Tune in tonight at 8 pm!

Until then, here are some links for your Thursday-afternoon reading. . .

Mock drafts from NFL.com.

Oakland is recycling President Obama’s election strategy for the draft: HOPE.

Who will draft Manti Te’o?

Best and worst of the new NFL uniforms.

What’s a draft without the obligatory posts on the Wonderlic test. . .

A seven.

Blame colleges for low Wonderlic scores!

Don’t judge a player by his Wonderlic.

Jimmy Kimmel gets fans to opine on fictional draft prospects.

The year of the OT.

Rumors.

And finally. . .

“A preview of the worst NFL Draft in the history of the world.”

On second thought, maybe I won’t watch tonight.

ESPN:

Award-winning writer and Emmy recipient Robert Lipsyte has been appointed as ESPN’s fifth ombudsman.

Lipsyte, a native of Rego Park, N.Y. and graduate of Columbia University — where he also earned his Masters in journalism — will begin his 18-month term in June, offering independent examination, critique and analysis of ESPN. The role will include written pieces on ESPN.com, on-line chats and other multi-media interactions with fans.

“During his days at the New York Times, PBS and throughout his distinguished career, Robert Lipsyte has always been recognized as an impeccable journalist with a true gift for reporting, writing and analysis,” said ESPN President John Skipper. “His deep and thorough understanding of sports media will assuredly be an asset for ESPN and our users.”

“We at ESPN have long admired Bob’s keen awareness of the sports world and how the media interact with the industry,” said ESPN Executive Vice President and Executive Editor, John Walsh. “During our interview with Bob, we agreed about a blueprint for the ESPN ombudsman in the digital age. So we will be looking at a multi-platform focus along with paying attention to the views of our audiences.

“We have always been interested in new ideas with the goal of making us better,” Walsh said. “Bob’s reputation as an independent thinker and fearless reporter and columnist will be important qualities.”

Who knew ESPN had four ombudsmen benefore Lipsyte?

This week’s Reveille readers saw the video of a fan at Safeco Field catching a ball with his suds.

Now witness the dad in the right-field bleachers at Minute Maid Park nabbing a home-run ball using a vat filled to the brim with movie-theater popcorn.

Alas, while the Mariners fan was able to proudly gulp down most of the cup’s contents — with the ball resting inside, no less — all of this family’s kernels were lost, most ending up as uninvited guests of the warning track.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• When Jean Segura of the Brewers on Friday evening got thrown out stealing second after he had already stolen it, Mickey Mantle’s quote, “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life,” immediately came to mind. Sports Illustrated’s Cliff Corcoran offers his thoughts on this bizarre occurrence.
• Rob Neyer of SB Nation reminds us yet again not to read all that much into Cactus and Grapefruit League statistics:

Essentially, Jackie Bradley Jr.’s spring is a case study for aspiring statistical analysts. It’s just possible, is it, that a player could collect 28 hits in 62 at-bats . . . and then 3 hits in 31 at-bats? Well, yes, it is possible. Obviously. It’s not at all likely. Those 28 hits in 62 at-bats did suggest that Jackie Bradley Jr. is a capable major-league hitter. Of course, his .271 batting average in 229 Double-A at-bats last season suggested something else. And suggested it more strongly.

Bradley actually turns 23 today, and is still a fine prospect. But he will, I suspect, live for some years as an object lesson for Red Sox fans (and yes, writers too). Spring-training statistics are a lot of fun, but they’re merely a snapshot in time, and they describe the random nature of raw performance statistics as much as they describe fundamental abilities.

