Oliver Kick
Finally, Pittsburgh Pirates fastballer Oliver Perez has accurately connected with his intended target. Perez decided that after allowing four runs and 12 baserunners - five of them coming on walks - in six innings against the Cardinals Tuesday, he would try and throw his left foot at a clubhouse laundry basket. Congratulations, Oliver. You hit the jackpot. And further congratulations is in order for you. You broke your left big toe and are now on the 15-day disabled list. Maybe you can start pitching with your foot when you come off the DL. Perhaps you will find the plate. But I do have some constructive advice for Mr. Perez. Oliver, you are entirely too skinny. Your waist is like a size 24, at the most. I laugh when I see that you are listed on your baseball card at 200 pounds. You weigh 200 pounds like I can bench press 800 pounds. Eat a calzone while you're on the DL, Oliver. Why don't you have a zeppole while you're at it?

15 Minutes of Fame, 10 Days of Suspension
When Brendan Donnelly decided to pour a pint of pine tar into his ball glove this week, the talented reliever for the California Angels (I still call them that) did something that all setup men in the Majors yearn to do every day – he got his name into the headlines. But just as quick as he started a controversy, his name became almost an afterthought just seconds after the incident. Such is life for relievers that do not get saves.

After Angels manager Mike Scioscia and Washington Nationals manager Frank Robinson started arguing about the incident, the benches cleared and Donnelly was already an afterthought. It took like two minutes, and he was already forgotten.

The next day, Nationals outfielder Jose Guillen – who was thrown off the Angels’ team last year because he misbehaved – decided the time had finally come to speak out against Scioscia. He called his former skipper a piece of garbage, although he would not specify what type of biodegradable or non-biodegradable slice of trash Scioscia reminded him of. During the confrontation between the benches, Guillen was apparently screaming and had to be held back from his former teammates by his current ones. Maybe there’s something about that Disneyland air that makes Guillen get angry.

So the story became less about Donnelly – who was suspended 10 days – and more about everyone else. Poor Donnelly is actually appealing the suspension, and can keep pitching until his appeal is heard. In sports, only a setup reliever can get a 10-day suspension for attempting to doctor the very baseball that his game is named for, and become the 250-word sidebar to a 2,000-word story about everyone around him.

So here, on a blog that – if I’m lucky - has about seven readers, I am going to tell you a little bit about Brendan Donnelly, just so setup men everywhere can understand that we appreciate what they do.

Brendan Kevin Donnelly was born on Independence Day in 1971, in Washington D.C. You cannot get much more American than that. His 2005 salary is $420,000 – in baseball, you cannot get much poorer than that. He is the only player in baseball that went to Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo.

As a 31-year-old rookie in 2002, Donnelly was an integral part of the Angels’ World Series championship team, allowing just 32 hits in 49 innings, striking out 54, and posting an ERA of 2.17. In the postseason, he struggled against the Yankees and Twins. But in five World Series games against San Francisco, he allowed no runs and one hit in 7.2 innings, earning the win in the game six comeback that tied the series at 3-3.

In 2003, he improved his ERA to 1.58, appearing in 54 games and striking out 79 batters in 74 innings. Last year, his ERA was a still-respectable 3.00, although he has not been as effective this year, posting a 4.20 ERA and registering less than a strikeout per inning for the first time in his career.

Some personal stuff: Donnelly had surgery last Nov. 29 to repair a hole in his septum, an injury that stemmed from fracturing his nose in 20 places thanks to a batted ball in Spring Training. I forgot to send him a get well card.

Donnelly was also a replacement player – or would-be replacement player – during the 1994 strike season. That means that no matter how good he pitches, he will never be cleared to have his name appear on Major League Baseball Players Association-licensed video games.

There’s one more thing I could dig up: Donnelly likes pine tar, and dislikes umpires that dislike pine tar.

There will be no softball on this blog.
You, the readers, have spoken. None of those softball posts will ever be seen again. In fact, the old softball posts have mysteriously disappeared. You're welcome for listening.

Going, Going... Gone!
The original contract depicting the sale of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees was sold at auction for $996,000 this week. That got me thinking: how much would other famous baseball items go for. Items like:

- The steroid-filled needle that Jose Canseco shoved up Mark McGwire’s ass while the two were teammates in Oakland.

- An original Ken Griffey Jr. medical bill.

- The ball that Bert Blyleven threw when he gave up his 50th home run in 1986 – still a record.

- The blouse that Keith Olbermann’s mother was wearing when she was hit by Chuck Knoblauch’s errant throw while sitting behind first base at Yankee Stadium.

- Tommy John’s original elbow.

- Bar tabs from the 1950s and 1960s New York Yankees – teams with such legendary drinkers as Billy Martin, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Don Larsen.

- Gaylord Perry’s medicine cabinet. (If you read Liners, Sliders and Scoops not for the baseball but for the attempted hilarity, please note that Gaylord Perry is a Hall-of-Fame pitcher known for “scuffing up” the ball with all sorts of concoctions – Vaseline, sandpaper, anything – to make it easier for himself to move the ball around and harder for the batter to hit it.)