Just some recommended reading while we all wait for Alberto Callaspo to beat the Braves with a big home run in October...
- I couldn't care less about bourbon, but that hardly kept me from enjoying Craig Calcaterra's essay about the murky origins of bourbon ... because it's about the murky, untidy origins of baseball, too.
- With Matt Adams out of action indefinitely, the Cardinals could really use a lefty-hitting first baseman, since Mark Reynolds is overmatched as an every-day player. With this in mind, SB Nation's Chris Cotillo runs through some of St. Louis's options, the most intriguing of whom is ... Ryan Howard? Hey, it's not that crazy. No, Howard isn't exactly management's favorite type of player. But then, neither is Adams. Howard's actually been decent this season, and of course he's been a righty-masher. But will the Phillies eat nearly all of the money Howard's still got coming? You know the Cards aren't paying the freight. And would Howard waive his no-trade clause, knowing he'd be platooned? Hey, it's fun to think about.
- Have you ever thought about pitching lines? You know, the ones that come after the hitters in the box score? Okay, me too. But Tom Ruane did more than think about them. He gathered up every pitching line since 1914, and then he analyzed the hell out of them. You know, just good clean National Pastimey fun.
- Can you figure out when the "sabermetric revolution" took hold, just by looking at statistics? Thanks to BP's Russell Carleton, it seems like maybe you can. Sorta, anyway.
- It's not a lot of fun, but I guess we all gotta read Bob Nightengale's on-the-scene reporting about the mood around the Marlins. It's obviously easy to pile on, but the simple fact is that Dan Jennings is going to lose the clubhouse during a rough stretch a lot quicker than a more conventional manager would. And there are going to be plenty of rough stretches. Nightengale says this is "only a short-term experiment, lasting until the end of the season." I doubt if the term will last nearly that long. I say the over/under is the All-Star break.