• Daniel Nava made sure that the first game at Fenway Park since the Boston Marathon terrorist attack was not only memorable but included a joyous outcome.
• Some buckethead is looking pretty silly at the moment in the wake of the Rockies’ red-hot start (13–5). Troy Renck of the Denver Post profiles leadoff hitter Dexter Fowler, one of the keys to Colorado’s success to date:

He hit seven home runs in his first 40 at-bats left-handed this season, leaving him among the league leaders. For his career, the switch hitter has never hit more than 10 home runs left-handed in a season. . . .
When the 6-foot-4 Fowler arrived with the Rockies in 2008, straight from the Beijing Olympics, he weighed roughly 145 pounds. He could have been faxed to Denver. Looking at that player, it’s easy to see how opinions formed about his future. He could run, and without much muscle, he profiled as a slash-and-dash leadoff hitter.

Problem is, that’s not Fowler.

“I can see why, but a lot of people wanted him to be a different player than he wants to be. Right now, he wants to be a guy who can mash. That’s who he is,” said Bichette of Fowler, who’s now a much stronger 195 pounds. “Look in his eyes. That’s who he wants to be.”

• NBC Hardball Talk’s Bill Baer finds it rather amusing that Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., who claimed back in January that he didn’t “care about walks,” is now flabbergasted that the lineup isn’t — wait for it — drawing walks.
• It seems that the fans at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park are hooked on both their closer and grilled cheese.
• According to Fangraphs’ Paul Swydan, what makes Robinson Cano and Pablo Sandoval special is that they not only hit for power but also for contact:

Cano and Sandoval really do separate from the pack. Their SLG [slugging], ISO [isolated power] and wOBA [weighted on-base average] marks stand out as the best among the group. You could squint and put Crawford in the same group, but then Crawford has struck out far more frequently across this span than have Cano and Sandoval. …

Cano and Sandoval, on the other hand, are still swinging with the best of them this season. Cano’s swing rates are down from his 2011 peak, but he is his O-Swing% [the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone] and Swing% are still five percent above league average as of today. And Sandoval trumps just about everyone. Sandoval’s swing rates are 15-20% above league average. Only two players are swinging at more pitches this year than Sandoval — Josh Hamilton and Jeff Francoeur — and neither of them have contact rates even resembling league average.

• Thanks to Blake Murphy of Beyond the Boxscore, we now know that the hitters on the 2010 Diamondbacks deserve the distinction of putting less than 63 percent of balls in play, the lowest percentage of any MLB team in history. Their walk, strikeout, and home-run rates were 9.5 percent, 24.7 percent, and 2.91 percent, respectively.

• Watch a bon vivant attending a Mariners game demonstrate what to do when a batted ball lands in an $8 brew.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Two days after being arrested on a drinking-under-the-influence charge, Yovani Gallardo is slated to take the mound this afternoon for the Brewers when they host the Giants.

After pointing out that MLB has disciplined players for transgressions that are not directly baseball-related — for example, remember Delmon Young? — Craig Calcaterra of NBC’s Hardball Talk wonders when the owners and the union will wise up and discipline players who put their fellow citizens’ lives in jeopardy:

It doesn’t have to be this way. If Major League Baseball and the MLBPA felt that players driving drunk was as serious as, say, smoking a J in your apartment, they could agree that players would be subject to suspension or some other form of discipline. It wouldn’t even take that long to do. There may be a bit of haggling over when you suspend someone – right after the incident or right after they’re convicted? – but that could be easily handled and negotiated. It’s not the 1980s anymore. The league and the union are frighteningly cooperative and efficient when they want to be these days.

They have no desire to, however. Perhaps because baseball has always tolerated alcohol abuse more than it tolerates anything. Perhaps because there are still, to this day, fans who feel like Gallardo pitching poorly of late is way more offensive than Gallardo driving drunk.  But the fact that the first and seemingly only question that is asked is whether Drunk Driving Player X is able to play in the next possible game, it shows that they simply don’t care.

More here.

On Friday, the draws for UEFA’s Champions League semifinals pitted Bayern Munich against Barcelona, and Real Madrid against Borussia Dortmund. Come May 25th, London’s Wembley Stadium will host either an all-German final, or another El Clásico. For supporters of other traditional powerhouses such as Manchester United, Juventus, or AC Milan, or last year’s champions, Chelsea, although their teams were knocked out earlier in the competition, the upcoming semifinals (and even the prospect of what should be a thrilling final) will offer spectacular soccer.

