Is baseball season over yet?

The Royals lost 29-0 to the Chisox last night. Who's pitching tonight? Oh, who are we kidding? We don't give a rip anymore. Unless a fight breaks out. We're still interested in brawls.

Did the Chiefs look pretty good last week or were we just dreaming that?

We really like The Helicopter out of Mizzou and some of the other mid-round draft picks. And that Sippio guy.

OK. Let's list some of the young third baseman who are better than Gordon at this point: Longoria (too bad about the wrist), Wright, Braun (he might be an outfielder now)...Anyway, those guys are much better than Gordon...And what if Aviles played 3B? Who do you think will have a better season next year, Gordon or Aviles? Seriously.

P.S. We went to an earthquake conference today. St. Louis is so screwed.

P.P.S. To be honest, we're actually looking forward to baseball's off-season (as always), and not just because that means football season has arrived. This winter, Dayton's either going to see his shadow or not. It's either going to be six more years of futility or next spring is going to be the start of something really nice. Or something like that. The Royals have actually taken a small step forward this year, or a big step, depending on how you look at it. This off-season is crucial. We need to find a big right-handed bat and another pitcher. We need to make key trades. Dayton needs to stop being infatuated with grit and defense and speed. We need to figure out if that big Hawaiian-Samoan guy in Omaha is the real deal. And so on.

Catching the bigger fish on the bigger worm

While the Royals and Tony Pena Jr. were storming back to claim victory over the mighty Twins in extra-innings, we were catching largemouths, smallmouths and goggle-eyes. A friend of ours also caught a catfish -- on a plastic worm thingy! We love the river and we love fishing in it. The proximity to streams is one big benefit of living in the Ozarks. Years ago, we used to wade and fish the river alone all of the time. There's something about the man versus fish quality of landing a nice one that nobody else will ever know about. But too many close encounters with snakes convinced us that we should stop wading and fishing alone. (Just noticed that part of this is starting to sound Freudian.) We're not worried about drowning or anything like that; we're just worried about the snakes. And what if we got hurt somehow or had a heart attack or something? And then there's the crazy drunk hillbillies that actually live down by the river and hunt people. So now we have to find someone to go fishing with our paranoid and possibly schizophrenic selves, and it has to be someone who understands bass and nature and jokes and doesn't act the fool or talk too much. (And we're not into fancy fly fishing, though we suppose it's OK for trout; we prefer ultra-lights, finesse lures and setting the hook like a man.) So we go fishing a lot less than we used to. But fortunately we still know a few people.

Just read on Mellinger's blog that Moose Tacos is supposed to be a better hitter than Alex Gordon with a better swing. Great. Now that Gordon and Butler aren't really living up to the hype (weren't they supposed to be pretty much can't miss super stars?) at least we still have Moose Tacos to look forward to. And then Hosmer. If he signs.

Why are the Twins consistently so much better than us? Answer: They make good trades and they always have a good manager.

Gordon really looks like shit and pisses us off when he strikes out. Same with Teahen, but we've pretty much given up on him.

P.S. And all this time we thought John Edwards was gay. Who knew?

P.P.S. Carlos Gomez plays like he's wearing roller skates.

P.P.P.S. We didn't see any snakes yesterday.

Observations while listening to last night's game

Butler fielding the baseball like it has fangs.

God bless Kansas City Life for advertising on Royals Radio for lo these many shitty years.

Whatever happened to Guys' Potato Chips?

Teahen's breaking our heart(s). We're washing our hands of him. Spit. Biggest bust since Hurdle. Guess Mark's now qualified to manage the Colorado Rockies. Wait. Mark just doubled home Aviles! Mark is the man!

Aviles with the first non-Grudz outfield blooper catch by a Royals middle infielder all year. And nobody collided!

Our neighbor is cooking shit that smells like soul food again. And she's white trash. Weird.

Teahen just struck out. We're done with him. DONE.

Hannity is a perfect example of why all educated people should be required to read at least one good satirical novel (we suggest Catch-22) and get exposed to some really funky music and/or funky sex with an art major during college. What a tool that Hannity is.

The stat-heads were pretty much right about Bannister.

It's all about Favre. He might be a bigger tool than Hannity.

OK. We obviously stopped listing to the Royals game and things have obviously gone all to hell.

Our ex-wife is actually checking her tire pressure every day based on this Obama drama. We live in interesting times.

