomfort with “the leap from the ‘data’ to [the] conclusion that broadcasters are racists.”

The data suggests that the broadcasting industry tends to be subconsciously biased against foreign-born Latinos.  That is not the same as calling broadcasters racist.  That said, Rob’s got a valid concern, and there’s no doubt that people will make that leap in logic.  That, however, is not the fault of Amitin or of the data he presented, which pretty convincingly lays out the case that the broadcast industry is on the wrong side of the issue and should work to get better, any more than the makers of Oxycontin are to blame for the ways their drug is prescribed and used irresponsibly.

In a move that has sent shockwaves throughout Temple Nation, David Temple has purchased Digital Versatile Discs containing all three seasons of the television program Veronica Mars. Though the exact financials of the deal are unknown as of this writing, it is expected that Mr. Temple spent at least $45 and as much as $50 for the trio of box sets.

With the news surfacing last month regarding forgotten left-over Amazon gift card credit, rumors have been swirling regarding if and how Mr. Temple would spend these funds. It appears that the front office has found what they believe to be the answer to the glaring lack of critically-acclaimed television programs featuring adorable female leads.

“We feel really great about the deal,” Mr. Temple said in a press conference announcing the transaction. “We think this was a situation of the right deal falling into our laps at the right time.”

Though it was no secret that David Temple would soon be flaunting his new found financial flexibility, the commitment inherent in this deal raises some eyebrows. No one really know how much gift card credit Mr. Temple had or has, but a monetary commitment such as this will surely put some strain on the organization. In addition, with unopened seasons of The Kids in the Hall and Aqua Teen Hunger Force waiting in the minor leagues, it seems that perhaps the Veronica Mars DVDs are an extravagance David Temple did not need to acquire.

Veronica Mars owns a career 4.8 EVALOR (Enjoyment Value Above Law and Order Reruns), valuing the purchase price at more-or-less $10/EVALOR. This seems to be in stark contrast to other recent transactions:

The initial overpay sounds even worse when you factor in that shows with the makeup and profile of Veronica Mars average a loss of .8 EVALOR in each re-watching. Compare this to the average regression of a DVD collection such as Arrested Development’s .00001 EVALOR loss per re-watching, at it would seem that the shine will wear off Veronica Mars sooner rather than later. This could have major implications in future years, as Mr. Temple could have a very expensive asset just riding the shelf, or being used in a platoon with a romantic comedy or Biz Markie YouTube clips.

This purchase also ties up money that could be used this winter, when entertainment needs will be higher, and prices will most likely be lower due to the holiday season. Simply put, this was a move to boost morale, for David Temple to show that he cares about the TV he watches, and will overpay for entertainment now, even if it proves to be detrimental in the future. There seems to be no other explanation for such a grandiose move coming from a front office known for its shrewdness and fiscal responsibility.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see David Temple make some concessions in the near future, thanks to this uncharacteristic overspend. He may have to pass up craft beer for domestic, and perhaps even bring his lunch to work a few more days a month. He’s proven he has the ability to make situations such as those work, but it’s not a great go-to strategy for making a competitive DVD collection. Perhaps there are more moves coming, or perhaps we just don’t know the financial situation as well as we thought, but at this time, this seems like an atypical poor decision on behalf of David Temple.

When the White Sox game went into its second delay in the seventh inning, Comcast SportsNet switched over to an older episode of SportsNet Stories that discusses sporting news around Chicago. It's not limited to things related to professional sports, and had a segment about a high school swimmer going to a National tournament, high school basketball players who participate in AAU tournaments, and players from the Chicago Bears surprising season ticket holders by hand-delivering their season tickets.

But the one story that caught my eye (and hasn't received enough attention, clearly) is is the latest tribute to Ron Santo, who has now been honored by the creation of a cornfield maze in his honor in Hobart, Indiana.

I guess it's not too big of a stretch, baseball is played on grass and corn is grown in the ground, so one might expect the most logical way to honor Ron Santo other than permanently enshrining him in the Hall of Fame is to carve his face into a field of corn, so Cubs fans, corn maze enthusiasts, and smartasses like myself, can flock to the Region for an afternoon of corn maze adventures. 

