A Little Bloggin from Curtis

Any time fans can get a close look at an athlete's view of various things from the athletes themselves, it's an exciting feature. One of the ways to do that now is checking out all of the sport figures that are creating blogs. There are a few of them around today like Curt Schilling's very popular "38 Pitches" Blog. Twins reliever Pat Neshek has one and the NBA have a handful on its website, including Gilbert Arenas, excuse me, Agent Zero. I would actually probably read Gilbert's blog if I cared about the NBA whatsoever. But one of my favorites that started during spring training is Curtis Granderson's blog on ESPN. Check it out and bookmark it if you've never seen his page before.

Curtis' blog is very informative, entertaining and shows that he's a down-to-earth guy that is hard not to root for. Plus, unlike The Wheelhouse, his blog is updated frequently and talks mostly about the Tigers season and different opinions on topics around the baseball world. It's different to actually here a player's opinion on things instead of the lame quotes you read in game stories.

There's always people wondering if the players are the ones actually writing the blog, but I've got no reason to believe it's not Curtis blogging away. He's one of the few players in all of Major League Baseball to have earned a college degree, and I've heard from a pretty reliable source that he is the one producing the content.

Not only are blogs great from the fans perspective, but they're beneficial to the athlete too because they are receiving free PR for themselves while interacting with the everyday fan at the same time. I'm interested to see what other athletes will join their peers in the blog world in the future.

Extra, Extra!

Always looking for some way to make news, the Pirates put together another great note during Sunday's 11-3 loss to Colorado. Not only did the loss put the finishing touches on a four-game sweep by the Rockies to open the second half, but the Pirates were knocked right into the Rockies record book...again.

What was it you ask?

Well as I was scanning yesterday's boxscores as I do each day at the office, I noticed that the Rockies had a truck load of doubles...eight to be exact. Add those doubles in with a triple and two home runs and you have 11 extra-base hits. ELEVEN!! That's a ton of extra-base hits. I don't care if it's at Coors or not, you don't see that very often. I quickly grabbed the Colorado media guide to see what their team record was for extra-base hits in a game. I wasn't surprised when I found that 11 XBH did in fact tie the Rockies record. It had been done three other times in Rockies history and no surprise again, one of those games was against the Pirates back on August 3, 2003 at PNC Park. Take a look at that boxscore at baseball-reference.com, it's not pretty.

I also was not surprised to look at the Pirates pitching line to see who pitched this gem and, of course, find that it was Zach Duke. How could it not be? Duke was hammered for nine runs on 10 hits in 5.0 innings of work. This is nothing new. Duke is probably the most hittable pitcher in the history of baseball. Numbers don't lie. He's surrendered 151 hits in 115 innings in 2008 and is not much better for his career (646 hits in 522 innings). Awesome. How he currently has an ERA under five is beyond me (4.92), but he won't be under that mark for very long...probably after his next start.

Even though the Rockies tying their XBH record isn't exactly breaking news, it somehow was lost in the AP recap thanks to Aaron Cook's All-Star year. I guess that's a good thing for the Pirates. Ah, just another day in the life of a Pirates fan.

I Don't See Barry Bonds Playing This Year...or Ever.

Remember all that talk during spring training and April that some contender would pickup Barry Bonds because said contender would be desperate for a bat come mid-season? Well, it doesn't look like that's coming true anytime soon. We're heading into mid-July and nobody is talking about Bonds. I read an article about three weeks ago that said "Barry has no desire to play in the minor leagues or independent ball," and that his cell phone was not ringing. Yawn. Maybe that's because nobody has the desire to take a chance on Bonds for a ridiculous price.

And can you blame them? Despite what you think about the steroids issue hovering over his records and legacy, Bonds is...or was one of the best hitters in the game. He's the Home Run King. But we're talking about a guy who would be limited to play only DH thanks to his knee and someone who has not taken a competitive baseball swing in almost a year. What kind of hitter would they be getting and how far away would the next DL stint be?

Not too mention that he's asking for an absurd amount of money to play a half season of baseball. I don't even think the Yankees are that dumb to go out and spend the money on him. Teams would not only get Bonds at a high price, but they would be getting the media/steroids circus too. It would be the biggest story in baseball and the media hounds would be out every single day to try to entice Bonds into talking about his indictment and steroids. I don't see many teams that would want to deal with all that. And if he sits out the entire season because of all this, you can forget about a comeback in 2009. Bonds will turn 44 later this month and already played the last couple seasons on a hurt knee. That's too much to play through 162-game season.

The only way I see Bonds playing baseball in the Majors ever again would be at the trading deadline and only if his asking price comes down drastically for the half season. And at this point, with no teams talking about him, I don't see it happening. I think we'll be seeing Brett Favre throwing touchdowns at Lambeau Field before we ever seen Bonds swing his maple bat in the Majors again.