I present to you Rob Neyer's list of who he expects the top fifty players in baseball to be over the next five years. Prospects were not included.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview08/columns/story?columnist=neyer_rob&id=3310373

Who made the list: Cano, Pedroia, Kinsler, Kelly Johnson, Melky Cabrera, As-Cab.

Who did not make the list: Felix, Putz, Lincecum, Cain, Hamels. Do you notice anyone else?

ESPN is so good.

UPDATE: When I posted this diary last night the videos were embedded, and they were working perfectly. Not so much this morning for some reason. I've replaced the videos that used to be below with links to their respective Youtube pages. Hopefully this leads to them actually functioning.

My girlfriend describes Bretticus's playbook as he, Matthew, and myself plan our next play.

Johnbai scrambles before completing a pass to TC for a touchdown.

A quick play action pass before John targets Matthew for a TD.

Baker's daughter narrates as Brett rushes downfield.

Here I am running past Gomez for a touchdown.

This is from a few games ago. Matthew makes a beautiful catch.

Bretticus slides out of bounds.

John to TC

Apologies to Baker, Gomez, and MarinerJohn for not having many videos featuring their heroics.

This is absolutely fantastic.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

An example:
BE WARNED, talking about Indie Music with white people is perhaps the most dangerous subject you touch upon. One false move and you will lose their respect and admiration forever. Here are some general rules:

--Bands that have had their songs in an Apple ad are still marginally acceptable
--Bands that have had their songs in ads for other companies are not acceptable
this is my favorite:
--If you mention a band you like and the other person has heard of them, you lose. They own you. It is essential that you like the most obscure music possible.

Other things white people like that the blog discusses are the Toyota Prius, Japan, divorce, and gentrification.

Have you seen the lineup for this year's Sasquatch! festival? It's better than Coachella's. It's better than SXSW. It's better than anything.

http://sasquatchfestival.com/2008/main.php?page=lineup

Having REM or the Cure by themselves headlining would have been cool. But it's both. And then you add on artists that are just incredible in their own right, like the Flaming Lips, MIA, Death Cab, the Breeders, Pela, Stephen Malkmus, the Hives, Built to Spill, Beirut, Rogue Wave, Mates of State, New Pornographers, and the National. Then you add in local groups like the Cops, the Blakes, the Cave Singers, Blue Scholars, and Fleet Foxes. Then Flight of the Conchords on top of all that. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

So, the weather has been absolutely tops this week. So good, in fact, that we ought to consider playing a game of football this weekend. Apparently last week's game was great... how about another?

Fun football fact: Many cultures in the world enjoy "football", but their version is actually what we Americans know as soccer! Crazy, huh?

Another football fact: Super Bowl Champion Eli Manning has a brother who also is in the NFL! His name is Peyton Manning.

Update [2008-2-22 3:18:59 by katal]:: We'll have all this at 2pm on Sunday at Cal Anderson Field in Capital Hill.

I thought I'd check and see who exactly is down to play football this Saturday. I know I'll be there, as will Marinerschas2, Bretticus, and wwbaker3. Matthew? John? Anyone who hasn't been able to come yet (Ningwers?)?

Gomez mentioned in another thread that soccer season has ended, and that Cal Anderson should be available. That's fantastic news. There's no reason we shouldn't have an incredible game this weekend.

I know that the title of my post is saying nothing new, but oh do I have to vent.

So I'm eating my breakfast this morning, while reading the Seattle Times. I get to the Sports section, and Steve Kelley has an article about why it was a mistake for the Mariners to retain Bavasi. I'm intrigued - he's all right with keeping McLaren, but Bavasi is the mistake? I start reading.

He opens by talking about what a mistake most of Bavasi's trades have been, focusing specifically on Asdrubal Cabrera. He scolds the M's for being in a "win now" mode last season, and for dumping young talented players.

Then at the end of the article, he advocates that we trade Jones and Clement, asking if Bavasi's quote about how they won't be traded "makes baseball sense."

So let me get this straight. Kelley's two main premises in the article are A) We shouldn't have traded Cabrera because now he's productive on another team, and B) Bavasi makes bad trades. Then he ends by arguing that Bavasi should deal away two of our most talented prospects.

Ugh.

As excited as I was before the game tonight, I should have taken it as a bad omen that, looking at the 100 level from the bleachers, blue was by far the most under-represented color on fans down there.

After the game, amongst the cheering and the revelry that was going on outside of Safeco, I took a cue from Robert and sat inside of the giant glove outside of the left field entrance, staring at the stadium for quite a while.

The Sonics in 1993.
The Mariners in '95.
The Sonics and Mariners in '96.
The Mariners again in '97.
Then in 2000 and 2001.
The Seahawks throughout the 2004-05 season.
The Sonics in the '05 playoffs.
The Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Their injuries last season.
Now, the Mariners.

The highs of being a Seattle sports fan never compare to the lows. Yet I'll continue to play the role of both Sisyphus and Damocles, always cheering for & supporting our teams, yet being unable to enjoy their success. I understand that just when it looks like a championship is in our grasp, everything will come tumbling apart.

sigh.

At least I was seated only a few rows from Red tonight, and got to talk to him after the game. That was a plus.

I'm curious about who's going to be in attendance tomorrow night at Tacoma.

Jeff, Dave, and Balentien will be there. Will you?

Inserted to add more characters to this post: Looking at the Rainiers' website, it appears that there'll be $1 beers in the beer garden during the game. Whoo. Also, the Rainiers will also be playing Rick Ankiel's team, the hated Memphis Redbirds.

There will be a press conference at 1:30.

Baker's blog and FoxSports.com both had the scoop.

Hooray. After the "Tejada/I-Rod have all but signed with the Seattle Mariners" debacles a few years ago, I was hesitant to get too excited about this. But now that it's official, I'm absolutely stoked. It's rare that Seattle gets to retain a superstar.

blah blah blah, have to get this diary to 300 characters.