You're probably thinking this is some sort of sophisticated crop circle and that this further proves that aliens are Cubs fans, but you're wrong-- the owner of the cornfield commissioned an artist to do a design/blue print via computer, then riding a lawn mower like a miniature CNC machine, they went to work carving Santo's face into the field of corn, making it the most impressive scultping of a face of any medium since the Venus de Milo or Lionel Richie's face in the "Hello" video.  

The owner of the field, Mike Williams (no relation to Kenny Williams, because that'd be strange), decided that he'd create the cornmaze to honor Santo's induction into the Hall of Fame saying, "it just something that, to me, is well-deserved and long overdue, and hopefully he can look down and see it." The quote seems unclear to me whether the Hall of Fame induction or the memorial via corn was long overdue, but Williams has the best intentions, and to be honest, the corn maze is impressive.

Williams is a lifelong Cubs fan, and on the TV interview said that growing up he played third base and wore #10. The best news about the corn maze is that it'll be open to the public on September 1st, so if you're the type who spends the fall traveling the countryside looking for perscribed corn fields to get lost in, consider making a trip to Hobart, Indiana. Tell Mike Williams that The Platoon Advantage sent ya. He won't know what you're talking about, but tell him anyway. 

Now, onto the games. 

Decided to take a different approach to the Cram Session today, since my bosses The Common Man and Bill aren't around to babysit, so I decided to talk to Twitter and ask what happened during today's games. Here are some updates on some of Sunday's games.

Pitcher of the Day: Sticking with the Chicago Cubs theme, it's a rare day when we can award Pitcher of the Day to a Cubs player, so I've decided to take the opportunity today, giving Chris Volstad the honor of the pitcher of the day. The Cubs won 5-0 today at Wrigley field, as Volstad pitched 6.2 innings, striking out 3, walking 3, and allowed 0 runs. For a pitcher with a 6.58 ERA, it's cause for celebration. 

Hitter of the Day: Curtis Granderson hit his 200th career homerun today. 

Other Games

Rays vs. A's

I'm going to avoid making a political statement here and point out this game didn't happen today because the Republican National Convention was using the Trop to host their convention today, therefore there was no game scheduled today. Being short a match-up on Sunday is just downright strange. 

White Sox vs. Mariners

The White Sox hosted the Mariners, and they won, going 6-0 on their latest homestand. There was a rain delay, Gavin Floyd left the game in the second inning with elbow tightness, and the game was called during a second raindelay in the seventh, following a Tyler Flowers homerun to take the lead. The Mariners continue their streak of playing well after the All-Star game, just not against teams in playoff contention. 

Dodgers vs. Marlins

This wasn't an exaggeration, Juan Uribe got his first hit of August, after going 0-for-15 in the month of August. After taking on hefty contracts (and talent, some might argue) from the Boston Red Sox, the Dodgers lost to the Marlins 6-2. The Dodgers had 11 hits, but were unable to to capitalize on opportunities, especially with runners in scoring position.  

Nationals vs. Phillies

Werth did make an impressive catch, while looking into the sun in Philadelphia (watch the video here). At the end of the day, the Nationals offense fell short against Cliff Lee yet again, who pitched seven innings, giving up just one run. 

Royals vs. Red Sox

The Red Sox are lighter in contracts, having traded Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for prospects, and they finally showed some spark in the fifth inning today against the Royals. David Ortiz was out of the lineup again and may find himself back on the disabled list. Pedro Ciriaco had a home run in the fifth, followed by a Bobbly Valentine ejection later in the inning for arguing a close play at first base. While @jturco pointed out Loney GIDP in his first Red Sox AB, he also tied the game with an RBI in the fifth. The Red Sox won 8-6. 

Blue Jays vs. Orioles

Terribly sad when the highlight of your day is having your favorite team's game canceled, but I guess in the case of the Toronto Blue Jays, a day off for rest and relief from mental anguish is the best you can hope for--especially when the alternative is facing the Baltimore Orioles. 

More games happened around the league yesterday. Check here for more box scores. 

Attendance Shaming, the journalistic crime of attempting to make fans feel bad for not showing up to the ballpark, has reared its head yet again in the Chicago market. This week White Sox fans were told that they should go sit in the corner and think about what they did, or in this case didn’t do, when the New York Yankees were in town. Wednesday night’s game attendance was 26,319 as the White Sox swept the Yankees, extending their lead over the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central to 1.5 games, and yet the narrative has been less about success on the Southside than who wasn’t there to see it.

