In These Times Of Economic Turbulence…

…I am reminded of a story of Babe Ruth, the greatest player in baseball history.

During the Great Depression (in 1931, I believe) Ruth signed a 2-year, $160,000 contract—more money than any baseball player had ever made before.

It was also more money than President Herbert Hoover made, and when a newspaper reporter asked Ruth if he thought that was right, the Babe shrugged: “Why not? I had a better year than he did.”

Griffey Headed To The…Mariners

So it appears that Ken Griffey Jr. is headed to the Seattle Mariners instead of the Atlanta Braves. This might not be too surprising since Jr. spent the first 11 years of his career as a Mariner, except that a story appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday saying that Griffey was on his way to becoming a Brave.

Making matters somewhat more complicated is the rumor that Griffey became angry when he learned of the AJC’s story on Tuesday, and consequently changed his mind about going to Atlanta.

A few quick reactions to this story:

(1) Right about now, I’d hate to be one of the Journal-Constitution writers who published Tuesday’s article.

(2) If Ken Griffey Jr. really changed his mind about where he was going to play based on his reactions to reading a newspaper article, he’s incredibly fickle. So fickle in fact, that I doubt that was the real reason for his decision.

(3) As I’ve written before, I’m a fan of Griffey, and I would’ve been incredibly disappointed about him changing his mind about being a Brave…if it was 2000. But it’s not, it’s 2009. In the eight seasons since 2000, Griffey’s numbers haven’t exactly been mind-boggling. Hampered by injuries, he’s averaged just under 100 hits a year with 22 home runs, 63 RBI, a .270 BA and a .500 SLG.

Those aren’t bad numbers, and they’re certainly better numbers than what we got from our outfielders last season, but at the same time they’re not exactly earth-shattering. So mark down my disappointment level as “mild.”

(4) Frank Wren, the Atlanta GM, must be getting tired of wiping egg off his face this offseason. First he gets completely punked by Rafael Furcal, then he risks death by mob violence when he basically writes off John Smoltz, and now this. I’m starting to get the feeling that his tenure as Braves’ GM won’t last as long as his predecessor’s.

Jayson Stark On Alex Rodriguez

Jayson Stark’s take on the revelation that A-Rod tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 pretty much echoes my feelings.

A sad day (and decade) for baseball.

Observation #4

Twitter is stupid. Unless you’re Han Solo, your life probably isn’t so interesting that I need an update on it every 30 minutes or so.

A Minor Update

I’ve been intending to make some changes to my blog for a while now, but I either haven’t had enough time, or I’ve had plenty of time but no internet (like last week during the ice storm).

Anyway, I’m still planning on changing things up, but in the meantime I decided to go ahead and update my blogroll.

So here’s the deal: if you’re linking to The Doc File but I have shamefully neglected to link back to you, let me know and I’ll fix the problem. Or if I’m currently linking to you but you don’t like the way I’ve done it (maybe you’d rather have the blog title listed instead of your own name or something), let me know that as well.