Phillies Trade 3 Prospects For Fat Pitcher

Click to enlarge.

Yes, the Phillies traded for Joe Blanton yesterday, sending three awesome prospects including Josh Outman, the best named player ever. Okay, I don’t know if they are awesome prospects, really, but this is Philadelphia, and we are negative.

Blanton has a 4.96 ERA, but think of the problem once he discovers Philadelphia cheesesteaks. Many a fat pitcher has become a fat, out-of-shape pitcher once they’ve hit Philadelphia. As you can see from my simple math above, Joe Blanton plus Philadelphia cheesesteaks equals a really heavy pitcher with a poorly Photoshopped Phillies logo on him.

What’s great about this trade is not too many Phillies fans have seen these prospects, but pretty much everyone everywhere hates it.

On the plus side, well, the Mets won their 10th straight yesterday, eliminating a 5.5 game deficit in just 13 days. The teams are tied for first; the Phillies play the Marlins tonight in Miami. Oh, boy, the second half of the season will surely be slow and painful, no matter how it ends up.

Imagine How Cheap Condoms Are For NYC

Last night, thanks to the hard work of NBC 10, we learned that the prison system gives out free condoms to inmates in order to prevent HIV.

NBC 10 presented this as a mini-scandal, as, y’know, we wasted a lot of money on the condoms and prisoners aren’t supposed to be having sex. Erhm.

The city also didn’t waste that much money for condoms. According to the health department, the 8,000 condoms cost the city $360. Which means… hold on, it’s time for some third-grade math!

Damn. Only 22.2222222… cents a condom! That’s, honestly, quite a deal. Good use of bargaining power, City of Philadelphia. I wonder if it’s cheaper than caring for an inmate who has HIV?

City Giving Free Condoms To Male Prisoners [NBC 10]
Earlier Today: Thousands Of People Who We Didn’t Have Time To Interview Are Strongly Against This!

Let’s See… 15 Miles… In One Hour…

A letter in Friday’s Camden Courier Post speaking out against a proposed rush hour seat belt checkpoint:

Drivers need a wake up call? There is nothing wrong with a seatbelt checkpoint. But rush hour at a major trouble spot is not the time or the place to do it.

Drivers in a last-minute rush? Exactly how much time should one allow for a 15-mile drive? If it takes an hour to go 15 miles, the driver is traveling at an average speed of 4 mph, a lot less than the 65 mph speed limit on Route 55.

We are entitled to a reasonable expectation of a safe and timely arrival at work in the morning. There are plenty of unavoidable occurrences that happen that must be planned for, but a traffic jam caused purposely and with absolutely no regard for the majority of law-abiding, seatbelt-wearing and not last-minute commuters is just wrong.

Hey, new math.

Avoid road jams [Camden Courier-Post]

And Don’t Get Them Started On Unicorns

Blogger: Scientists, Mathematicians better shut the hell up before they get a boot in the ass for annoying me.

Skeptic: Math, Science Refute Vampires, Ghosts [AP/CBS 3]

Introducing Your 2006 NL East Champions

I don’t know what the Phillies slogan is going to be this year — it seems like it’s going to be something like “Paint the Town Red,” which ties in nicely with an MAB Paints promotion (sigh) — but I think it should be this: “Be Optimistic. No, Really. We’re Going To Do Pretty Good This Year.”

Yeah, the Fightin’ Phils still don’t really have anyone who can pitch, but the offense should be outofsight aside from the black holes at third and catcher. I’m not sure saying they’re going to win the pennant, but I feel they’re going to be better than people are saying.

Don’t believe me? The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog recently ran 2000 simulations using the Diamond Mind software — no, I don’t really know what that means, either — and some other cool baseball stat geek programs. Check out the results:

That’s the average of all three sims. Now, the author says to take it with a huge grain of salt (and adds that the Phillies are probably ranked too high) but I think I, as a Phillies fan, can totally ignore that advice. Whoo! Go Phils! To the playoffs we go!

The 2006 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout [Replacement Level Yankees Weblog]

Herb and the bloggers

It’s been a long while since we’ve all turned our gaze at Philadelphia’s oldest columnist — I’m basing this on just a guess, but come on — Herb Denenberg. This lover of all things Israel and hater of the Inquirer — perhaps in that order — doles out advice in a trusty Q&A format, and takes a look at bloggers this week.

For a print media look at bloggers, his views on them are refreshingly not alarmist and quick-to-dismiss.

Huzzah! Here’s his take:

Oh yes, Herb, we knew you had our back. One thing, though: if there are 10 million blogs and 100,000 new blogs a day, does that mean 100 days ago there were zero blogs?