Bayern Munich, who already sealed their 23rd Bundesliga title on April 6th, will look to get past Barcelona. After losing in the final last year to Chelsea at the Allianz Arena, their home ground, they are looking to claim their first Champions League trophy since 2001, making them five-times Champions of Europe. Should they accomplish this, it will be the successful ending to manager Jupp Heynckes’ two-year reign. Watching with interest will be incoming manager Pep Guardiola, former Barcelona manager – his recent past vs. his immediate future. For Guardiola, Bayern Munich has always been “the business”. Bayern Munich will hope to win their 8th Double this year.

Although Barcelona have not sealed the La Liga title, it is already a given that the Spanish title is theirs, making it their 22nd; their 13 point lead over second placed Real Madrid, their historic rivals, and possible 2013 Champions League finals opponents difficult to overcome. Barcelona are also hoping to become five-times champions of Europe, having last won the competition in 2011 at Wembley Stadium against Manchester United. Winning the Champions League would also be of special meaning to the Catalan team, which they would undoubtedly dedicate to manager Tito Vilanova, whose recent battle with parotid gland cancer had him being treated in a New York City hospital for six weeks. He returned to his position in late March.

For Real Madrid, since they have ceded the La Liga title to Barcelona, becoming European champions is the prize they are aiming for. Should they get past Borussia Dortmund and triumph at Wembley, this will be their first European trophy since 2002, and their long-awaited tenth. Real Madrid are alone in winning the competition nine times so far. For José Mourinho, winning with Real Madrid will make him the first manager to win the European Champions with three different clubs. He first won the competition with Porto in 2004, then with Inter Milan in 2010, after which he immediately took over at Real Madrid.

His time at Real Madrid has not gone as smoothly as was expected. There has been friction between him and the Spanish press, criticizing him most recently over his dropping of club and Spain captain, goalkeeper Iker Casillas. The club’s hierarchy have been reported to be unhappy with his lack of success in knocking Barcelona off their perch and a section of madridistas (the club’s supporters) have been showing their discontent with him. Recently, he challenged them to take out their criticism upon him as he proposed to appear before them on the field prior to a game so they can jeer him. Winning the Champions League title would be the ending he would relish to silence his critics and leave the club on a high note.

Although he has been silent on his immediate future plans, it is known he desires to return to managing in the English Premier League. It is known that he longs to replace Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United when the latter retires, of which the latter has not given any indication of doing. With the lack of a permanent manager at Chelsea, it is speculated that he may return to manage the London club, where is loved by the players and the fans, but from which he was fired in 2007 by billionaire-owner Roman Abramovich.

But first he and Real Madrid must get past Borussia Dortmund, this year’s outsider favorites. This will not be the first time in year’s competition these two sides are meeting. In the group stage, they faced each other, with Borussia Dortmund edging the Spanish club to finish top of their group. Having emphasized European success this year, Borussia Dortmund are looking to claim only their second Champions League title, winning it back in 1997. Dortmund have surprised many this year with their performances on the European stage, especially Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who has been linked in the media with interest from many top clubs. Jürgen Klopp’s managerial talent has also brought him into the attention of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who seeks a repeat of last year’s success over Bayern Munich. As usual, the German manager has refused to speak about his future, repeating his commitment to Borussia Dortmund.

Against Real Madrid, the German club must nullify Cristiano Ronaldo, this year’s competition’s leading goal scorer, with 11 goals to his credit, three ahead of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi. One way for Klopp’s men to accomplish this is by clamping down on Mesut Özil, Real Madrid’s attacking midfielder whose relationship with Cristiano Ronaldo is pertinent to the Spanish club’s success.

