This week the Omaha Royals came on down to hallowed Zephyr Field in the suburbs of New Orleans where Tony Pena led the immortal 2001 Z's to a co-championship.  Using his knowledge gained on how to manage the game the right way, he proceeded to lead the Royals to a magical baseball winning percentage.  The O-Royals were here for a four game series, ultimately taking 3 out of 4.   I was only able to attend tonight's game which the Royals won 6-1.  I'm no scout so my insight won't be helpful.

Brad Salmon went 5 innings and gave up a mere one hit for zero runs.

Billy Butler at first base had a 2-run double and a no-doubter solo HR in garbage time.  He had half of Omaha's RBI tonight.

Jason Smith at SS beautifully avoided an 0-5 performance by getting a single in the aforementioned garbage time.

Shane Costa accentuated a masterful 0-4 with a walk at the plate by gracefully dropping a foul fly ball to RF resulting in an error, but made the catch when it mattered when the next batter hit an easy fly ball to him in fair territory.

Shealy DHed.  Oh yeah, Maier and Lubanski also played.

Except for Gookie Dawkins being an awesome name, that's about it.

Sadly I missed Berroa by a week.

I know a lot of you don't like Papelbon, and this sort of story will just confirm your thoughts about him, but I think it's pretty funny.  His dog ate the ball that constituted the final out of the 2007 World Series.  I guess he's just lucky he wasn't somehow in possession of the 2004 ball.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3163105

NASHVILLE -- The 2007 Winter Meetings are anything but a cold stove. In a surprising trade the Kansas City Royals have acquired Chicago White Sox's manager Ozzie Guillen.  The veteran Guillen will go over to the Royals in exchange for the Royals' manager prospect Trey Hillman.

Guillen, who will be 44 in his next season as manager, not only brings more youth to the position than Hillman who will be 45, but also brings more Major League experience.  In his four years of managing, Guillen has amassed a 344-304 record with only one losing season.  He was the 2005 AL Manager of the Year, the same year in which he led the White Sox to their first World Championship in 88 years.  His youthfulness also provides his fiery personality that is proven to excite players.

Although Guillen's career results are clearly ahead of Hillman's DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR win percentage, many skeptics claim that Hillman was never given a chance to shine in the Major Leagues after his years of work in the Minors and Japan League.  Responding to these apprehensions, Royals GM Dayton Moore said, "Ozzie is a proven manager.  We have tried getting results with our players for the past few years. When players can't produce, the obvious route is to get a better manager. Ozzie will bring his own brand of smartball to our team. And, really, who can argue with intelligence?"

Royals owner David Glass was unavailable for comment.  Sources report that he is in a high-stakes casino in Russia, continuously placing $10,000 on the number 85 at the roulette table until he wins once.

Former Royals manager Buddy Bell will remain with the White Sox to teach them how to bunt.

Bored with this year's LCS?  MLB has free entire past "classic" games.  Unfortunately Chris Chambliss is in there, but it's still pretty cool.

Of course there are a lot of Yankee-Red Sox games, but Aaron Boone was dramatic and I wonder why they only have the last 3 games of 2004 ALCS and not the last 4.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071013&content_id=2263751&vkey=news_mlb_nd&fex t=.jsp&c_id=mlb

This is a cool site that attempts to find out what people identify with what sports teams.

http://commoncensus.org/sports.php

Poke around on the site, put your own votes in.  The more people who vote, the more accurate the maps are.  I think it's pretty interesting.

For some strange reason, this was called a "one-line" diary.  Um, to make it 300 characters I'll talk about how Red Sox "Nation" truly is a nation.  That's a lot of people who identify with it.  The Yankees are actually fourth behind the Cubs and Braves in terms of numerical votes.  I guess their extent is also largely international.  I'm also surprised that the Rockies don't extend so far since there are no other teams around (like the Astros do).  I guess that area just doesn't care about baseball.

EDIT: I suppose I should mention that there are higher-resolution maps on the site.

Did you guys see the Yankees/Blue Jays "fight"?

Towers got mad a Tony Pena and said "He's a quitter. He's managing a team and quit in the middle of the season because he couldn't hack it and he's going to run his mouth to me?"

Ouch.

Hey, Towers. Wanna try managing the Royals under Glass?

I did always think that it was weird that even the two base coaches of the Yankees were former managers.  It's like the players who go there for the chance at a cheap championship.

"As for 2008, I definitely want to play. I sure hope it's with the Kansas City Royals. I still have a passion to play the game, I still have the passion to be a Royal," Sweeney said.

"But I also know that if I come back, my role will change a bit. Would I like to play every day? Yes. Would I like to help Billy Butler and Alex Gordon and Mark Teahen and David DeJesus and Johnny Buck get to that next level? Yes."

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070806&content_id=2133055&vkey=news_mlb&fext=. jsp&c_id=mlb

Some nice quotes:

"I'll be lucky to get $1,100 over the minimum,"

"I'll probably be like a 1994 Ferrari that's been in a couple of wrecks and has a new engine. It's going to be rebuilt and it's going to look good again. And it'll be available for very cheap,"

Sweeney's the greatest.

