He's losing his mind. And I'm reaping the benefits.

If Brian Sabean isn't the worst GM in baseball, he's close. The Goog has made its spidery thoughts very clear on the matter. I'm not sure if "delusional" is also something you'd use to refer to Sabean; "worst GM" is probably enough. No reason to pile on. But If Sabo keeps saying things like he did today, people are going to start to wonder:

Sabean sees a San Francisco team that can contend. Not in two seasons, not next season, but in 2008. "As long as we've got a chance to stay in and around third place, why not?" Sabean said as he stood along the dugout rail and watched his players take batting practice. "Why wouldn't you want to think that way? These guys think that way. I don't think we're going to lose as many games as we did last year. If anything, we're going to be a second-half team."

Two possibilities here: Sabean doesn't actually believe this, and he's just saying it to keep fans happy and keep his job through a pretty ugly rebuilding situation. Every GM has to do it sometimes. Either that, or he actually believes what he's saying. I think we all know which scenario is more horrifying.

Rumors have been filtering out of the Bay Area that Giants managing partner Peter Magowan would be retiring potentially as soon as this year, but it appears it may be more imminent than that; the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Giants have called a special meeting on Friday. The likely outcome of this meeting would be the purchase of Magowan's shares, and him subsequently stepping down from his role as managing partner of the ballclub.

Sources tell us the real topic is the 66-year-old Magowan's planned retirement, which could lead to his ownership shares - estimated to be worth well over $70 million - being offered to fellow partners. The team overall is valued in excess of $500 million.

There was no immediate word on who might succeed Magowan, but the job is expected to go to someone already connected to the ownership group. The names mentioned most frequently are the team's general partner, former Microsoft general counsel William Neukom, and principal partner and business investor John Scully.

Now, it's possible that all of this is speculation. But it's more likely that Magowan is seeking to move on. He's 66, the Giants are in mid-life crisis in terms of which direction to take the franchise, and his second biggest signature signing, Barry Zito, is getting rave reviews when he eeks out a quality start and no decision after starting 0-7.

The other point worth noting is that Magowan recently gave General Manager Brian Sabean a contract extension; whether the new managing partner is willing to honor that or not remains to be seen. As the Chron notes, it is unlikely that whoever takes over as the face of the partnership conglomerate will be as vocal about their opinions on how to run the team. That does not mean they won't put someone they trust in charge though.

So, lest we all forget, not only is Barry Bonds possibly got some collusion coming against him, but he's also got that whole indictment lying to a federal grand jury thing to deal with. Poor guy. If you remember the particulars of the indictment back in November, Bonds was charged with one count of obstruction and four counts of perjury.

Well, a new superseding indictment is charging Bonds with 14 counts of making false declarations and one count of obstruction of justice. So what does it all mean? Nothing much, it seems.

No new lies were alleged in the new indictment and Bonds wouldn't serve additional prison time if convicted.

"It's exactly the same," Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane said. "It's two ways of saying it's lying and there's really no substantial difference between what he was charged with then and what he is charged with now."

So yes: it's pretty much the same thing. But the wording and charges are a bit different. Confusing? Perhaps.

This is why I never went to law school.

Peter Magowan has been the managing partner of the the San Francisco Giants since 1993. In other words, the Barry Bonds Era -- it's squarely on his watch. That means both good and bad things, in the sense that a lot of "history" was made, a new stadium was built and paid for, and the biggest free agent signings in the team's history (Bonds being the best and Barry Zito being the worst) went down. Of course, he is also the man that continues to employ Brian Sabean as General Manager.

But there's a possibility that he could be stepping down as acting owner (or general managing partner, if you feel like being quasi-technical about it) in the near future.

Neither Magowan nor his manager/cut man Larry Baer has chosen to respond for the record (a possible first in the history of this ownership). Neither was on hand to watch Tim Lincecum dismiss the Phillies 8-2 on Saturday, which is not that unusual. On the other hand, vice president for communications Staci Slaughter, referring to Magowan, told Our Team's John Shea the other day, "He's 66, and has thought about it from time to time, but no decision has been made at all. At this point, he has no decision on that.' In other words, an era in Giants baseball may be coming to an end. We think.

That's certainly far from definite, but it at least sounds like there's the possibility for change on the horizon. And the SF Chron estimates based on what the franchise is worth right now, it would take approximately $70 million to buy out his share of ownership.

As Rotto points out, there's no telling how new ownership would approach the team. But assuming Magowan does step down, you can bet his legacy will involve more talk of Bonds and Zito than Cain and Lincecum.

It's a dangerous time to be a baseball fan. Anthony Giraudio died after suffering brain injuries in a fight outside AT&T Park on Friday night while the Giants were playing inside the stadium. According to his father, the 18-year old was punched from behind after responding to something said to a female friend. He fell, hit his head and suffered the fatal injury. He was pronounced dead on Saturday afternoon.

Another 18-year old, Taylor Buckley, was charged with aggravated assault at the time and was released on bail. He later turned himself in to police to face upgraded charges of homicide.

Giraudio's death is the second at a major league ballpark this season. A Mets fan fell to his death from an escalator last month at Shea Stadium. It's also the most recent instance of fans behaving exceedingly badly at major league stadiums. Details about this case are pretty scant but it seems inevitable that MLB will take a look at what's going on inside and around their stadiums. It's hard to justify the high price of tickets when they come with a chance that you're going to face extreme drunkenness, violence and, in the absolute worst case scenario, death as part of the price of admission.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Pittsburgh Pirates (13-19) vs. San Francisco Giants (14-19) - 7:05PM Est.