Should the Wembley final be an El Clásico, it will be the third time Barcelona and Real Madrid will meet in competition in four months, with Real Madrid coming out on top on the last two occasions. For José Mourinho, it will be sweetest success if his team defeats Barcelona in the final, where he was assistant coach to the late Bobby Robson and his successor, Luis van Gaal. It was during this time that Pep Guardiola played at Barcelona. An all-German clash pitting Bayern Munich against Borussia Dortmund will be another game in the historic Bavarian rivalry between these two clubs. For Dortmund, having lost this year’s Bundesliga title to Bayern Munich, winning the Champions League final in a Bavarian derby would be the ultimate statement.

And his dramatic playoff win at Augusta on Sunday.

But the golf world is still talking about — who else? — Tiger Woods and the controversial two-stroke penalty he was assessed after a viewer called in to complain about where Tiger spotted his ball after plopping one in the water on  No. 15.

At first there was outrage that Tiger only given two-strokes and not disqualified for signing an incorrect card on Friday. But with the tournament behind us, there’s new photographic evidence that Tiger didn’t deserve a penalty at all:

Tiger Woods was assessed a two-stroke penalty and received a mountain of criticism after taking an illegal drop on the 15th hole of Friday’s Masters that sent the venerable tournament in chaos.

The question now, however, is whether he actually committed a violation at all, or instead was the victim of a false confession.

[The false confession was from Tiger, himself]

The Augusta Chronicle on Sunday printed two photos by staffer Michael Holahan of Woods’ two chip shots from the 15th fairway. The first hit the flagstick and rolled into the water, forcing Woods to take a one-stroke penalty and then drop his ball “as nearly as possible” to his original location.

The Chronicle circled various divots in the 15th fairway to show Woods’ second shot was in almost the exact same location as the first.

While the photos may not be conclusive evidence and they will no doubt be picked apart, Tiger does appear to be standing within inches of where he took his first shot, not the two yards that he himself thought he had moved.

Holahan maintained his location for both shots, offering a clear comparison. Television replays, on the other hand, came from different locations as an ESPN cameraman on the course set up in slightly different locations.

The new evidence doesn’t settle it one way or the other and if professional golf is going to continue using viewers at home for their officiating, there needs to be a tightening of the rules and penalties that can be assessed via one of these amateur-replay-calls.

Writing in the New Yorker, Roger Angell, now 92 years young, recalls an incident at a game in mid-July 1948. Robinson, in his sophomore season with the Dodgers, started to lose his composure standing on third at the Polo Grounds, home of the rival Giants:

Robinson, a Dodger base runner, had reached third and was standing on the bag, not far from me, when he suddenly came apart. I don’t know what happened, what brought it on, but it must have been something ugly and far too familiar to him, another racial taunt—I didn’t hear it—that reached him from the stands and this time struck home.

I didn’t quite hear Jackie, either, but his head was down and a stream of sound and profanity poured out of him. His head was down and his shoulders were barely holding in something more. The game stopped. The Dodgers’ third-base coach came over, and then the Giants’ third baseman—it must have been Sid Gordon—who talked to him quietly and consolingly. The third-base umpire walked in at last to join them, and put one hand on Robinson’s arm. The stands fell silent—what’s going on?—but the moment passed too quickly to require any kind of an explanation. The men parted, and Jackie took his lead off third while the Giants pitcher looked in for his sign. The game went on.

The essay from the “poet laureate of baseball” is short but effective, conveying to readers something of the agony Robinson felt during those first few years of his in a Brooklyn uniform.

