Posts by Will Brinson at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

President George W. Bush shocked the world with his baseball knowledge, or lack of unknowledge (it's about W, I can make them up, m'kay?), the other day, naming Chase Utley and Roy Halladay as the two players he would use to start a baseball team. That got us MLB FanHousers to thinking, what two players would we take right now to pick a team?

No specifications, other than it must be one hitter and one pitcher. In other words, contract doesn't factor in and age only factors if you care about winning in the long term. The discussion got interesting to say the least. Here's the top five in the final tally with the discussion -- which features snappy one liners, Jon Bois reading minds and some veiled Nickelodeon references -- after the jump. Your picks in the comments.

Hitters
David Wright -- 4
Jose Reyes -- 3
Hanley Ramirez -- 2
Chase Utley -- 2
Justin Upton -- 1

Pitchers
Brandon Webb -- 3
Cole Hamels -- 2
Jake Peavy -- 2
Clay Buchholz -- 1
Fausto Carmona -- 1

For those of you that don't know, Joe Posnanski of the KC Star does these "Banny Logs" on his personal blog, where he chronicles each of Royals pitcher Brian Bannister's starts. Joe -- and everyone else -- is infatuated with Bannister for a few reasons.

First, he's a good pitcher. Second, he's smart as hell. He combines both of those to be a rare breed of baseball player -- one who truly cares about the pajama/basement Sabermetric numbers, and a guy whose mental approach to the chess-like game of pitching is similar to that of Greg Maddux. That's not a direct comparison, but it's certainly valid. Anyway, Joe mentions a hilariously awesome text message exchange after the game.

It was like that. Banny was mostly working fastball as he does when he's successful, but his secondary pitches were generally not coming in the red-zone 84-85 mph range. Plus, it looked like Banny had a really good fastball. He got 11 swinging strikes, which is a lot for him, and most of those came on fastballs. He had his command too. I sent him a text after the game, and he wrote back to say: "Just had to let my Babip regress before I started dealing again."

Seriously, how can you not love this guy?

No. Seriously. How can you not? A major league pitcher -- arguably the ace on a major league team, depending on how you feel about Gil Meche -- totally monitors his BABIP. Most regular baseball fans don't monitor BABIP, but Bannister, he is all over that mess. The guy knows his stats; instead of some tangent about the changing world of baseball, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy it.

Via Vegas Watch

Jimmy Traina is on fi-ya with the awkward music videos from Major League Baseball teams this week, and today's group of ballers on the mic are the Minnesota Twins. While this video doesn't touch yesterday's Oriole Magic! number, it is worth noting that anytime you get to see Boof Bonser sing "I paint cor-ners of the dish", you've already done a good day's work.



I wonder how many times it took to actually take this vid. Because too many cymbal smashings can't be considered good for your elbow.

Generally, I think that women who are professional athletes and who are viewed as "sexy" in the public eye get more attention than other professional athletes. Sometimes, in fact, they get more attention than other women. Which makes the utter lack of female professional athletes on Maxim's Top 100 list both a little surprising, and given who did make the cut, a little appalling, honestly.

The merits (Marissa Miller at number one) and the demerits (Britney Spears at nineteen) have already been discussed, but seriously, where are the athletes here? The only two athletes that I counted, while doing detailed research that involved clicking on lots of photos, who could remotely qualify were Danica Patrick and Stacy Keibler-- a lady of the WWE -- unless you're willing to count Diora Baird because she decided to putt in a bikini.

These two ladies checked in at 91 and 89 overall, respectively. The problem with that? Well, besides the fact that they are the only athletes even remotely involved, there's also the issue of the ranking here. Because the difference between Danica and Jennifer Love Hewitt (20) is reversed and divisible by ten in non-crazy land.

I would also ask, if we're going to roll with early 90's throwbacks, where is Anna Kournikova? Britney and Christina Aguilera can make this list but not the Russian "tennis" "star"?

Sitting there trying to reflect on what the possible loss of David West would mean to the Hornets ("devastating" and "series-ending" come to mind at first), I couldn't help but think of what Robert Horry did to Steve Nash last year. That's because Mark Jackson, Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy kept mentioning it. And with good reason -- West was hobbling to the locker room because Horry stuck him in the back with a pick under the post.

It probably was not illegal. And it probably does not deserve a flagrant foul. But it certainly was not what a "winner" would do, as Jackson (who seems less and less concerned with sounding intelligent now that his coaching gig has vanished into thin air) kept proclaiming.

What I want to know is, are all of Big Shot Bob's ridiculously, um, big shots from years past clouding our judgment about the way he's been utilized over the past few years? He's accruing a foul every 3.4 minutes this year, and maybe that's just a direct representation of Greg Popovich's Hack-A-____ strategy thus far. But if it is, doesn't that kind of indicate even further that Horry is his quiet enforcer on the floor?

I don't want to call Horry a dirty player, because he has given the NBA some ridiculously memorable shots over the years (his role in Hitch notwithstanding). However, the quietly discomforting abuse of personal foul rules that the Spurs are using this year has already been discussed publicly by the commissioner.

