Looking forward to the return of Cubs games, the wife and bug being back in town and some beautiful weather for Artscape in Baltimore this weekend. And, as always, clicking around on the internet.
- Last night was was Prospect Porn Night across the Cubs minor league system as Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler, Dan Vogelbach and Christian Villanueva all hit home runs. This pretty much sums it up.
- Baez’s bomb came while making his first start at second base, the position I’ve long thought is where he’ll play in the majors (with a serious Jeff Kent comp coming to mind, in terms of production, if not style). This is the first of the last steps before Baez gets the next (and possibly last) call up.
- There were some pretty good pitching performances across the system, as well.
- One of the better pitching prospects in the Cubs system is Jen-Ho Tseng, a 19 year old right handed starter with solid stuff and some room to grow into more. Cubs Insider has a nice scouting piece on him.
- George Harrison was my favorite Beatle (really) and I think it’s neat, if a bit weird, what the last letter he ever sent was.
- People love to complain about what governments can’t do, but it’s hard to apply that argument to the space agencies. NASA and it’s European counterpart, ESA, are making a habit of having their equipment perform far past expectations.
Very…hard. Heh.
- Some folks at NASA think the craters and caves of the moon could one day be used as shelter for astronauts (and colonialists, finger’s crossed). Of course, there would be pitfalls to such a plan.
Off the top of my head.
- The Wizards had a busy week, going 4-0 in Summer League play. The improved play and development of Otto Porter and Glen Rice, Jr. gives some hope to the Wizards wing depth situation kind-of-thing.
- That depth becomes important with the departure of Trevor Ariza and the arrival of Paul (freaking) Pierce to the Wizards. Pierce is well into the twilight of his career, but should still have some usefulness as an offensive contributor on the court. I think, however, the most important part of this signing is what it signifies about how the rest of the league now looks at Washington – a place where you can go and compete to win a title.
- Truth About It touches on that and looks at just how Pierce will fit in with the current Wizards roster.
- The team also completed a sign-and-trade for DeJuan Blair from the Mavericks, effectively swapping out Ariza and Trevor Booker for Pierce, Blair and Kris Humphries. I can’t say any of this makes the team better, but I don’t think you could definitively prove it makes them any worse. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. And there is still an available roster spot or two.
- I thought I would look for some new webcomics. I found all the webcomics.
- And then there was the time the Sex Pistols toured Texas.
- The Saints links will ramp back up soon, what with training camp right around the corner. In the meantime, the Times-Picayune counted down the Saints roster and you are not going to believe who was ranked number one.
- Here are five Saints who could have breakout years.
- The biggest story of the Saints offseason was the contract drama and negotiation with Jimmy Graham, who eventually signed the richest contract ever by an NFL tight end. Of note, though, is NFL Network analyst and recently retired Falcon’s TE, Tony Gonzalez, who is still
blatheringopining that Graham should be paid like an elite WR. Canal Street Chronicles points out that, huh, look at that – he is. - I don’t know what’s more amazing, that Charles Darwin’s entire library from his voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle is available online, or that he had such an extensive library with him at sea. According to this, he brought over 195,000 pages worth of reading material with him.
Anyone seen Darwin?
- I feel like this is going to be a nice weekend, let’s have a happy little Song of the Week.