More here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Tax Day Monday a bit more bearable:

• As a consequence of Carlos Quentin’s rushing Zack Greinke shortly after being struck with a 3–2 pitch in a one-run game, the Dodgers pitcher suffered a broken collarbone. In response, Quentin, who has led the big leagues in hits-by-pitch for the past two seasons, was suspended for eight games. In addressing the question why Quentin snapped last week, Jim Margalus of South Side Sox blames Ozzie Guillen for not standing behind the Padres outfielder during a 2009 plunking when Quentin was on the White Sox and Greinke pitched for the Royals.
• Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports explains why this individual may be the best player on the diamond over the past four years:

A lot of his offensive value is based off walks, which are generally undervalued. He runs the bases very well. He rarely grounds into double plays. And pretty much all the defensive metrics agree that he’s a fantastic fielder. He can play shortstop in a pinch, but plays all over the field otherwise and generally does a very good job of it.

Add that all together, and it makes for a pretty valuable player.

• On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the opening of Royals Stadium (a.k.a. Kauffman Stadium), Royals Review’s Craig Brown looks back at how the magnificent ballpark came into existence.
• Writing in the Hardball Times, Matthew Callan suspects that the “crazy closer” genre began with Joe Page, a Yankees reliever in the late 1940s.
• Rob Neyer of SB Nation interviews Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine about Jackie Robinson, his teammate from 1948 to 1956, and about the new film 42:

Neyer: As I’m sure you know, for many years Jackie was publicly critical of Major League Baseball’s complete lack of black executives or managers. In fact, there wasn’t a black manager (Frank Robinson) until after Jackie’s premature death. Do you think the players of your era would have played for a black manager? Do you think Jackie would have been a good manager?

Erskine: Jackie had a sense of urgency, as though he felt he didn’t have time to wait. He had already had a long wait, so every time he had a chance, he more or less said, “Just because I made it, don’t think we’re there. Look at what is not happening.”

In a way, our team already had a black manager. We, the Dodgers, recognized that Roy Campanella was destined to become a major-league manager. He had the experience and the temperament. So yes, our team would have willingly played for a black manager.

But I don’t believe Jackie would have wanted to manage. He had ideas to help black businesses, and black businessmen and -women, excel. He co-founded Freedom National Bank in Harlem to make loans to black businesses, and he also continued to be active in the Civil Rights Movement for the rest of his life.

• The Mets are presently in second place in the National League East, but, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Brian Costa, they are No. 1 in uniform choices.
• In ESPN’s SweetSpot, Joseph Werner asks whether a modern-day Nolan Ryan would be given a chance to crack the starting rotation.
• Elaine Benes is not amused: Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick informed fans that they were prohibited from sitting in luxury seats behind home plate unless they first removed their Dodger gear. 

• Regarding the aforementioned Quentin–Greinke brawl, it would seem that not everyone on the Padres bench was in a rush to join the scrum. 

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Whose bright idea was it to build a stadium without a roof anyway?

Finally, after years of debate and controversial goals, the Premier League has decided to use goal-line technology in the 2013–14 season, becoming the first major European soccer league to do so. Hawk-Eye, owned by Sony, which won the contract with the Premier League, is already used in cricket and tennis.

Hawk-Eye instantly sends a signal — within a second of the ball’s crossing the line — to the referee’s watch, letting him know if a goal has in fact been scored. That information comes into play if the goal is disputed and is useful paritcularly in cases where the ball has been cleared out by the goalkeeper or a defender.

Premier League executive Richard Scudamore, a proponent of the technology, welcomed the decision, saying:

Football is fundamentally a simple game; whichever side scores [the] most goals wins. So, when one is scored, or indeed not scored, and we have the ability through technology to definitively know whether the ball crossed the line, we should absolutely use it. Principally it is about getting it right. Fans, players, and managers exhort, strain, and stress respectively for their teams to score or prevent goals [from] being scored, so we as administrators should do all that we can to ensure the correct decisions are being made.

This has huge financial implications for all of the Premier clubs, especially those whose survival in the league is threatened and for which millions in revenue would be lost if they ended up on the losing side because of ghost goals.

We are a mere 8-10 games into the 162-game regular season but there is no shortage of euphoria and misery surrounding how teams and players are faring.

