A match-fixing scandal is rocking Italian soccer to the point that the Prime Minister, Mario Monti, has suggested they suspend the league for two or three years. They've arrested the Lazio team captain, are investigating the Juventus coach, and booted a player off their national team.

This comes right on the heels of another scandal that saw seventeen players convicted in court, including two former national team players, and banned for up to five years.

Banned for up to five years? These guys were FIXING GAMES. Ban them for life. By these standards, Pete Rose should certainly be reinstated on triple secret probation, since nobody doubts that he didn't fix games, the greatest on-field sports sin of all.

Imagine what would happen here if the President suggested they suspend a sports league, like say NCAA football, over repeated cheating by many of the top teams. There would be an enormous uproar.

Have tried the White Widow and the Haze. Pretty good but more expensive than in Barcelona. You get fifteen free internet minutes at this place with your drink,, so I naturally thought of RR. Also have tried the beer. It's OK, better than Bud but not that awesome. Go Royals. Should have brought my cap: all the cool kids wear them here. Have seen lots of Yanks and Dodgers gear on local kids, and one guy with a Darren McFadden Raiders jersey, for some reason. Ajax has a museum. We're not going.

This one's interesting. FC Barcelona has the budget to set up this kind of thing. And the Royals? We may need to win some games first.

Ned needs to use this WWII training film to teach our boys that playing fair is for people who are planning to lose. Kill! Kill! Grit and blood and veins in our teeth!

Did they just announce this or did I miss somebody else's post?

Will frequently links stuff he's found off Arts and Letters Daily, an extremely cool site. Here we have today's debate topics on intellectual stuff:

Do you hate grammar pedants? Is there a link between national IQ and national income? Do you actually enjoy reading Beat Generation writers? What the hell is exegetics and what does it have to do with "The Daily Show"? Does it really matter if an artwork is a forgery if it's beautiful? Do you consider yourself a foodie?

And some non-intellectual questions: Do you have castration anxiety and/or penis envy? What do you do when you wake up at 4 AM and can't go back to sleep? If baseball didn't exist, what would you do with your spare time? What's the worst place to eat in Kansas City? Do you like gambling? Who's your favorite painter?

If Junior Seau's suicide is related to brain damage, there is going to be a series of lawsuits that is going to do in the league. Check this interview with Malcolm Gladwell and the links from there.

Alex Karras is suing the league. If there's a signal of doom, having one of your greatest stars off himself while another is brain-damaged from Parkinson's syndrome is it.

(See photo.)

Seriously, they're talking about disciplining the ump. Seems to me that he took appropriate action. Fans running on the field can be dangerous--remember the Chicago fans who attacked Tom Gamboa? What if he has a gun or a knife--remember the guy who stabbed Monica Seles? The ump is expendable. Let him tackle the douchebag as soon as he can without waiting for security, who might be slow to act.

Getz 4
Gordon 7
Butler DH
Hosmer 3
Francoeur 9
Moustakas 5
Peña 2
Escobar 6
Dyson 8
Chen P

He's off to an awful start, and he's 34, but he can still field, and he might snap out of his slump. He's been good until this season. If the Padres cut him loose I would grab him, basically for free, and trade Yuni for a Papa John's 2-for-1 coupon. Even if he can't hit we'd have the slickest middle infield in the league.

Our local monarch was out "big-game hunting" in Botswana when he fell down and broke his femur in three pieces. They flew his idiot 74-year-old ass back home and stuck him at the head of the line for hip replacements. This is the fourth operation he's had in two years.

You know what he did in Botswana? He SHOT a FUCKING ELEPHANT. Just like George Orwell, but in slightly different circumstances. (The photo is from 2006).

This is ridiculous. It makes no sense at all to kill elephants, or to permit anyone to, even if rich fools like Juan Carlos are willing to come up with €30,000 for the pleasure of doing so.

Regular hunting I'm fine with as long as you eat what you shoot. Somebody's got to predate all the deer in Kansas. Not to mention the damn Canadian geese.

