Weekend Thoughts and Note from the Editors

Well the weekend is nearing the end so I thought I'd add a few of thoughts.

1. After conferring with my co-editor, we would both like to reiterate our plea to avoid personal attacks. While what is appropriate and what is not ultimately falls into the "I know it when I see it" judgment category, I think we can all agree that attacks on fans, individuals and other personal attacks are not ok. We can debate the merits of the quality of Brewers pitching but debating the worthiness of people from Wisconsin is not ok (they are actually decent people). We all have our own biases about the teams/fans that are own team's rivals and on a different forum your more than welcome to expand on them but here that just falls out of the bounds of what is acceptable. If you want to dissect public figures (e.g. government officials, sports figures, writers, reporters, etc) go right ahead given that none of us fall into that category. We are fans of some team and as such that would fall into the grounds of personal attacks. We, the editors, retain the right the remove posts given the above criteria. The goal is to have institutionalized conflict. Polarization for the sake of polarization is not.

2. Interesting article by Klosterman on the subject of Barry Bonds. I think his quote

"We just sort of watched it happen, and then we watched it get out of control, and then we expressed shock without feeling a grain of surprise, and then we tried to figure out how we were supposed to reconcile an alien reality we unconsciously understood all along."

is particularly interesting when it comes to reporting or sports commentary (never mind some parallels to news reporting in general) let alone the Commissioner's office. No different than Captain Renault's line "I'm shocked" both institutions were enablers for steroids and outrage of shock is nothing more than feigned. To turn around now and somehow say the steroid era is over or how could X let this happen is rank hypocrisy. They (or I suppose we) are all culpable.

3. Continuing with the baseball theme Buster Olney raises the question of if Paplebon should switch from closer to third starter. While typically a starter is worth more than anyone in the bullpen is that still the case for the Red Sox. Given Paplebon's success so far (and let us assume continued success) is the risk of switching him to a third starter worth it, especially given the huge holes in Boston's bullpen? What about during the playoffs?

4. I think the most interesting draft day story has to with trading into the Number 2 spot (New Orleans). Both Tennessee and the Jets are rumored to be offering various goodies for the privilege of getting Leinart. How much is worth it, especially given the availability of other quality QBs? In the case of the Saints they had better hope Drew Brees pans out (unless their goal is to lose which is also possible). I for one wouldn't give that much given that the difference between Leinart, Young and possibly Cutler is not worth the loss of draft picks (especially for two teams that have QBs that can man the helm for at least a season).