Attendance shaming has been rampant in baseball culture over the past several years. A sparsely attended day game anywhere in the country seems to be an excuse to make value judgments about the commitment of that team’s fanbase. It’s easy to understand a soft target and the need to fill column inches, but the fundamental question of attendance shaming remains, what, if anything, of significance is being said and what is the value of counting bottoms in seats, anyway?

Convention tells us the more people at the game, the better, but the question is, better for who? For the team’s bottom line? Why is that something a non-shareholder should be concerned with? For the home team’s competitive advantage? If that were truly valuable than the Rays would go 0-81 at home. For the fan experience? You can argue that the fan experience is enhanced when one needn’t wait on line for hot dogs or the bathroom.

Putting that question aside for a moment, we should consider if attendance shaming has any basis in fact. With a variety of ways that seats can be filled, is actual physical attendance really the best metric with which to judge a fanbase’s involvement? Ticket sales fall into five basic buckets: Season tickets, pre-season sales, walk-up sales, secondary-market sales, and comps. In the age of dynamic pricing, giveaways, and other determinants in the market for ticket sales, the equation of “X number of people in the stadium= Y dollars” is no longer valid.  We know that ticket sales generate revenue for an organization, but higher attendance doesn’t necessary mean anything. Is selling 26,000 tickets at $20/ticket less valuable than selling 28,000 tickets at $18/ticket? Of course, that’s potentially 2,000 more cars in the parking lot and more bodies drinking, buying food, and Southpaw Pillow Pets. The converse is that more bodies means higher overhead in staffing and facilities such that the incremental increase in revenue may be more negligible than one might think, especially when considering discounted or comped tickets Wednesday night’s White Sox game at US Cellular Field was at 64 percent capacity, so it’s fair to assume it had no negative impact on operations, didn’t cause layoffs, didn’t cause a PR nightmare, and hasn’t affected branding, yet it remains a topic of discussion.

At the beginning of every season, teams prepare an annual budget with attendance projections, and as long as the attendance closely matches to what they analysts of projected, the difference has little bearing on things like trades, player acquisitions, and free agent signings. It’s a myth to assume that less people in the stands affects player payroll in a meaningful manner, especially in the age of revenue sharing. It’s important that we don’t confuse attendance with financial success: Though the White Sox are currently 24^th on the attendance list this season, they are 10^th on the Forbes list in baseball value, with current revenue of over $600MM, a 14% increase over last season.

It's been a while, again, since we've all gotten it together enough to do one of these. This week's topic was simple enough: Besides Vin Scully, because duh, who's your favorite broadcaster or broadcasting team? Our answers*,in randomized order:

David: Cory Provus, Twins

Call me a homer [you're a homer. --ed.], but I really like what Cory Provus is doing with the Twins radio broadcast. He's a smart, well-spoken guy, and he is shouldered with the task of working with Dan Gladden most days, which must suck so hard. Cory Provus should get a Presidential Medal of Freedom for having to work with that bloated, man-shaped slug. Dan Gladden is ostensibly your drunken uncle who played a little High A ball, and finds it his mission in life to educate all of us on what the game was like back in the glory years. Please, Dan Gladden, regale us with another fascinating tale of those years you played in Japan. What's that? Another rehash of that same story about that prank some dude played that one time? It's not even my birthday! I'd just like to go on record here and profess my desire for Dan Gladden to get bent. If that dullard never sat in front of a microphone again, it would be too soon.

It's hard for me to pick a favorite television broadcaster because I dislike all of them, as a rule. I'm not sure why, but it does not take long for me to sour to a baseball broadcaster, dismissing them like a bad bowl of soup at a Cracker Barrel. They talk too much, and when they talk I always pick up on a few (or more) little things that bother me and I can't let it go. They always seem in the way, somehow, like they're purposely going out of their way to ruin my baseball experience. Of course they are not deliberately trying to bother me while I'm watching baseball, that's my wife's job. (Insert rimshot) It never gets so bad that I have to mute the TV, though. I can at least stand it. It's like discovering a rock in your shoe while walking. It's annoying, but you'll tough it out until the end.