But shooting elephants just for fun? Fuck that.

Note: The king's idiot 13-year-old grandson, Froilán, nearly blew his foot off with a shotgun loaded for bird earlier this week. If I were the Bourbons I'd stay away from guns. Juan Carlos accidentally killed his younger brother with a pistol when they were teenagers. Anyway, the law in Spain says no one under 14 is allowed even to touch a gun.

I'm not smart enough to make a YouTube playlist, so just put up your own links. Here are a couple of my favorites.

"Visions of Johanna"

"Pleasures of the Harbor"

"Madame George"

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

MLBTR says that Buster Olney says, "Iin order for Brewers pitcher Zack Greinke to restore his value, the hurler has to to alter the perception that he can be a troublesome clubhouse presence. Olney writes that there are already some teams who won't consider him because of the reputation he earned in Kansas City."

Hmmm. I thought the reputation he earned here was that of a quirky, slightly strange guy with genuine depression and anxiety problems, who is rather high-maintenance but has Cy Young talent. I never heard that anyone actively disliked him, I don't think.

If true, we might be able to pick him up for slightly less than he's worth. The Royals certainly did their best to treat him understandingly, and he may value that. I'd offer him 5/100m and see if he takes it. That would be money that Glass would have to let slip from his Uncle Scrooge hands, so it's probably unlikely.

Lots of us make predictions. I took a shot at some last year. Bookmaker.com set their over-under lines for 2011 and I did a post guessing which way each would go.

Results.

BOS: Line: 95 wins, My pick: Under, Result: 90 wins, Correct?: Yes
NYY: 91.5, Over, 97, Yes
TEX: 87, Over, 96, Yes
MIN: 86.5, Over, 63, No
CWS: 85.5, Under, 79, Yes
TBR: 84.5, Under, 91, No
DET: 83.5, Under, 95, No
OAK: 83.5, Under, 74, Yes
LAA: 83, Over, 86, Yes
TOR: 76, Over, 81, Yes
BAL: 76, Over, 69, No
CLE: 71, Over, 80, Yes
SEA: 70, Under, 67, Yes
KCR: 69.5, Under, 71, No

I went nine-and-five picking over-unders. It's an extremely small sample size, and the house always wins, so I'm not hitting Vegas anytime soon. But that was pretty good. And if I'd gone with my heart over my head with the Royals, I'd have been 10-4.

Did anyone else post any predictions for 2011, and how did they come out? Iz you a gineyus too?

The Hardball Times has an interesting piece on the value of teams' free agent spending between 2007 and 2011. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, our friends in St. Louis got 24.9 WAR from their free agents during that period, for $3.3m in spending per free agent WAR.

Other teams:

3. Atlanta 14.2 FA WAR, $3.6m/FA WAR
10. Boston 22.8 FA WAR, $4.9m/FA WAR
23. Kansas City 5 FA WAR, $6.5m/FA WAR
29. Oakland 3.5 FA WAR, $6.5m/FA WAR
30. Pittsburgh 0.5 FA WAR, --/FA WAR because they lost 2.6 WAR on the draft picks they gave up and so they had a negative amount.

So there's some evidence that Dayton is below average at evaluating major league free agent talent.

I assume you all have heard that Ryan Leaf was arrested again in Montana on burglary and drug charges. He did exactly the same thing in Texas several years ago and got ten years probation. They're going to revoke his probation and put him in Huntsville, and that's before Montana tries him and sentences him.

I feel sympathy for Leaf. He got hooked on pain pills as a result of football injuries, got desperate enough to steal them, got busted in Texas, went to rehab and "wrote" a book, fell off the wagon, possibly because he's still in pain from football, got desperate enough to steal them again, and got busted again. His life could be a Robert Earl Keen song.

