Excuses, Excuses

Regular readers will note that my updates of this weblog over the past few weeks have been somewhat sporadic. The lessons about paying at both ends when one goes away on vacation are certainly ringing true right now. Not that I would trade my nine days at the 2002 Winter Olympics for anything else. And the writeup should be up in a few more days.

Professionally, I've hit the busiest patch of my year, designing the prototype for the World Almanac for Kids 2003. Over the next three months, I'll be immersed in its production. I'll be keeping up with this weblog and other parts of my site (hopefully), but if things seem a little slower than usual around here, that's the reason. I'm not complaining--working on that book is as good as it gets for me, but it does absorb a lot of my other energies. To put things in perspective, I conceived this site around Opening Day last year, and launched it during the first week of June--immediately after that book was put to bed. We're headed into uncharted territory here, and I hope I can maintain the momentum this site has built up over the past year and especially the winter. But if I can't, I'll still be back in full force once I reach the other side of this patch.

Not that my readers out there should suffer for baseball-related content. This is a fertile time of year, as baseball writers emerge from their winter hibernations and shake the rust off of their cliches just as the ballplayers do for their swings and their pitching motions. A look at the recent "Clutch Hits" over at Baseball Primer yields headlines begging for a one-line putdown. Ordóñez Embraces New Role as Hitter? That one's about as ripe as a New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. Royals Think Tucker Can Be Impact Player They Envisioned? Another fat pitch just waiting to be hammered. And then there's Bobby Bonilla's on-again, off-again retirement: a fat bitch waiting to be hammered, perhaps?

Just not by me, because I'm a little short of time right now.

And don't even get me started on the flaps emerging from the Cincinnati Reds Embittered Alumni Club. Pokey Reese, Dmitri Young, and Ron Oester are upset at the Star Treatment Ken Griffey Jr. received? As my friends are prone to say, tell them all to have a nice hot mug of Shut the F*** Up. I've enjoyed picking on Junior in the past, but the cheap shots emerging from these disgruntled hacks about Junior doing outrageous things like treating his injured hamstring instead of shagging fly balls with the rest of the team don't fly here, nor do accusations of him maneuvering to have players traded when he publicly went on record with offers to defer salary to help the flexibility of the Reds' miserly payroll. As Joe Dimino pointed out on Baseball Primer, it's telling that Oester has joined the Scott Rolen Sendoff Parade in Philadelphia. He certainly sounds like a match for Larry Bowa and Dallas Green's My Way or the Highway Club.

See? Like I said, don't get me started.

Instead, I urge you to enjoy the flowery prose of all of those puff pieces sprouting from Florida and Arizona, buy yourself a copy of the new Baseball Prospectus for something more thought-provoking and useful, and surf on over to the recently revamped Baseball Junkie website to read the work of some smart young writers (disclosure: I designed their new banner). Take a moment to mourn the passing of Dan Duquette from the reins of the Red Sox, because his incompetence has provided us all with so many hours of entertainment. To borrow a Simpsons reference: "We are richer for having lost him."

And keep checking back here, because I'll have plenty more stuff soon, including that Olympic writeup. Just not today.

--posted by Jay Jaffe at 10:26 AM Link