The Giants tried Barry Zito as a starting pitcher for a little over a year, but it didn't work out.

The Giants tried Barry Zito as a relief pitcher, but after only eight days in the bullpen, that wasn't quite working out either.

The Giants wanted to try Barry Zito as a corpse at the bottom of McCovey Cove, but the law doesn't look highly upon such actions, so with no other alternatives, they've decided to try him as a starter one more time.

Tonight baseball's worst contract will return to the mound as a starter, bringing with him that 0-6 record, the 7.53 ERA, and that 1.95 WHIP of his.

Barry Zito was "banished" to the bullpen for all of ... exactly zero outings? Yup. Zito pitched so embarrassingly bad as a starter for the San Francisco Giants (in case you haven't been following his season, just think about what that says) that Bruce Bochy decided to move him into the bullpen.

There seem to be all kinds of quasi-contradictory reasons for why Zito is coming back to the rotation, with the bottom line being that Bochy's got a $120 million starter on his hands, and management wants him pitching. And not stinking.

The Giants were going to need a fifth starter by Saturday and decided to have Zito pitch Wednesday, manager Bruce Bochy said, not only to balance the rotation but to ensure the left-hander does not go too long without pitching.

[...]Barry's going to start. He's a starter," Bochy said. "We felt we had to break it up and give him a break. We were hoping we cold get him out there (in relief) a couple of times. Now, that didn't happen, so he's going back into the rotation."

It's fairly obvious (although unsaid, as the Chron points out) that the Giants want Zito to conveniently avoid having to pitch against the Phillies, instead getting to toss against the Pirates and away from San Francisco, where he is apparently not very popular. Because, you know, he's been embarrassingly bad.

The Giants are going to keep preaching "confidence" and other junk like that, but the fact is Zito doesn't have the same stuff he used to win the Cy Young. And unless something magical or dramatic (or magically dramatic) happens, they're going to end up eating -- one way or another -- one of the worst contracts in the history of baseball.

Fantasy Spin: Don't be a sucker, sucka. Leave Zito alone.

Remember the scene in Bull Durham where Crash teaches Nuke how to give an interview using nothing but cliches? I always assumed there was an element of truth to that. I mean, when you hear a guy say that he doesn't even look at the schedule, surely he's lying, right? I mean, everybody looks at the schedule ... right?

Maybe not. Giants rookie Emmanuel Burriss showed up to the park on Sunday not realizing it was the team's last game in Philly, which meant he had to hightail it back to the hotel. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

He had to grab a cab, return to the hotel, gather his stuff and take another cab back to the ballpark. He managed to do all that without being late for batting practice. "When I went into the cage, they let me have it pretty good," Burris said. "It's a good thing I got here early."

Yeah, it is a good thing: guys OPS'ing .566 don't really get much leeway when it comes avoiding the doghouse. Here's to hoping someone slips one of those pocket schedules into his duffel between Philly and Pittsburgh. (I just wish I could see the look on his face when he sees the Giants are playing Indiana Jones ...)

There are lots of reasons one might find for why Barry Zito has been egregiously ineffective this year. They include, but are not limited to: a drop in velocity, weirdly inconsistent mechanics, poor defense, and so forth. All you have to do is watch, really, and you can see it: Zito's just not the same player he used to be.

None of the above reasons include Barry Bonds somehow still haunting Zito, but that's exactly the hypothesis San Fransisco Chronicle columnist Bruce Jenkins posited today (via BBTF). Huh?

Having seen Barry Zito in two of his favorite comfort zones - jamming on guitar and gazing at a pristine surf break - I can't help but lament his choice of teams. There's a lot to like about the revitalized Giants, but last year, in the cauldron of Barry Bonds-related gloom, took the fun out of the game for Zito. He did his best to worship at the Bonds shrine, but he knew he was kidding himself. With the team sinking into oblivion, life at the ballpark became an eternal bummer.

So, last year Zito sucked, and that was Clubhouse Poison (TM) Barry Bonds' fault. Fine. But this year, Zito sucks again -- even worse, in fact -- and that's ... also Barry Bonds' fault. Perhaps clubhouse poison has an extremely long decomposition half-life. Or maybe Zito's just bad at baseball, no matter who his teammates are.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Chicago Cubs (17-12) at St. Louis Cardinals (19-11) - 3:45 PM ET

A Cubs/Cardinals game on a Saturday afternoon which is aired on national television will always bring back memories of Ryne Sandberg hitting dingers off of Bruce Sutter while Bob Costas freaks out on NBC. Of course, not everything can be like it was in the 80's. Sandberg is now a coach, the Cardinals no longer wear powder blue uniforms, and Costas is currently teaming with Buzz Bissinger to stop the spread of evil bloggers like us, who didn't even exist in the 80's. But one thing is like it was then: Cubs vs. Cardinals on this Saturday afternoon on national television is an important matchup with may help decide the division (even if the division is the N.L. Central, and not the N.L. East as it was in the 80's).

In the here and now, the Cardinals, who won the first game of this series last night on a Skip Schumaker walk-off home run, will go with the wildly successful Kyle Lohse (3-0, 2.36), while the Cubs hit the field with the not so wildly successful Ted Lilly (1-4, 6.46). In the bullpen, watch out for rookie Kyle McClellan, who has a .211 batting average against, with a 1.72 ERA and a 0.89 WHIP so far this season. (Actually, I only bring up McClellan as an excuse to tell you that on the day that Sandberg hit two HR's on NBC, McClellan was alive for all of eleven days. Damn, I'm old. And I love the 80's.)