Leaf's going to jail. He committed burglary twice. That's a felony and you can't do that. My problem is the situation. If Leaf could get his fix legitimately under medical supervision, no crimes would have been committed, we wouldn't be spending seventy grand or whatever a year keeping him locked up, and ten years of his life wouldn't be spent miserably behind bars. I wouldn't wish prison on anybody who wasn't a violent criminal, no matter if he was a dick his rookie year or not.

Legalize drugs: marijuana completely, anything else under medical supervision. Presto change-o, no more drug mafias in Mexico and no more stupid kids in jail for selling an ounce of pot.

This could be explosive. The cops are taking it seriously enough to investigate. He would be the first known nontraditional active player if the story is true.

"Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports wonders if the Phillies might look to acquire Chris Getz or Yuniesky Betancourt of the Royals to shore up their infield."

Oh, please, please, please.....

Left defenseman Eric Abidal needs a liver transplant. Sal's problems seem very minor now. Last year he had a tumor removed from his liver on March 17 and was back in the starting lineup on May 2. This guy is not a malingerer. His operation will be in the upcoming weeks.

Also, Estanislao Basora, Barcelona's star right wing between 1946 and 1958 who scored 153 goals, died. He'd be in the Soccer Hall of Fame if there were one.

According to the BBC:

"(Romney) accused his rivals of saying "outrageous things" in an effort to win the backing of the Republican base, adding that he was not prepared to set his "hair on fire" in a bid for support."

Well, jeez, I'm a moderate Republican with sympathies toward conservative Democrats. (I backed Jan Meyers and Dennis Moore. That should show where I stand.) Romney was my guy. Gingrich is just too questionable, Santorum is far too conservative, and Paul is nuts.

But if Romney's not going to set his hair on fire for America, how can I vote for him? Oh, well, I can't vote in America anyway, since I don't have a US residence and can't register to vote anywhere.

Can't vote in Spain either, since I'm not a citizen (I have a residence and work permit.) I am disenfranchised, though I suppose it's my own choice, since I could re-establish residence in the US or apply for Spanish citizenship.

Good Lord, we've got Jason Kendall in camp as a coach/instructor. His playing skills may have gone, but his grit lives on and is transmitted like toxoplasmosis through the Royals' youth movement. He figures there's a "5% chance" he'll play major league ball again.

I figure there's a 5% chance he could hook on with the T-Bones. He's really badly injured. Probably can barely throw at all. Anyone else would just give up, sit back, move to Florida, enjoy his earnings, and play a lot of golf. But Kendall's grit just won't let him do that. This alone is worth 1000 Polk points.

According to the Tampa Tribune, he's been arrested "dozens of times" since 2001. This time they got him for possession, tampering with evidence, and driving on a suspended license. The cops saw him trying to swallow the baggie and he had marijuana flakes all over his shirt.

1) I'm pro-legalization, and a consumer myself. 2) This sort of behavior, though, is gonna get you blackballed from MLB.

What I don't understand is why these guys don't CALL A FUCKIN' CAB. Or a limo, if they're making that much. What's a cab cost, fifty bucks at most? They got that kind of money. And you don't get in trouble if a cabbie is driving.

1) Why does it seem that a lot of famous people die comparatively young?

2) Which living person do you think has consumed the most cocaine? My money's on Keith Richards.

3) No pro baseball players have admitted to being gay until their retirement, and even then it was only two or three. Is it possible that this is not discrimination, but rather that most gay people have little interest in playing baseball?

4) What image do you have of Spain? Don't worry if your image turns out to be wrong, I'd just like to know what you think.

5) Who's your favorite current Royal?

BONUS: What's your favorite country song?

This ESPN interview with Pele shows what's wrong when a former player gets an "I´m still the greatest" attitude.

Basically, he says that Leo Messi is not as good as he was.

I beg to differ. Pele racked up his fame in the three World Cups he won, with the greatest supporting cast ever seen until then. He never had any success in the European pro leagues; I'm not sure he ever tried.

The game has changed a great deal, especially after the Bosman decision. Now players are judged by their professional club's success, and no club has had more than Barcelona in the last three years.

