The Baseball Gods Must Be Crazy

• In a news development that really shouldn't be very interesting and definitely shouldn't be any of our business but for some reason has become both, former Little League age falsifier Danny Almonte has married a 30-year-old. Why is this so fascinating? Personally I think aside from the simple novelty of a 19-year-old who hasn't finished high school marrying a 30-year-old woman, it's the fact that everything we've ever heard about Almonte revolves around his age in a negative way. First he was too old to be in the Little League World Series. Now (according to the media's take) he's too young to be marrying a woman 11 years his senior. Well I, for one, have had enough, and I think it's time we let Danny Almonte be. And clearly, what he wants to be is old. So if he chooses to get married as a means of accomplishing that goal, more power to him. And should he elect to walk around with a cane and grow a really long white beard before going to live in a nursing home at age 25, I'm not going to begrudge him that either. Danny, you do what you gotta do. You're a pioneer who boldly challenges societal restrictions on age, and for that, I respect you. Now go have fun! You've got the rest of your life ahead of you. (Well, kind of.)

• Not sure about you, but I've had absolutely no difficulty deciding who to side with in the Michael Barrett-AJ Pierzynski feud. And it's not just because I played against Barrett in high school and look for every opportunity to bring that up that I possibly can. No, when Barrett rose up from the dirt yesterday and cracked AJ Pierzynski in the side of the dome, he took a swing against the smug pricks of the world for all of us. I've obviously never met Pierzynski, but if he's not one of the five biggest a-holes in all of baseball, then he needs to hire a new publicist, because he sure seems to relish that image. So, for what it's worth, I've got your back, Michael. And I'm fully aware that's worth absolutely nothing.

• On the subject of baseball players I wouldn't necessarily mind seeing punched in the face, Astros' third baseman Morgan Ensberg was recently quoted as saying that the entire reason he plays baseball is so that he can speak out about Jesus Christ. Omm...I'm not sure how to put this, but wouldn't it be a more efficient method of spreading J.C.'s word to become a minister? And for the record, Morgan, if you are really delusional enough to think that's your purpose as a baseball player (I would argue you're paid to hit home runs, not talk about God), you're not doing a particularly good job, because I for one have never heard you drop a single G-bomb (I just want to thank God...) on televised air. So keep up the great work, dude. That's really awesome that you're all evangelical. But just know that if you show up a-knocking at my door talking that nonsense, I'm going to feel obliged to take a home run cut at your dome piece with my Chipper Jones autographed bat.
  

• What did 714 mean to you? Joe Buck called it "just another highlight" (or something along those lines) during FOX's broadcast on Saturday, as a way of saying that so many of Bonds' homers are in question because of steroids that you can't really accept this as a real milestone. I wish Joe was right and that we could all be stoic about it, but to me it's way more than just another highlight because of all the suspicion surrounding Bonds. It's almost like the massive efforts to discredit Bonds' homer count have elevated the attention and importance of the whole chase to a level it wouldn't have reached otherwise. Whatever the case, I find the whole thing to be both captivating and incredibly tiresome at the same time. Here's hoping 715 comes and goes quickly, and more importantly, here's a sincere baseball prayer* that Barry never gets close enough to make Hammerin' Hank have to worry.

* Sorry, not that kind of prayer, Morgan.