When a team drafts the General Manager’s son in the fifth round in a huge reach like the White Sox did for Kenny Williams, Jr. in last year’s amateur draft, you should be amused and make cracks about nepotism.

When the same team does the same thing for the General Manager’s OTHER son in the following year… Man, you just have to applaud the size of their balls. They’re HUGE.

Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus Unfiltered thinks people (or at least, Peter Schmuck) aren’t publishing The Truth about Barry Bonds. Some of his points are duly noted—Bonds is not the slow, broken player Schmuck casts him as. But with other points, you get the feeling that Schmuck just got deeply under Sheehan’s skin and then couldn’t get out again—such as when Schmuck claims that Bonds would create “a chronic public relations problem” and Sheehan responds, “Barry Bonds doesn’t create a public relations problem…Barry Bonds has a media relations problem.” That’s pretty weak hair-splitting. And Sheehan’s dismissal of Barry Bonds legal problems looks a bit different now that the indictment as been refiled. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a spirited defense of Barry Bonds (hard to come by these days), it’s worth a read.

Respect Jeter’s Gangster weighs in on the Jobagate fist-pump controversy with some situations in which it may or may not be appropriate for you to pump your fist.

The Padres’ struggles have inspired a debate over at Gaslamp Ball about whether professional ballplayers even need coaches. I say they do. What do you say?

Ever wondered what happened to the old Tiger Stadium? Joe Lapointe has an article in The New York Times and Fabrizio Constantini an eye-opening slide show. (Did you know that they auctioned off one of the dugout urinals last year? I somehow missed that story. And somehow, my life was complete without that particular piece of information.) It’s weird to think that the Tigers have been in Comerica for almost ten years, and that Tiger Stadium has been mouldering scarcely a mile away the entire time. My one beef with the slide show—I like artsy detail shots as much as any amateur shutterbug, but I would have liked a picture of the entire field included, to serve as an establishing shot. And some “before” shots would have been nice to go along with the “afters.”

Bleeding Blue and Teal weighs in on Griffey-to-Seattle trade talk and how such a move might actually make sense.

As draft day approaches, Minor League Ball looks at some high school hitters of interest. If you root for a craptastic team with a high pick, you can start drooling over them now. If you root for a great team with a lot of money, you can start hoping they develop “signability issues.”

Yanksfan Soxfan brings us a blind item from the NY Daily News about a “formerly awesome” pitcher whose shoulder woes are actually due to “years of smoking pot” and “one drug-addled incident in which he had to carry a passed-out date up three flights of stairs.” Guesses in the comments range from the preposterous (Schilling, Pedro) to the “hmmmm…maybe” (Gagne, Zito, Pavano). Got a better guess? Let ‘em know!

If you’ve got cabin fever because it’s a gorgeous May Day and you came into work today like a good doobie instead of calling in sick and going hiking like you really, really wanted to, maybe you should take a look at Slate’s series on baseball in the Dominican Republic (with, of course, an accompanying slide show).

Dan Graziano of the Star Ledger prints some email correspondence with Carlos Delgado’s agent. Neither man comes off looking very good (hint: someone calls someone a retard). Yes, these men are professionals! Do not try this at home!

Razzball takes a look back at Pete Rose’s 1983 season, a year “Pete evaded success like it was the taxman.”

Joe Posnanski brings you Brian Bannister’s crazy day-night splits.

And I said Over The Monster’s picture of Mike Lowell (above) looked like “George Clooney-meets-Humphrey Bogart-meets-UFH.” Paul countered, “He just looks like he’s giving Tek the ol’ stink eye.” What do you think, UmpBumpers?

What else should I be reading? Help me procrastinate better!

I feel that Tuesday often gets lost in the workweek shuffle. There’s Monday, which gets a lot of attention for being first. There’s Wednesday, which gets to be “Hump Day.” Thursday is often “thirsty,” or at least gets a sort of half-credit for being almost Friday. And then there’s Friday itself, which, when it rolls around, we’re all so thankful for. But where does poor Tuesday come in? The shock of Monday has worn off, but the ray of hope that Wednesday offers hasn’t yet broken through the gloom. Well, I’ve decided Tuesday needs more love. And on UmpBump, love = links. So let’s get to ‘em. And let’s do it lineup-style!

Leading off, my own Metro Column: A Few Reasons Why Baseball Is Awesome. Need I say more?

Batting second, the June amateur draft is just two months away and The Baseball Analysts are getting ready with a must-read preview series.

Third, Baseball Musings points out that Randy Johnson’s loss last night was unearned. Literally—all the runs the Giants managed came as a result of errors by the D-Backs.

Batting cleanup, Beyond the Box Score looks at some hot starts (and a few slow ones) and identifies which ones are flukes.

Fifth—this one’s for all you Milwaukee Brewers fans. Take heart! There is one closer who may be scarier to have in your bullpen than Eric Smelly Gagne (as my Red Sox-loving roommate still calls him, and will ever call him): Joe Borowski. Bugs and Cranks has the hilarious, heartbreaking rant.  (VegasWatch also chimes in, pointing out that thanks largely to Borowski, the Tigers aren’t in quite as deep a hole as it seems.)

Sixth, Joe Posnanski has a nice post about airport security lines. (And if that’s not baseball-related enough for you, then you can read this one about how much he loves Brian Bannister’s slow-ass fastball.)

Seventh,  this Marlins fan has started Florida Marlins Finances to prove it to the management that they are profitable, dammit, whether they like it or not and with or without that new, taxpayer-funded stadium they want.

Eighth, via River Ave Blues: the Red Sox and New York face off again tomorrow and the first pitch will be thrown from space. (Side note: doesn’t it seem weird that the Sox and Yanks are playing each other again already? And that the Brewers and the Reds will also be facing each other for the second time later this week? And that the White Sox and the Tigers have already faced each other twice? And that the Rays have also faced the Yankees and the Orioles twice? Divisional face-offs are all well and good, but the scheduler may have taken it a bit far this April.)

And batting ninth, the pitcher,  Rumors and Rants, who brings us more good news about Randy Johnson: the mullet (pictured above) is back! It is just as I hoped it would be!

And as a sort of pinch hitter, I have to give a shoutout to Tim Dierkes at MLB Trade Rumors for giving me credit for my foresight on Kyle Snyder, who has cleared waivers and accepted an assignment to Boston’s AAA affiliate, the Paw Sox. There were doubters at the time! But I was right! And as regular readers of UmpBump know, there’s few things Sarah Green loves more in life than being proven right (coffee, my as-yet-unborn children…let’s see…what else? Nope, I think that basically covers it).