Messi shines on Barcelona because he has Xavi, Iniesta, Fàbregas, Pedro, Piqué, and company passing him the ball; this is why Pele shone with Brazil.

Right now I'm gonna say that Messi is clearly better than Maradona, especially when you consider career value (Messi doesn't get hurt or snort coke off hookers' nipples.)

Pele has a point when it comes to his own career value; Messi is still very young and needs to put in a few more good years, which he is capable of doing. Messi's 213 goals for Barcelona were mostly scored against top-level talent. A lot of Pele's over 1000 career goals were scored against the local equivalent of minor league teams.

If Messi scores 300 with Barcelona, and especially if he should somehow make 400, he's definitely the greatest ever.

Messi has not yet done well with Argentina, but that's hardly his fault, since the Argentine national team is not nearly as good as FC Barcelona and does not feed him as many tasty goals.

I think this is a case of an old guy not willing to accept that his sport's changed and he couldn't compete today; remember Joe DiMaggio demanding to be introduced as "the world's greatest living baseball player" while Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, and Hank Aaron were all alive.

Or, to be more specific, Lebanon, Tennessee. Leaving tomorrow. Staying a month. Planning to spend at least one night on Lower Broadway at Robert's and the Bluegrass Inn.

It's gonna get ugly.

We've already heard the story that Dayton is not confident in the starting pitchers currently available, so he's trying to set up a killer bullpen in order to give as few innings as possible to the weak rotation.

I've suggested it before, but let's have stacked starters. You keep thirteen pitchers and twelve field players; all our field players are young and not likely to get hurt, so all we need is the starting nine plus a backup catcher, a backup IF, and a backup OF. If somebody actually gets hurt for more than one game then we bring up C-Rob or Dyson from Omaha.

You pitch your frontline starters every four days, but only about four innings, 60 or so pitches. Then the four second-line starters come in and give you about three innings, 45 or so pitches. Then you have four relievers to close down the last two innings, plus one mop-up man for when this plan doesn't work.

This plan would suck if you had good starting pitchers, because it would take innings out of their hands and give them to weaker pitchers, but the Röyals don't.

I'd try to have the first-line and second-line guys be opposite-handed.

Suggested rotation:

1) Sanchez L, Holland R
2) Paulino R, Duffy L
3) Chen L, Crow R
4) Hochevar R, Montgomery L

Now, if we actually sort five competent starting pitchers out of this mess, we go back to the standard five-man rotation. If not, at least hitters don't get to see a pitcher more than twice, and will have to adjust to a very different pitcher mid-game.

The relief corps is Soria R and Broxton R, along with some combination of three of Collins L, Teaford L, Hottovy L, Coleman R, Adcock R, and Wood R.

Note the absence of Boom Boom, SOS, and their ilk.

Dayton says they're looking for an infielder to back up Alcides, and for a RH bat who can play third. He added that any more new acquisitions would come from trades, not free agency.

They're probably going to drop Bianchi and/or D-Rob from the 40-man roster. As Jack Marsh said, the Jays want Greg Holland and the Royals are interested in Colby Rasmus.

Ex-Royals: Scotty Pods signed a minor-league deal with the Phillies and TPJ re-signed a minor-league deal with Boston.

MLBTR says the Röyals have signed two minor-league left-handers, Marlon Arias, who sucks, and Tommy Hottovy, who actually might make the bullpen. He had a good year at AA and AAA last season. Problem: He's 30. Point in his favor: He comes from Kansas City.

We have no use for him. He has proven that he can hit in AAA. Last year he hit .326 with 23 HR and 100 RBI, with 58 BB and 88 SO.

Sure, he's probably a Kila, a 4-A hitter, who's not a good fielder or baserunner. But you'd think some non-contending team with a hole at first base might say, "What the hell, we'll give Clint a couple hundred PA and see what he does."

Does anyone think any other team might be interested in him, and if so, might they give up a C-level prospect in trade?