21 April 2008: The Force is Strong With This Dude

Monday, April 21 2008 @ 05:40 AM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Well now, home entertainment was my baby's wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There's fifty-seven channels and nothin' on

That song's almost twenty years old - nowadays it's more 857 channels and nothin' on. And it takes five minutes to scroll through the listings to find that out. And is there some law that says "The Matrix" must be broadcast every day? Is this some subtle way of preparing us for our eventual future, as pod people?

And lately "Star Wars" every where I turn. "The Return of the Empire" and "The Jedi Strike Back" and "Attack of the Phantom" and "Revenge of the Clones." (Hey, whatever.) George Lucas' inimitable dialogue does always happily reminds me of the peerless work done by Dude Studios, which has transformed the saga into short flash animations, with the dialogue presented in thought balloons, and all of it revolving around the word "dude." Giving us such great lines as:

Use the force, dude!

You will bring the dudes to me!

And my own personal favourite:

The force is strong with this dude.

Which brings me, by the usual comodious vicus of recirculation, to Eric Hinske. (There being little new with the Blue Jays, thought I'd take note of an alum.) Anyway, the Dude is doing just fine - he's cooled off a bit in the past few days, but he's still sporting a nifty enough .292/.382/.625 line.

And Tampa is on my mind for another reason. As you may or may not have heard, the Blue Jays recently released their veteran DH, a fellow named Frank Thomas (no, not the one who hit 34 homers for the original Mets, the other one.). And the Devil Fishies apparently have some interest. Which strikes me strangely.

Here are the hitting stats for AL designated hitters:

PLAYER         TEAM   AB   R   H  2B  3B  HR RBI  SB CS  BB  SO   BA    OBP   SLG    OPS

Hideki Matsui NYY 30 2 10 1 0 2 7 0 0 0 2 .333 .375 .567 .942
Milton Bradley TEX 37 4 12 3 0 0 1 0 1 10 5 .324 .458 .405 .864
Jonny Gomes TAM 33 4 9 3 0 1 4 1 1 5 6 .273 .400 .455 .855
Jorge Posada NYY 28 6 8 3 0 1 4 0 0 2 7 .286 .333 .500 .833
Jack Cust OAK 19 5 4 0 0 1 2 0 0 7 9 .211 .444 .368 .813
Billy Butler KAN 58 4 19 4 0 0 6 0 0 4 7 .328 .365 .397 .762
Aubrey Huff BAL 59 9 14 5 0 2 14 2 0 7 12 .237 .318 .424 .742
Travis Hafner CLE 66 9 15 2 0 3 12 0 1 8 17 .227 .329 .394 .723
Jim Thome CHW 58 10 10 3 0 4 13 0 0 8 16 .172 .284 .431 .715
Jason Kubel MIN 40 6 10 1 0 2 5 0 0 1 7 .250 .268 .425 .693
Mike Sweeney OAK 50 7 14 3 0 0 3 0 0 5 1 .280 .351 .340 .691
Craig Monroe MIN 25 2 6 3 0 0 3 0 0 3 9 .240 .321 .360 .681
Gary Sheffield DET 52 6 10 3 0 1 2 2 0 12 10 .192 .364 .308 .671
Jose Vidro SEA 67 11 15 2 0 2 10 1 0 7 8 .224 .297 .343 .641
Frank Thomas TOR 60 7 10 1 0 3 11 0 0 11 13 .167 .306 .333 .639
Garret Anderson LAA 29 5 6 2 0 0 1 0 0 3 6 .207 .281 .276 .557
David Ortiz BOS 71 10 10 0 0 2 10 0 0 9 14 .141 .247 .225 .472

You would not think, would you, that Tampa would be the team sniffing around after Big Frank. Joe Maddon must really, really have a low opinion of Johnny Gomes. Go figure.

It's a 12:30 game this afternoon, and then off on the road for nine games in Tampa Bay, Kansas City, and Boston. Got to play them, might as well win them.


--- (In memory of Danny Federici. The aurora is rising behind us.)

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