Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The boys at FJM...

...are sophisticated men who know their racket, and Moneyballing stat-swingers all. They also get quite busy laying down the hurt on bad sportswriting. As a result, they may have missed today's gem from the reliable Tim Keown. A sample:
Analytical all year, a lot of the paid experts will base World Series predictions on goofy stuff like momentum and team chemistry, stuff that really has nothing to do with who wins a baseball game.

The man ought to send Ken Tremendous a fruit basket or something.
You can say what you want about the postseason and heart and whatever else, but understand this: If Lou Piniella succeeds in getting A-Rod to the Cubs, the decision to hire him as manager will be worth twice what they pay him.

Let's just go ahead and confer capitals on the man - he is now The Reliable Tim Keown.

There's more, of course. However, I do dare to dispute TRTK on one point - his item on Jose Uribe.

Must have been a nice Jeep, is all I can say: Police in the Dominican Republic issued an arrest warrant for White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe and his bodyguard, who are suspected of shooting two men who walked too close to Uribe's Jeep.

And not only that, but the details read like a bad joke: The two men Uribe is suspected of shooting are a Dominican farmer and a captain in the Italian Navy.


That's bad, but after the highly-publicized kidnapping of Ugueth Urbina's mom, it's actually not surprising. Many of the country's successful citizens have to live in security compounds to keep safe; gangs look at carjacking as a reliable means to earn some butter-and-egg money when they're not robbing people or holding them for ransom.

Bottom line is, Urbina saw two strangers approaching his car and his first reaction was likely, "Oh hell, these guys are gonna dump my corpse in the street and take off in my car." I'm not saying it's right, but I think I need more details.

(update, three minutes later - well, there we are. It may not even have been Uribe, and the gentleman farmer may be trying to play on public sentement to mooch some dinero from a recognizable (and rich) source. I'll have to follow this a little more closely.)

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