Hump Day Reading: Pot-smoking mystery pitcher edition

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!