Gordo "I don't know.....well, I don't know if fireworks will work in rain like this"

DazzL "Sure they will"

Gordo "uh.....well. Uh."

Me "you guys must be loaded"

that's a long way of saying if Latin baseball talent is cheap and easily substitutes for domestic talent, then MLB is gonna go hire Latin talent. That has absolutely nothing to do with racism.

As somebody intimated earlier, the bigger factor in the relative dearth of domestically-produced black baseball talent may be a decline of black youth baseball participation. Is there in fact a decline, and if so, what explains that decline?

I have no doubt that racism persists in some quarters of baseball's management/ownership hierarchy.

I guess you've picked the softest underbelly here. If management is going to act on racist bases, the first place you would expect it to affect a roster would be the least valuable spots -- low-leverage utility players ("Scrufis" if you will).

Punto is just one example of a persistent breed of ballplayer -- the good glove, no-hit utility guy. Those guys had better be non-negative clubhouse influences if they are going to hang around for long.

That said, the absence of black utility players doesn't really prove anything. Nor would their presence.

Certainly Piazza is a rare and strange case. Since you mentioned it, I wonder if the demographics of secondary and latter rounds any different than the first two or three. And do 2nd and 3rd rounds break down differently than the 1st? It's said that Piazza was drafted in the 62nd round as a favor to his dad, who was a friend of Tommy Lasorda. But did he also stand a better chance of getting drafted in the late rounds simply because he was a white kid from a nice family who went to a decent school?

In the meantime, he also had to wait until he was 55 years old before getting his first manager's job (with one of the least storied franchises in the game), although the players in Oakland apparently thought the world of him. Wonder why.

And I mentioned Punto not just as an example of a utility guy, but because in 2007 he also had one of the worst seasons at the plate (by VORP) in Twins history. Yet, since then, he's not only remained with the team, but he's a general fan favorite who keeps finding his way back into the starting lineup. Does anyone think that happens if he's a black guy from the Chicago projects? Would his career have even survived a disaster like that 2007 season?

If he wants to make $30 a year, well, I worry about how that is going to impact the team in other areas.

And remember, it wasn't all that long ago that the Twins lost the best pitcher in all of baseball. Since that time they have won the division once and lost a one game playoff to not make the playoffs the other time.

The team with be fine, with or without Mauer.

Gees Louise, I had been trying not to think about this stuff.

With that said, please sign Joe Mauer.

MLB doesn't just try to screw blacks and Hispanics. The Dodgers nabbed a 19 year old white catcher in the 62nd round of the 1988 draft. He signed, I'm sure, a very small bonus, if he got one at all. He was not free to negotiate with any other club. Then, he sat in the minors for four seasons making nothing. Then, he made less than $1 million each of his first three seasons, despite being rookie of the year and a top ten MVP vote getter each year. Then, when he was about to become a free agent, they traded him to the Marlins, despite five consecutive silver sluggers and three consecutive top 4 places in the MVP vote.

But if, in fact, he leaves the Twins rather than accept $20,000,000.00 per year for eight years to stay, then it will show that money is far and away the most important factor in his decision making, and being in his home town is a very distant second.

This I can agree with. Like when Face of the Franchise was saying it wasn't about the money, but was then rumored to be leaning towards going to the ChiSox, of 72 wins the previous season. Of course, then the Angels went and threw even more money at him. At no point was money not at the top of Hunter's list of concerns.

Still, despite the decent bat and ability to play a utility role, Dunston bounced around quite a bit after the Cubs were done with him. Nobody seemed to want him for long; and he was even a part of 3 midseason trades in consecutive years, from 1997-99.

Newman had a nice 5-year run with the Twins, but nobody else had much interest in him. He played one year with Texas, after leaving Minnesota, and then he was done. And how many Al Newmans (or even Mark McLemores) have you seen around, lately?

Also, at one point the Twins seemed to be grooming Newman for a managerial job, but when the team hit a rough patch and some young players had not developed as expected, who was the one coach to lose his job? Was it the manager, the bench coach, or even the hitting coach who was responsible for the worst offense in the league? No, it was Newman, 3B coach in charge of giving fielding tips to the infielders, and the hitting coach was merely transferred over to Newman's 3B coaching box. Funny, huh?

So, I will temporarily withdraw my comment pending the conclusion of this story. But if it turns out that the Twins did offer $20 million a year for eight years, and if it turns out that Mauer leaves rather than take it, my comment will once again stand.

Again, I don't begrudge him the right to make as much money as he can. But if, in fact, he leaves the Twins rather than accept $20,000,000.00 per year for eight years to stay, then it will show that money is far and away the most important factor in his decision making, and being in his home town is a very distant second.

We didn't fight them in WWII, but we did invade Russian and fight the Soviets during & after WWI. Not many folks seem to know that, either.

If the Pohlads could simply hold onto his money for a few years without paying him interest, I'm sure they'd be more than accommodating.

Simply as a tax strategy, I don't know if it is really that big of a deal. I think it is pretty safe to assume that someone like Mauer will always have enough income to be in the highest tax bracket so shifting income from one year to another isn't that much of a benefit to him.

I actually haven't even looked at the settings. Are we doing standard Roto, or H2H.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to discuss this, but the settings for the league aren't very typical. Are we really settling on R, RBI, SB, OBP and SLG? Not that that's bad, but it seems like HR are usually in there somewhere...

There are occasionally bidding wars over Dominican or Venezuelan prospects, like Miguel Cabrera (who got a $1.9m signing bonus in 1999), but the vast majority of them still sign as teenagers for ~$10-20,000, or even less. Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, and Victor Martinez are a few examples of guys who signed for 10 grand; Hanley Ramirez signed for $22K. The Reds reportedly signed Johnny Cueto for $3,500 in 2004. Nice, huh?

So, IMO, Ozzie is talking shit, as usual.

Todrick's performance was a hot mess, but the wonderful-type mess that you get from doing Queen songs. I expressed hope to my wife that the Queen song would be "Fat Bottomed Girls" but no dice. Still, it was an entertaining tightrope walk between awesome and awful. I'd say about 50% of each.

I don't know about Urban, I'm a bad judge because I kindof hate that song, so I changed the channel. (Cohen's "Hallelujah" for those of you not playing along.)

Paige and Kelly should definitely and I believe will leave tonight. But other than that, I can't really say.

Also, I hate it that Kara equates biography with the ability to sing songs. It's not that he's too young to sing a song, it's that he didn't sing it well.

That's what Teixeira got just last year

Yes, but the important question is whether or not Mauer is given the opportunity to purchase the best 8 season tickets available any given year like Mark. What an odd clause.