I warned the Nationals

I did! Last March I said to pass on Stephen Strasburg and spend that $50 million more wisely… like spreading it around a farm system that needs depth!

OK, so chances are it will be more like $22 million (man this recession is hitting EVERYONE) but still, spending all of that on one guy is insane.

Yeah I know Stephen Strasburg is going to be the biggest pitcher in baseball history (like we heard about Brien Taylor, Jon Peters, Todd Van Poppel and Mark Prior) but the Nats are more than one pitcher away.

AND everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knew that this was going to turn into a Scott Boras circus. 

Everyone knew the signing would be dragged on to the last possibly nanosecond with the Nats possibly sitting with bupkes and another compensation pick.

So now the clock is ticking and Boras has the independent leagues on speed dial.

And even if they DO sign him, the pressure on him will be mind numbing, and the handling of him will probably defy logic.

Remember how the Yankees couldn’t decide what the hell Joba Chamberlain was until they yanked him back and forth illogically all during the 2008 season?

That will be clear headed thinking compared to the inevitable madness that will be the Nats pitch counts. 

Remember this guy is now their franchise!

Forget pitch count. He probably won’t be allowed to tie his shoes without a trainer present.

Heck they’ll have to have him more protected than John Travolta in the Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

All of this would be worth it for someone proven…

Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, Justin Verlander… heck even Tim Lincecum.

But dragging this out for someone who could be an ace or could be Todd Van Poppel is nuts.

I mean couldn’t the Nats have drafted Dustin Ackley, Grant Green or some other highly touted amateur and moved on?

This guy had better be good…

No pressure.

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The A’s have a strange sense of nostalgia

The A’s wore their turn back the clock jerseys and with the help of Mark Ellis’s walk of homer, they beat the White Sox.

But it’s those unis that make me scratch my head.

The A’s were honoring the World Champions from 1929, back when they were in Philadelphia.

So I might be crazy here, there probably weren’t a heck of a lot of people in Oakland nostalgic for that A’s team.

That World Series ended on October 14, 1929 when Bing Miller singled home the World Series winning off of Cubs pitcher Pat Malone.

Hmmm… October 1929… did anything else happen that month?

OH YEAH!

The Stock Market crashed! All Hell broke loose and the Great Depression Started!

So basically the A’s had us nostalgic for the start of the great depression!

I wonder if people got free admission if they showed up wearing a barrel. 

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