For example, how many of these figures do we think will hold up over time:

• The A’s lead the majors in home runs hit (16).
• The Tigers are tied for 24th in home runs (5). (Miguel Cabrera has only one round-tripper in 37 plate appearances.)
• The Mets batters are no. 1 in Fangraphs’ version of wins above replacement (2.2).
• The Amazins’ top score is in large part a consequence of perennial back-up catcher John Buck being tied for third in dingers (5).
• Carlos Santana leads all players in weighted on-base average (.601).
• Chris Davis is on pace to collect 364 runs batted in by season’s end (18 RBIs in 8 games).
• The Phillies pitching staff is dead last in earned run average (6.04).
• The Yankees pitchers have the third worst strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.74).
• The Blue Jays staff is worst in the American League in on-base-plus-slugging to opposing batters (.845).
• The Tigers are the only team in the bigs that has not committed an error. (Really? Have no balls been hit in Cabrera’s general direction?)

My guess: Only the first stat may endure much longer. Even playing at cavernous O.Co Coliseum, the A’s clubbed no fewer than 195 home runs in 2012.

Jay-Z has recently partnered with the mega-agency CAA to start a sports-agency business called “Roc Nation Sports.” 

Roc Nation has already signed Roberto Cano of the Yankees and Mr. Z will sell his stake in the Brooklyn Nets to allow his company to represent NBA players.

Now this is just speculation on my part, but maybe Mr. Z is in Cuba — thanks to his friendly ties with the Obama administration — developing a relationship for when Cuban baseball players are allowed to freely play in the MLB?

Oh, to be Jim Nantz. He moves from a courtside seat at a thrilling national championship game to a perch amid the stately Georgia pines for my favorite event of the sporting calendar.

Although a toughened and “Tiger-proofed” Augusta National has penalized the risk-takers in recent years, the back nine on Sunday at the Masters still provides some of the greatest drama in sports. I’ve looked back over my decades of Masters-watching and come up with my own top 7 Masters Moments.

7. Player’s Charge, 1978. A still-trim, still-feisty Gary Player goes wild on Sunday, shooting a 64 and erasing a seven-shot deficit to win by one. Player finishes well before the other leaders and has to wait until Hubert Green misses a three-foot birdie to tie to claim his third Green Jacket.

6. Norman’s Collapse, 1996. Star-crossed Greg Norman truly earns his crown as the king of Masters heartbreak. He squanders a six-shot lead over Nick Faldo, shooting a 78 to Faldo’s 67 and losing by five. It’s Faldo’s third green jacket.

5. Couples Defies Gravity, 1992. Nursing a slim lead on Sunday, Fred Couples comes to the diabolical par-3 12th, the scene of so many disasters, and narrowly averts one himself when his mis-clubbed tee shot somehow clings to the bank instead of trickling down into Rae’s Creek. Couples goes on to beat Ray Floyd for his only major.

4. Larry Mize, 1987. Playing a few miles from his home, the quiet, unassuming Mize hits the shot heard round the golf world, holing an impossible 140-foot pitch shot on the second playoff hole to deny Greg Norman a green jacket.

3. One for the Swoosh, 2005. The moment will always be etched in our memories — the ball hanging tantalizingly on the edge of the cup on No. 16, the Nike logo momentarily freeze-framed on our television screens before the ball tumbles into the hole, unleashing an awkward golfer high-five moment between Tiger Woods and caddie Steve Williams that detracts only slightly from the event. To answer your question, Verne Lundquist — no, in our lives, we’ve never seen anything like it. Woods goes on to wins his fourth (and most recent) Green Jacket in a playoff with Chris DiMarco.

2. Lefty’s Leap into History, 2004. Sporting a bemused grin, as though he’s actually enjoying the pressure-packed final round, Phil Mickelson gets the major monkey off his back, following up an opening-round 72 with three straight 69s to hold off a charging Ernie Els. Mickelson’s clinching putt on 18 and subsequent leap for joy provide one of golf’s great cathartic moments.