I flip around a lot between games most nights, but I always end up watching at least a few innings of the Rays. I'm not a fan, per se, I just like the way they do business. I respect that team, and I want to watch them and I hope they do well. I can handle the Rays TV folks, mostly because it seems like they know when to shut the hell up. They don't need to fill time with inane stories, or lecture me about how a pitcher is getting hit because he's not keeping the ball down in the zone. They let the baseball do the talking. They also use meaningful stats, a move that can and should be copied by other clubs. When someone's up to bat, I get their OPS. When a pitcher takes the mound, they'll give me the K/BB ratio. They even had a full-on nerd dayback in May, with FIP and everything. It was just one day, but, you know, baby steps.

Jason: Nobody!

I don't have a favorite announcer. I don't have a least favorite announcer. I don't have strong feelings on Vin Scully beyond an appreciation for the fact that Chris Carter (not that one; no, not that one, either) loved him enough to name Gillian Anderson's X-Files character after him. I've written on this very site about Hawk Harrelson and on my blog about the Ray Fosse/Scott Hatteberg debacle in Oakland, but in the end, I only dislike Harrelson so much, and that so much is, I suspect, quite a bit less than other people dislike him.

Announcers aren't fungible, of course. Joe Morgan always found a way to poke the small, cute bear known as internet baseball nerds, and that's a whole different approach to calling a game than Orel Hershiser has. Still, I have a hard time remembering times when X said this or that or the other. I can't really name anybody's signature call, outside of Glen Kuiper's "that baby is GONE" (and that's only because someone once made an Amber Alert joke on Twitter about the call -- now that's memorable), but on-field moments, games, and attributes stay with me as they do with any baseball fan. I remember Dallas Braden's perfect game, though. I remember Ben Grieve's swing. I will never, sadly, forget Coco Crisp's throwing motion. I don't remember a single thing any booth-man ever said about these things.

It's not that I don't like them or think they're necessary in the moment. It's really just that I don't care about them as soon as I shut off the TV.

Cee: Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy, Red Sox

I wanted to write about Vin Scully, which would be the most obvious choice for me (or anyone for that matter), so I had to pick someone else. I watch a lot of games and typically find broadcast teams boring enough to mute (ever watch a Diamondbacks game?) or annoying enough to mute (climb under this bus, Hawk Harrelson). There are some fantastic broadcast teams out there, but my current favorite, Scully aside, is Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy, who have been in the booth in Boston on NESN together since 2001. There's something about their dynamic that should be annoying. There's something that seems a bit too formulaic about their relationship, the Felix Unger and Oscar Madison of the baseball world. Orsillo is straight-laced and detailed as the play-by-play announcer, while Remy often seems distracted. Orsillo has a melodic cadence in his speech, while Remy assaults ears with a thick New England accent. Remy starts tangential conversations about everything non-baseball, from his Wally the Monster stuffed animal to his favorite drink at Dunkin Donuts, while Orsillo tries to reign him back into baseball discussions. But for some reason, the dynamic just works. Their friendship seems genuine, their banter is often humorous, and regardless of the state of the Red Sox, they call a fair game, giving credit and criticism of both teams, with no blatant homerism (I've now backed that bus up over Hawk Harrelson). There have been some downright hysterical moments in the NESN booth with Don and Jerry, like the time they saw a fan grab his girlfriend's boob mid-inning, or that time they played with a light saber. Don and Jerry are also fantastic dancers.

Bill: Len Kasper and Bob Brenly, Cubs

I don't often witness growth in broadcasters. I'm sure there are a lot of ways a professional broadcaster can improve his or her delivery, timing, etc., but I don't tend to notice those things much. Substantively, I find that they're either good or bad (and most are bad), and that you can tell right away whether a given broadcaster knows his or her stuff.

It wasn't that way with Bob Brenly. He was never in that inner circle of the most immediately detestable broadcasters (Tim McCarver might have that one all to himself), but he wasn't good either, one of those totally forgettable guys who would often appear on things like the down-ticket Fox Saturday game and spout a bunch of forgettable and vaguely applicable cliches. That seems to have changed -- slowly, but hugely -- starting in 2005, when Brenly started working with Len Kasper.

