Note to HC Readers

Today I learned a very valuable lesson: anything on the internet can be turned into porn. Anything. The image I had provided for the article "Schilling Worth His Weight?" was the cover of a 2004 Sports Illustrated issue entitled "Hot Sox: Do You Believe?" I was alerted by my friend that over the last few days that picture then changed to hardcore porn. The problem has been solved. The image is now from SI.com, so unless someone jacks SI, we're ok. If you're still seeing pornography, simply refresh the page and empty your browser cache.

Many apologies.

Ryan M. Brodeur
Writer and Editor, www.TheHotCorner.org

New Facebook Group and Online Store

Check out the new Hot Corner Readers group on The Facebook, and the Hot Corner Shop on CafePress.com. New links in the sidebar. And no, I don't receive any profit from the sales.

The Japanese Language Yankees Blog You Never Knew You Wanted To Read And/Or Look At... Oh Yea, And The Red Sox Are In Detroit

I'd like to ask all of you loyal (imaginary) readers out there to head on over to this blog that my friend (a Yankees fan, unfortunately) has started recently. It doesn't really have a title to speak of, or really, one that I can understand, so I'm going to call it Ms. Mori's Super Cute Bomber Blog. Why, you ask? I challenge you to tell me your cute radar doesn't explode at the wallpaper. In any case she loves her Yankees like I love me Sox, so show her you're an educated baseball fan and stare at the characters.

In other news, the Sox are in Detroit, home of baseball's best record. With a comeback victory in the top of the ninth off the bat of everybody's new favorite hero, Kevin Youkilis, and a tough loss tonight for Tim Wakefield, the Sox look to the poster child for insecurity, Matt Clement, for a win. In all fairness, Clement would also be the "nice guy" poster child if not for Tim Wakefield. Clement's really been a bang-up piece of work, doing nothing but bad things on the hill for Boston. During his second to last outing he was drilled again in the leg by a come-backer, something that seemed to spoil what was shaping up to be a decent start.

Here's the FanGraphs link to Clement's pitching lines thus far in 2006:

Since When Did FanGraphs Do Pitching Lines For Slow-Pitch Softball?

Not pretty, is it? Six runs in 3.1 IP last time out at Toronto really isn't impressive, nor is the fact that after bitching about being skipped in the last Bronx series he decided to give up 8 ER in 4.1 IP. What is striking is the fact that in the 5 starts before that he allowed 4 earned runs only twice. It's gotta be a fluke though, because if you take a look at all of his peripherals, they're all in the "somebody please turn me into a journeyman middle reliever" range.

At this point we should all just get down on our knees and say our Rosaries before every start by #30, and make sure to avoid any heavy foods to headoff the heartburn. I will keep saying "I hope he can turn it around," but by this point it just looks like that's nothing but ignorance.

At least Carl Pavano doesn't have a 6.91 ERA in the first week of June...

Talk About Getting Owned

So I had my first fantasy auction draft the other day, and it was undoubtedly one of the best times I've had sitting at a table and talking smack about obscure baseball factoids. Of course, I was also there for eight hours, and my draft went pretty shitty (compared to everyone else). First of all, let me say that this was my first auction, not to mention the first auction of 95% of the league, so we really had no idea to budget. Second, I think I was just so pumped the auction worked that all my planning went to shit. Seriously, the only things that went right for me were that I managed to grab Brad Wilkerson and Aaron Rowand because of my deep-seeded belief that they're giong to have great years in their new homes. I also managed to get some decent youth in the bench and minor league portions of the draft. Here we go:

Catcher 1: K. Johjima
Catcher 2: Y. Torrealba (dropped for J. Willingham)

1B: A. Pujols
2B: J. Cantu
3B: M. Cabrera
SS: D. Jeter

Corner Infielder: K. Youkilis
Middle Infielder: D. Eckstein

OF: W. Taveras
OF: B. Wilkerson
OF: A. Rowand
OF: C. Patterson (dropped for R. Ibanez)
OF: B. Anderson

UTIL: J. Gomes

P: R. Oswalt
P: D. Turnbow
P: C. Capuano
P: J. Beckett
P: J. Papelbon
P: J. Crain
P: O. Perez
P: J. Patterson
P: S. Shields

Bench: B. Hall
Bench: M. Murton
Bench: J. Verlander
Bench: R. Cedeno
Bench: M. Delcarmen (dropped for Rafael Soriano)

Minor Leaguer 1: Justin Upton
Minor Leaguer 2: Dustin Pedroia

A couple things. First, I had a couple total fanboy moments (see: Papelbon, Delcarmen, Youkilis, and Pedroia). Second, I'm in the process of trading away Jeter, as my policy is "No Yankees." No exceptions made. I was trying to drive the price of Jeter up when the token Yankee fan decided he could pay $41 for Rivera, but couldn't pay $24 for Pvt. Intangibles. I only really overpaid for one player, that being $50 bucks for Albert Pujols (don't forget this is a keeper league), and it's something I'm ok with. Otherwise, I simply found myself running out of money in the later rounds, leading me to shout random names at the top of my lungs followed by a $1 price tag, hoping I would be able to expedite the process and get to the bench round.

While I don't see myself really competing this year, I am excited about the future, as a number of these guys are slated to become legit ballplayers over the next 12 months or so. Or at least, that's what I tell myself.

In any case, this was really freakin' fun. More fun than watching Julian Tavarez cage fight Joey Gathright, or Tony Graffanino waive his way back to KC.

Just repeat after me: Opening Day is only 5 days away."

Lost Comments?

In speaking with a few friends who read the site, apparently reader comments have started to disappear from the site before I or anyone else can even see them. I think the problem was somewhere with my domain hosting service, and I think I ironed it out, so if you posted and your comments were lost, please feel free to post again, so we can get some sweet discussion rolling on the blog. Thanks,

THC

THC Inaugural Podcast

It took roughly 8 hours of fiddling with recording software, microphone hassles, and my own computer ignorance to to it done, but here it is, the charter podcast of The Hot Corner! I'll admit, it's pretty rough, but I was so pumped to just get it out I couldn't help putting it up. THC January 25, 2006