Interviews set

Paul Meyer reports the Pirates will interview Macha tomorrow and Tracy on Monday. Or vice versa. I just read the article, and already I forget.

If I ran the circus, I'd want to know who these guys would bring along to fill the rest of the coaching staff. If there is such a thing as a coach or a manager who can make a huge difference, I figure these coaches are much more valuable to small-payroll teams than they are to large-payroll teams. Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez don't need coaching. Kip Wells and Jose Castillo need coaching.

So I'd want to know, who is the best and brightest, Mr. Macha and Mr. Tracy? Who would you hire? Who could you hire? What would they cost, and why are they worth so much money?

If the Pirates merely hire a skeleton crew of inexperienced or league-average coaches, then I suppose they fired McClendon and cleaned house for nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt.

DL plans to interview Macha

Paul Meyer reports. Busy DL also talked on the phone with Tracy for two hours Wednesday. "We were talking baseball," Littlefield said. "It was that more than an interview per se."

In other news: (Earmuffs! i.e. cover your children's ears if you're reading aloud) Cam Bonifay (earmuffs off) was fired by the Rays today. All hail that.

Some picks for Week 5

Great card for handicappers this week. With all the field-goal-or-lower spreads, we're picking winners mainly. And the matchups look real even to me with so many better teams on the road. So far I like these sides: Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, San Francisco, Arizona, Jacksonville, Buffalo, St. Louis, and Houston.

The Bills really screwed up with the demotion of Losman, I think. They traded up for that guy last year; why do that and then get weak-kneed when he struggles early? Eli Manning was a dog for what, at least six games. How long did it take Carson Palmer to play well? Not everyone can be Ben Roethlisberger; at the very least, the Bills should play Losman from the start and yank him at the first sign of suckitude. He was real good in the opening drive last week. Put him on a low pitch count and have your Brian Meadows (Kelly Holcomb) prepared for long relief.

Kelly Holcomb is like that donut in the back of your car. You can put him on and go about fifty miles, but the Bills can't regard him as some kind of solution. That said, I think the Bills are poised for real success this week, Losman or Holcomb. By pulling Losman from a game which figures to go their way, Holcomb will get the glory and their QB troubles will be set in stone, Cleveland-style, faster than you can say Tim Couch.

Yar

Have a little Pirate cheesecake while Littlefield deals with the Tracy/Macha conundrum.

A's throw Macha back

"It was a compensation issue" Beane said. Macha's agent talked to DL today and also claims the Marlins have nibbled. My telepathic messages sent to Macha, Tracy, and DL requesting their comments were not immediately returned.

Leyland accepts managerial position

with Detroit. Looks like we'll host his new team June 30th-July 2nd.

Tracy and other thoughts

USA Today reports Tracy now the favorite. Perrotto agrees.

Not sure what Perrotto means by "a move straight out of high school" - any idea? It refers to Littlefield opening all the coaching positions.

I had a lot of good moves in high school, but that was not one of them.

Other random thoughts:

I wonder if the Bucs would target Chad Tracy if they hire Jim.

Zach Duke's VORP, 32.7, blows away the top NL position player, Ryan Howard, who finished at 17.9. VORP is not the be-all and end-all, but hopefully that number will encourage the beat writers to look closely at just how great Zach was in his rookie year. He deserves a ton of votes.

Lately I wonder if we don't want to bring back Kip Wells as a fifth starter. Or, if Redman re-signs, maybe we trade Wells to Seattle for Jamie Moyer.

Removing Wells from the situation would certainly make life easier for the next pitching coach.

I was surprised that Spin was let go, until I realized that both starters we relied upon the most, Kip Wells and Oliver Perez, failed us badly. While that's not Spin's fault, you have to work with what you have. Perhaps it's not a question of getting better coaches so much as it's a question of getting coaches that better fit the team of misfits they'll mentor.

All hail express and LouCrandall

Lou took the weekly honors. Express leads the pool with a .534 percentage. A number of other players, with better records, are just short of the 50% minimum plate appearances. After 60 games, you need to have made 30 picks to qualify for the championship.

I tread water at 7-7 and remain eight games under .500. That won't stopping me from Acting Like I Know. You can expect more piratical swami action from me later in the week.

Spin fired

So long, Spin.

13th losing season haiku

Painful bleeding wound
maybe forming scab? All hail
Bay, Duke, Maholm!

Games 161 and 162: Brewers at Pirates

Congratulations to the Brew Crew for clinching the .500 season.

NFL week 4 thread

Don't forget to make picks if you are in the pool.

Here's a thread for NFL jabber this weekend.

Mexican football

Mexicans are sensible people. They love the Steelers.

Game 160: Brewers at Pirates

The Brewers have to win two of three to finish above .500 and break their equally-long streak of losing seasons. The Pirates have no hope of a winning season, of course.

Pirate fans could chant this weekend, "One of us! One of us! One of us!"

Except for Bones. He will be cheering, "Reverse Wiggy Wheel!"

Oliver Perez starts tonight. Game is at seven. Plenty of good seats, I'm sure. Wear a couple fleeces if you plan to stay for the whole show.

...Pirates 4, Brewers 0, after four. Ollie looks OK.

...I like to think that I've generally outgrown hatred, as in, I'm rarely all about "hating" this or that. But for some reason, Doug Davis is a guy I just loathe. So I'm enjoying this game tonight. If I was ten again, and still had baseball cards (or access to Bones' baseball cards), I find his card and bite down hard on it, leaving ten-year-old-sized teeth marks.

...you have to really try to walk Bill Hall. Good job with the second effort, Ollie.

...d'oh. It's going to take a long time to forget the bad taste of this season.

