It’s Mets for Me provides a pretty good counter to my John Smoltz argument. I’m really trying not to bring politics here, or to allow politics to get in the way of what I think would be a good baseball move, but this makes me want no part of Smoltz in New York.

Toby Wachter investigates the nature of the Mets’ brand.

“The Russians told us to soak our feet in buckets of vodka.”

I really, really hope Nick Markakis carries this beard into the season. That would make for such a hilarious and radical identity shift, from “pretty good young player on the Orioles” to “triumphant beard hero who puts Casey Blake to shame.”

I can’t find any evidence of it online, but I’m pretty sure when Cherokee Parks got tons and tons of tattoos, Timmy Hardaway said something along the lines of, “I guess he didn’t to just want be known as ‘bad’ anymore.”