From http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/5884/news

"Hunter could face a possible suspension or fine after giving a gift of champagne to the Royals last weekend as a reward for their 2006 season-ending sweep of Detroit, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. 'I'm to blame as much as anybody because I didn't know the rule,' Minnesota GM Terry Ryan said. 'We'll end up righting the wrong. We've already contacted the Royals. They're going to return the goods, and hopefully that'll be the end of it.'

"Hunter gave the Kansas City clubhouse four bottles of champagne after joking late last season he'd reward the Royals if they swept the Tigers and helped Minnesota win the division. Apparently team officials didn't realize the gift would violate a rule that doesn't allow gifts for "defeating or attempting to defeat a competing Club." The rule violation carries a penalty of a three-year ban from baseball. While the penalty is serious, the Twins were quick to take back the gift and punishment from MLB is likely to be minor."

WHO'S EXCITED? Sorry, I haven't kept up with anything over the winter, so I can't make any funny remarks.  The only thing different is that I'm not in the Angels/Dodgers market, but now in the Phillies market. JOY.  I'm still not in any sort of Royal market. Maybe it's time to invest in MLB.tv?

SO ANYWAY. Mets. Cardinals. Baseball

Even though the Cardinals ruined what I was going to say, in such an annoying fashion (seriously Mets, try hitting the ball, you've got like fifty people on base), I'm going to point it out anyway just to spite them as they have spited my mood.

I was going to say that in the last 5 years, there have been 10 different teams in the World Series (9 now), so obviously none are the same (one is now).

Angels, Giants, Yankees, Marlins, Red Sox, Cardinals, Astros, White Sox, Tigers.

Can you imagine? That's 1/3 of the league. You know what that means, right? In ten years (if the leagues were equal in number), every team will be in the World Series.

Who's up for Mariners vs. Brewers? Washington vs. Tampa Bay?

And, of course, lest we forget, in 2012 it'll be the immortal series: Kansas City vs. Colorado.

I think I just heard someone on ESPN say "No one deserves more blame than A-Rod for losing in the postseason."

Wow.

Simply wow.  Whatever happened to "Pitching wins championships" or "Good pitching beats good hitting"?  Why was this year any different? Everybody gave the edge to the Yankees offense.

Right. Actually, I suppose it is Rodriguez's fault because he didn't help the Yankees not give up 14 runs in the last two game. Great pitching, A-Rod!

Los Angeles       88  74
San Diego         88  74
San Francisco    76  85
Arizona             76  86
Colorado           76  86

Look at those records.  Top 2 are the same. Bottom 2 are the same. If it weren't for that rain out, the bottom 3 would be exactly the same.  I love how that game gives the Giants third place because they were never given the chance to lose.

KANSAS CITY -- The Royals announced on Friday that they are considering using a mulligan for the 2006 season.  If the Royals organization follows through, then this would be just the third time since the 20th century that a team has used a mulligan.  According to the rules of Major League Baseball, any team may invoke a mulligan at the expense of forfeiting all the draft picks designated to them in the following year. All stats and records would revert to 0, and the entire MLB would then have to fit in the 162 games of the season and also the postseason before April.

In reference to the lost draft picks, Royals' manager Buddy Bell said, "These veterans are much more valuable to the team than some untested high school players. I believe our team is a playoff-caliber team."

Amid rumors that Bell himself had called the mulligan, GM Dayton Moore, who will be replaced by Allard Baird due to a quirk in the mulligan rules, said that the situation would be handled "internally," further commenting, "I think Buddy handled it appropriately. He's expressed his views." Moore also added, "Buddy is my father and he can see better than me."

In response to numerous questions about whether any managerial changes would be made for the new 2006 season, Moore said, "I have no reason to think that Buddy Bell should not be the right person to be leading this team.  If a few more breaks had gone our way, we certainly would have made the playoffs. He is still going to be a heck of a manager," Moore continued, "[Third base coach] Silverio has got a long way to go even before he considers himself in Buddy Bell's category."  When further pressed about Bell, Moore implied that Bell would stay on for the entire season and would be able to win without needing to change anything, saying,  "Bell will stay on for the entire season and will be able to win without needing to change anything."  Owner David Glass was too busy taking shots of tequila and being tickled by quail feathers to notice.

Fan reaction to the announcement has been mixed.  Some expressed concern that players would become injured in the extra games. However, the majority did not realize that there is still a baseball team in Kansas City. The Royals have until October 1st to make their final decision whether to put the mulligan into effect.

The Cubs mounted another comeback win today, dashing the Royals' hope of gaining a game in the worst-team-in-the-MLB standings. However, Tampa Bay's three game losing streak is making the worst-team-in-the-AL race closer.

Current outlook:

                    W     L     GB
Pittsburgh      60    87     --
Chicago         59    88     1
Tampa Bay    57    88     2
Kansas City   56    90    3.5