Week 4 picks

I took a bath last week and did terribly in the pick 'em pool. On the year I'm 13-21, yet more than a dozen spots from last place.

A lot of us did poorly. In fact, I've never seen a year quite like this one, with so many pick 'em players under .500 going into week 4. Only 7 of 34 Honest Wagner players are at or above .500. Only 25 players on the whole site (not sure how many total players there are, but I'd guess hundreds) are at or above .500. Tell me again why the books have to take a cut of any winnings? They are rolling in the profits so far this season.

My picks last week were sweet, even if all wrong. That can happen.

This weeks' picks are sweeter. Have fun picking against them.

Using the lines at pigskin.com, here the picks. Detroit covers at Tampa Bay. So laughable, it just might happen. Houston covers at Cincinnati. More laughter. Indy rolls Tennessee. Kansas City owns Philadelphia. The Bolts come and lose a squeaker to Tom Brady. The Seahags outrun the Redskins in DC. The Giants crush the Rams. The Jets cover at Baltimore.

Jets cover at Baltimore??? I am not afraid of first-time starters at quarterback. I am afraid of bad quarterbacks, of course, but first-timers are not always bad. Tom Brady, for example, was a sixth-round understudy when Drew Bledsoe ruptured his spleen in 2001.

Bollinger was a mobile, smart quarterback at Wisconsin. He's been holding the clipboard for three years. So what if his name is synonymous, in New York, with third-string offensive ineptitude? We've yet to see what he can do with the first-stringers.

Quarterbacks can lose a game; Kyle Orton knows something about that. Generally, though, they are an overrated part of some system. If they take care of the ball, whether or not the team wins on offense is not so much determined by their play.

The Jets offense may be in bad shape around him, but so too is the Ravens' offense. The Ravens are not as good as many think on defense, and the Jets are better than many think on defense.

All in all, even with the first-time starter at QB, this should be a close game. What clinches it for me is the insanely low number: currently 30-31. A seven-and-a-half-point spread is enormous in a game that's expected to generate that little scoring.

Moving on. I had a blue-and-black striped dress shirt in my hands the other day at the mall. It was spiffy. I was going to buy it, but something about it ... bothered me. What is it? I kept thinking. Suddenly I knew: the color scheme was identical to the Dallas football colors. I put the shirt back. I could never wear it without thinking, every time I looked in the mirror: "How 'bout them Cowboys!"

Dallas covers at Oakland. Minnesota covers at Atlanta. Green Bay covers on Monday night.

There are three games I see as a 50-50 proposition: Buffalo "at" New Orleans, Denver at Jacksonville, and San Francisco "at" Arizona. If I was over .500, I'd stay away. But now it looks like a few coin flips might improve my record. I'll take all the visitors. I'm especially curious to see how J.P. Losman, former Tulane standout, plays against the Saints. Since he has a reputation for being too emotional, I guess he might be a little out of control.

Still time to get in our pool. It's free.

Huzza for express, now first among our pool players with the min. plate appearances (24 games picked).

Bones' 2006 playbook

What can I bring to the table as 2006 Pirates manager? A new out-of-the-box playbook. Designed to sell tickets and teach some of these damn kids a lesson that they need to execute the fundamentals they've been taught ... or face Wiggy.

Page 1 is the new defensive play "the reverse Wiggy wheel". In this one, Wiggy plays first. Upon contact, the whole infield sprints into clockwise rotation. P covers 3B, 3B covers SS, SS covers 2B, 2B covers 1B. This frees Wiggy up for a full-speed head-on collision with the unsuspecting baserunner.

This doesn't work for walks or homers. So page 2: say Kip just got cute with his sixth walk of the game or Mesa just grooved a fastball. Of course, the game is now beyond reach and the pitcher needs a sharp correction. I signal for the "Wiggy hook". In this one, Doumit lofts the ball back to the mound, but about a third of the way towards third. Kip/Joe/whoever jogs off the mound to shag the errant throw. Wiggy sprints off third, seemingly also shagging said errant throw. But of course, he never slows down, overruns it and does what he does best. Page 3 is a variant of this one where Wiggy gets shifted to LF after Tike botches a play in CF. Fogg comes in to serve up fly balls and Wiggy does his thing. Page 4 is "Wrong-way Wiggy". This one gets prescribed after egregious baserunning blunders. Next time offender gets on base behind somebody else, lead baserunner is replaced with Wiggy. You can guess what comes next.

We might not win many games, but that hasn't been the goal in awhile, right? More importantly, I think all these puerile shenanigans would sell tickets, and make a LOT of money for Mr. Nutting.

Game 159: Pirates at Cubs

Pirates have a lead here in the sixth.

How would Bones handle this situation? I guess he'd call a beanball, just to keep them Cubs honest. And in their place.

Bones throws his name into the ring

After reading about all these other guys, I can't resist. I hereby publicly declare my willingness to manage the Pirates in 2006.

Despite no managerial experience of any sort and extensive family and second job commitments, I could do the best job I could to keep everybody afloat. If Dave and Kevin (and Ogden) picked me, I'd make changes. I'd have my own program. My specific platform is: the daily starting line-up would be determined by a daily HW reader vote. That plus I'd ban laundry carts. And lying down (while on the clock).

All hail Zach Duke

Add tonight's game to the evidence that Zach Duke deserves the NL ROY award. Sure, other guys played more often, but no one has been as consistently good as Zach Duke.

That's the second time Duke has beaten strong outings from Greg Maddux. (Here's the first.)

No Zach Duke, then perhaps Maddux gets his 15 wins.

Duke also beat Tim Hudson.

Game 158: Pirates at Cubs

Duke and Madduke.