Have you ever tried Vietnamese food (non-dog)? It's the worst! However, good Thai food is better than crack.

Now that BOTH of our (my) shoulders are all screwed up due to pseudo-sports injuries, we'd like to try to give McCain a hug. Try is the operative word. (In no way do we mean to seriously compare our pseudo-sports injuries to years of suffering in a Vietnamese torture prison, where prisoners were likely sujbected to Vietnamese food.)

Have you listened to popular hip hop music lately on the radio? It might be time to put the Taliban in charge of American culture for a while.

Whatever happened to Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice? Don't we still have a lot of shit going on in the world?

Yes, Bill Clinton understood that this is not a liberal country. Hence, school uniforms, etc. If you want to do progressive things like climate protection and energy replacements, you have to throw the PEOPLE some bones. Obama should do a certain amount of drilling and build that stupid fence between the U.S. and Mexico. If he did those two things, he could get away with leading an energy revolution, improving health care and ending the war in Iraq. This is exactly how Bush got his war in Iraq in the first place. He pretended like he hated homos and loved the baby Jesus.

Obama should have agreed to debate Old Potato Cheeks all summer long.

The fat is in the fire, McHope. (And this ain't no lean meat.) What you got?

P.S. If the Quotable Human Forehead (Carville) isn't available these days, we're under-employed and ready to serve.

Bam Bam

So this is Butler's new nickname, according to Rany. What do you guys think? Should we officially endorse it here? Actually, there for a while, we were starting to like Big Honky, but we were never really sure if it should be spelled honky or honkey.

Let's go Royals

Can Soria get away with throwing that big curve EVERY time he gets two strikes on a batter?

Don't look now, but it looks like Gordon and Butler are going to finish the season strong. Alex is going to make a nice living on turning walks into homers and homers into walks.

We're not sure exactly what's been going on with Alberto Callaspo, but it sounds like the term rehab assignment might have a double meaning. We hope he makes it back strong. He could be a big part of the plans next year.

Remember when it looked like the AL Central was going to be a beast division, what with Detroit and Cleveland having awesome teams and all? Now Detroit looks old. Cleveland looks like it's rebuilding (though we expect it to go well). Chicago traded the farm to contend (though we kind of admire the White Sox GM for continually going for it). And Minnesota can't continue to be this good year in and year out with young players (though the Twins manager must be the best in baseball). If the Royals and DM have a solid off-season, they should be a real contender by next season.

Speaking of the White Sox, it's just a matter of time until they totally implode under Ozzie Guillen.

P.S. Just imagine if Jose Guillen decides to take up managing after his playing days are over.

Two straight in the baby blues

Good to see the Royals get into a fight with somebody...Aviles must be the real deal...Guillen must have hit the snot out of that HR...Nice to have a guy like Greinke to root for (He's an underdog and he's really good)...How hot was it yesterday?...We were at a swim meet in Lenexa...Outside!...At least we got to go to Fric & Frac...Passed on the Gates this time, though...How good was our bullpen during that stretch last year when Greinke was setting up Soria who was setting up Dotel?...We need a summer vacation from our summer...We're not going anywhere until football season starts for real...Have you ever tried to drive from KC to Rolla?...Not fun...We sure do miss Pena's glove out there...That Butler kid can hit a little...How unexpected is this offensive outburst, given the fact that we've been facing lefties with Gload and Meier getting regular duty? (Goes to show what a drag guys like Pena and Gathright have been on the offense.) How much better could we be if, say, we replaced Gload and Teahen with a couple of guys (at least one of them right-handed) who can really hit?

Saturday in-game notes

Too hot for Beuhrle (sp?). The strain was apparently more than he could bear (sp?).

Billy Butler is turning on pitches like he thinks he's a Big Donkey or something.

We have too many left-handed hitters.

That HR Thome hit was way way back there.

Hey, German just whacked one to drive in some more runs. This game is easy.

You have to hit a lot of homers (Butler, Guillen, Olivo) to keep up with the Chitowns.

And that's what we're talking about (despite the HR-fueled comeback by the HR Sox). Here's hoping for another balanced attack (and limited Hillman buzz killers) tomorrow.

Reminder to self: Get our Mexicutioner (sp?) shirt from our brother.

P.S. Jose Guillen doesn't strike us as the kind of guy who takes kindly to having the guy in front of him walked on purpose over and over.