John Lackey, SP, LAA -- The would-be Cy Young candidate returned for the first time this season on Wednesday, throwing 99 pitches over seven innings, while allowing six hits, one earned run and one walk. He also struck out four. Good luck getting your hands on him if you don't have him already. He's a legit fantasy ace though, so if you can somehow still get him cheaper than normal market value, it's best to hustle up and do so.

Justin Duchscherer, SP/RP, OAK -- He only qualifies as a reliever for fantasy purposes, and with the way he's pitched in the starting role, it is hard to imagine him going back to the pen. He hasn't allowed more than two runs in anyone game this year or walked more than two in one game and really just been a victim of no offense behind him. A very nice buy when you look at his 2.20 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and his 24:7 K:BB ratio against his 3-2 record.

Brandon Webb goes for what would be a major league leading nine wins tonight at home against the Colorado Rockies. First of all, nine wins on May 15 would be absolutely insane. As it stands today though, regardless of the outcome, he is on pace for a 30+ win season. Obviously that's not possible.

Well, actually, it's possible. But it is certainly unlikely. Vegas Watch did the math on the possibility that Webb gets 30 wins this season. Bear in mind that is something that was done a lot back in the day (147 times before 1920). However, it's only been pulled off three times since 1920, the latest by Denny McLain, with 31 wins in 1968.

Sure, the Cardinals-Cubs rivalry is dead to the rest of the country. But those charming Midwesterners still think that their hatred of each other is endearing and/or anyone else still cares. So, I say, let them have their fun. We'll laugh at their expense regardless. Like this Cubs fan, who goes into Cardinal territory and volunteers to put on a blindfold and race a Redbird in a jalapeno eating contest. That's just not going to work out well for anyone.



But, hey! At least the Cubs beat them in the race to win a World Series title. Oh. Right. Nevermind.

Via Home Run Derby

Kudos to State Farm for making this year's Home Run Derby more exciting, by letting one fan call his/her shot, thereby adding some much needed drama to the event. Via Darren Rovell, comes State Farm's intriguing new promotion for the Derby in New York.

Here's the deal. One lucky fan picked out of the pool of entered names in the contest will get to come onto the field and call, a la Babe Ruth, where exactly Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz will hit his first pitch.

If Ortiz hits the shot where the fan said it would go, the fan wins a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid vehicle, the official vehicle of MLB that has a value of roughly $50,500, and a 2009 season ticket package for his/her favorite MLB team.

Now, previously, Century 21 had coughed up $250,000 towards the purchase of a new home (fwiw, I refuse to believe that there aren't loopholes galore in that prize after taxes, APRs, loans, etc). As Rovell points out, the Tahoe is certainly worth less than that (and according to the official rules, the prize package maxes out at $101,500.00 US).

The lucky fan also gets a five day trip to New York, accommodations at a "premiere NYC hotel", four tickets to the Home Run Derby and the All Star Game, some sort of Broadway night out in NYC, a $1,000.00 Mastercard gift certificate and a bunch of MLB gear. So if you're the one picked, life is sweet. Life is even sweeter if you get Ortiz to play along with whatever shot you pick and you end up winning that Tahoe.

And since Ortiz plans to aim for the fan's spot anyway, my personal plan would be to point at the catcher's mitt and make sure Ortiz knew to whiff the ball, since it's not his first homer but the first ball put in play.

We've all heard about the SI Cover Jinx. It's slightly less evil and demonic (and real) than the dreaded "Madden Curse". But it turns out that individual athletes are not the only ones affected by the evil powers that inhabit the artificially produced covers of Sports Illustrated.

Who else is affected, you might ask? Let's just say if you are a professional athlete, you do not want to appear in the SI Swimsuit Issue anytime soon with your ladyfriend.

Somebody get Leonard Nimoy on the case, because this is spooky.

Take a quick look at this list, focusing only on the couples featured. A frightening pattern develops.

Quite a few have had what can be described as, depending on your definition, issues.

Now, it would appear that the Swimsuit Couples Jinx takes a little longer to affect those photographed than the normal SI Cover Jinx. But it still gets the job done. Listed on SI's page are a slew of athletes, most of whom have taken a nose dive from grace recently.

Roger Clemens (slightly less popular than Dubya), Mark McGwire (um, yeah), Shaun Alexander (pleading the Bengals for a job), Richard Jefferson (apparent choker), Jason Kidd (downfall of Dallas), Glen Rice (violence), Bill Romanowski (supplements/violence and gay cowboy movies, not that there's anything wrong with the latter), Annika Sorenstam (retired), Ricky Williams (weed), Cobi Jones (soccer), Allan Houston (inherited Chris Webber's knees), Alex Rodriguez (too much to name) ... whew ... and there are more!

Eddie George and Tom Gugliotta come to mind, although most of their downturns were pre-photo shoot, which can only be attributed to some Lostian foreshadowing evil, or something. Really, the only person not affected was Keyshawn Johnson, who, as we all know, is the best dressed man in America.