Kasper, the play-by-play man, still drives the show. He's witty, he doesn't feel the need to fill up every bit of dead air, he's not afraid of peppering in some stats that don't factor into the Triple Crown. His coverage of the game is just smarter than most, and much more enjoyable to listen to.

Brenly seems to have absorbed some of Kasper's energy and style. His analysis, when Brenly analyzes, is still hit or miss (which is still better than it had been), but more importantly, they have an excellent rapport with each other, and the two together have exactly the right temperament for covering Cubs games -- they're almost always upbeat, even in a blowout loss, and don't take anything too seriously. They seem (or WGN seems) to recognize that most Cubs fans are well past the point of caring about wins and losses (not just this year, but always), and that they're out to have fun first and watch some baseball second. Len and Bob have fun, and you have fun watching, and that (much more than offering insightful or complex analysis, in my mind) is the best thing that can be said about a broadcaster or team (who aren't Vin Scully)..

The Common Man: Bob Uecker, Brewers

So, The Common Man said that he would participate in the Friday Forum, in fact this was even th
e topic that he selected, because presumably he had a lot he wanted to say about Brewers announcer Bob Uecker. He probably had some anecdotes that would have come together for a top-notch paragraph or two about a beloved announcer, but he really dropped the ball on this. He promised that he'd talk about why Uecker is his favorite, but clearly promises are easily broken, especially when you have a pseudonym to hide behind. Since he didn't write about Bob Uecker, please accept this video as an apology from The Platoon Advantage on behalf of The Common Man. 

"The penalties aren't strong enough," is what they say. Players are still using banned substances, so they're not deterred by the fifty-game suspension. Suspend them for a year for the first offense. Suspend them for life! Deport 'em! Et cetera.

By "they," of course, I mean your typical pro sportswriter desperate for an attention-grabbing angle, the ones who are all high-and-mighty about drug use in baseball now to make up for the fact that they completely, willfully ignored it back when it (arguably) actually mattered. The guys on those oddly elevated horses over there. The lamestream media. The ones who, generally speaking, I disagree with on just about everything. 

I disagree with them on this, too, almost entirely. Craig Calcaterra makes good sense, as always, when he points out that the fact that players are getting caught is a sign that the system is working, not that it's broken. And it's not like that many players are getting caught. Maybe the system is broken in ways we couldn't possibly be aware of, but the system isn't broken because it's catching violators, exactly as intended. 

But then, Colon seems to pose a special problem to me. 50 games is a pretty huge deterrent to most players. You've got to figure you've got ten seasons if you're lucky, and getting caught costs you a third of one of those, plus all the stygma and scorn. Assuming they're testing as often and as thoroughly as they like to act like they are, fifty games is plenty.

Unless the risk isn't a loss of 50 games, but a gain of however many games you get to play until you get caught. From 2006-09, Bartolo Colon averaged just 12 games pitched and about 64 innings per season, and put up a 5.18 ERA. He was out of baseball for all of the 2010 season, at age 37. So what did Bartolo have to lose? He wasn't going to the Hall of Fame, didn't have much of a reputation to protect. His entire legacy was two All-Star selections and a Cy Young Award he stole from Johan Santana. If you've still got the fire and access to something you think will get you back on the field, what's stopping you? Getting caught doesn't mean you lose fifty games, it just means the game is over. You're playing with house money. 

I still don't think baseball should toughen the penalty (I also don't really think PEDs suddenly made Colon a good pitcher again, but this is not the time). Colon is beyond the reach of baseball's long arm; suspend him for a year if you want to, or for life, or for all the lives and worlds to come, and it's all the same. He's the one type of person -- the person that's on the outside of the game looking in anyway -- for whom the 50 games doesn't work, and it turns out that tougher penalties won't work on him, either. You could get him to sign a contract that comes with a real-world penalty if he fails (he pays back his last three years' salary, or something), but the players' association would never go for that. 

So what's the solution? I don't have one. Stop carrying about PEDs, probably. They're a part of sports now, and they're not likely to go away. They're much more likely to become a regulated, sanctioned part of the game eventually. Until then, just accept that a part of the system working is that a few guys are going to be caught, and ride this nonsense out.