1. Jack’s Back. It’s 1986, and Jack Nicklaus is little more than a footnote to the proceedings at Augusta. Heading into the final round, he is four shots back and still below everyone’s radar. Jack birdies 9, 10 and 11 to creep up the leaderboard. A bogey at 12 calms the frenzy, but he gets it back with a birdie at 13. Then, an eagle putt at 15, a near-hole-in-one at 16, and a birdie at 17 unleash roars that rattle the pines. Nicklaus’s 65 puts him at 9-under, and his competitors, seemingly shaken by this turn-back-the-clock day at Augusta National, stumble home one by one. Jack needs only 33 strokes to complete the final ten holes of the greatest Masters of them all.

— Rob Doster is senior editor for Athlon Sports.

Was that Leslie Nielsen Enrico Palazzo behind home plate in the ninth inning of the Rays-Rangers game last night? If so, Ben Zobrist and Joe Maddon wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised:

Despite umpire Marty Foster’s postgame admission, [Joe] Nathan still had his milestone save after a 5-4 Rangers victory Monday night that ended on a curveball that was low and outside.

“I saw the pitch and of course don’t have the chance to do it again,” Foster told a pool reporter after the game. “But had I had a chance to do it again, I wouldn’t call that pitch a strike.”

After Ben Zobrist took the full-count pitch, he started toward first base and even Nathan appeared to anticipate a ball being called. But Foster called strike three.

Zobrist put both hands on his helmet and took it off in disbelief. Maddon argued with Foster and the other umpires for several minutes after the game ended.

Soon after that Maddon tweeted, “That can’t happen in a major league game.”

Check out the chart below: See the red square located just a bit outside? Yup, that’s the pitch in question.

Consequently, instead of the Rays having two on with Evan Longoria strolling to the plate, they were saddled with a hard-to-swallow loss.

More here and here.

The leading rusher for the Nebraska Cornhukers in their spring-game scrimmage was Jack Hoffman, who sprinted 69 yards for the score in the 4th quarter. Jack is also seven and currently undergoing chemotherapy treatment for brain cancer. Here’s the video:

Turn the speakers up and enjoy the call, the fans and the team running onto the field to help #22 celebrate. 

Excuse me. It got a little dusty in here:

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Ben Lindbergh and Jon Shepherd of Baseball Prospectus remind us why we shouldn’t seek too much meaning in spring-training statistics — in this case, the hope of projecting which position players are due for breakout years at the plate.  
• A few days ago, Right Field took note of Michael Morse’s hot start. U.S.S. Mariner’s Jeff Sullivan advises Seattle fans on why they should embrace the 31-year-old left fielder in his second stint with the club, even though he is signed only through the end of the season:

And one shouldn’t overlook the fact that Morse is apparently absolutely thrilled to be in Seattle. This is a guy who the Mariners dealt away for a backup, a guy who only found success somewhere else, and this is a guy who got traded back to Seattle from a title contender. The Nationals are probably the best team in baseball; the Mariners are probably not. Morse easily could’ve reacted the way that Cliff Lee initially reacted. But Morse didn’t just go along with things — he told everyone he could get a hold of that he was beyond ecstatic with things. Unless Morse is a hell of a convincing liar, he wants to be a Mariner, and again, we get another parallel with Felix. One of the things that sets Felix apart in our hearts is his loyalty to the city and the organization. A lot of players seem like they’d be happy anywhere, just so long as they’re playing, and free agency typically bears this out. It renders as somewhat silly the idea that we should support a specific team in a specific place, since the players don’t really care. A guy like Felix, or Morse, indicates that there’s something special about this team, and it’s satisfying when loyalty feels like it’s a two-way street. Put another way: who the hell would want to be a Mariner? Michael Morse does, and that’s an unusual characteristic.

• With chatter growing louder over the possibility that the National League will adopt the designated hitter in the next few years, Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts, no fan of the DH, wonders why the NBA hasn’t gotten with the program and adopted a designated free-throw shooter.
• In an interview with Howie Rose, Amazin’ Avenue’s Chris McShane asks the Mets radio broadcaster about the use of the designated hitter. Rose doesn’t try to hide his disgust:

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. The only thing I like about it is that it makes for a cleaner scorecard, it’s an easier scorecard for a broadcaster to keep. But I’m not interested in the DH from a clerical standpoint, I’m interested in its ramifications from a strategic and a purity-of-the-game standpoint. And I hate it, and I despise it, and I never liked it, and I like it even less now, if that makes any sense.

• Wendy Thurm of Fangraphs informs readers that the cost of going to the ballpark has remained roughly the same from 2012 to this season, although there are noteworthy exceptions. Many fans of the Nationals, Tigers, Giants, Angels, and Rangers are seeing price hikes.
• Sabermetrics has spread to the Astros’ radio booth, and, according to Steve Eder of the New York Times, it did not happen by accident:

When the Astros interviewed [Steve] Sparks, a journeyman knuckleball pitcher, and [Robert] Ford, a Bronx native who previously called minor league games, the topic of advanced statistics came up repeatedly. The Astros, who have eagerly embraced analytics, wanted to know if the broadcasters could grasp the data being used, in part, to build the team.

“We need them to tell the story of how we are making decisions and putting the organization together,” said George Postolos, the Astros’ president and chief executive, who added that the team would not want a broadcaster who was uncomfortable explaining the front office’s strategy.

• To the millions of Twins fans reading Reveille: Be sure to read Aaron Gleeman’s post on his personal blog discussing Minnesota’s chances in the AL Central this year.
• “Remember the Alamodome!” screams the Hardball Times headline for Frank Jackson’s piece explaining, among other things, why San Antonio, the country’s seventh most populous city, does not host a triple-A franchise, let alone a big-league team.
• Back when he was a Northwestern University law student, current White Sox owner Jery Reinsdorf put into a motion a fairly ambitious scheme to level the playing field in the annual student-faculty softball game.

• First baseman Chris Davis had a monster first week of the season, but Will Middlebrooks (above) has had the game of the year for any position player. Yesterday, the 24-year-old third baseman belted three home runs, a double, and a long fly ball that died on the warning track in a Red Sox rout of R. A. Dickey and the Blue Jays.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Michael Morse, the towering outfielder who delighted crowds in D.C. with his eclectic walk-up music, had a blast during a just-completed four-game series in pitcher-friendly O.Co Stadium. In 16 plate appearances over the four games in Oakland, the 31-year-old clubbed no fewer than four home runs and posted an OPS of 1.537. One of those jacks was a three-run poke to right field off A’s starter Jarrod Parker.

If you’re trying to recall how Morse ended up back in the Pacific Northwest, here’s a primer.

Might the color of a visiting team’s locker room at a major Midwestern university be a matter of interest to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights?

Jill Gaulding, a cofounder of the advocacy group Gender Justice, claims that the University of Iowa is engaged in “pink shaming” and “cognitive bias” by making its football team’s opponents dress and undress in a locker room that is painted . . . pink:

“Most people understand the pink locker room as a taunt against the other team, calling them a bunch of ladies/girls/sissies/pansies/etc.,” according to an information sheet Gaulding and Gender Justice law partner Lisa Stratton distributed to the workshop attendees.

Gaulding’s handout quoted a passage from Fry’s autobiography where he said pink was a “passive” color and might put opponents in a passive mood. “Also, pink is often found in girls’ bedrooms, and because of that some consider it a sissy color,” according to a quote Gaulding said she took from Fry’s book.

Gaulding said she believes the university could be subject to a lawsuit if it maintains the pink locker room. The UI receives federal funding and is covered by Title IX and Title VII rules, which prohibit discrimination based on gender.

More here.