nowhere, is where I've been

Blogging opportunities and/or energy have been limited of late, as I've been sifting through 142 file boxes from dad's storage, going through document by document, determining what needs to kept, what needs to be shredded, and what can simply be recycled (the overwhelming majority so far.) It's a god-awful fucking miserable task, and the house looks like shit with boxes stacked everywhere until I complete it, or at least make a dent.

That said, it has provided the opportunity to listen to plenty of baseball games on XM, and play lots of online poker, both of which I can do easily enough while going through files (often all three simultaneously.)

On the note of baseball, I was struck this morning by the San Francisco Chronicle's listing of the top 52 paid players in baseball. Don't ask me why it's 52, other than it might have been neat to them to list 52 since four players are tied for that mark, at $9,000,000 per year, and three of them play for west coast teams: Bret Boone (Seattle), Troy Glaus (Arizona), Ryan Klesko (San Diego), and Greg Maddux (duh: Chicago Cubs).

More interesting about the list though is how clearly it demonstrates the hated Skankeez (oops, Yankees) monetary advantage: they have ten players in the top 52 (the top 39, actually). There are 30 teams in baseball. Do the math.

What is pleasing, though, is that of the 34-32, 3rd place in the Al East, five games behind Baltimore, arrogant, nasty Skankeez overpaid player list, only one of them, Alex Rodriguez, is actually on the AL leader list in more than one category (A-Rod for runs, RBI, and home runs), and only a grand total of three Yankees are on the AL leaders list (as published in the Chron) at all: Hideki Matsui, not on the list with his $8 million salary, is fourth for doubles with 18; Randy Johnson, 15th on the salary list at $15,419,815, is second in strikeouts at 91 (30 behind the AL leading Johan Santana of the Twins, who will earn $4,750,000 this year.) (What a long, nasty run-on sentence that was. So sue me. Or get your own damn blog.)

Let's see what the other Yankees on the overpaid player list are doing, shall we?

4. Derek "Arrogance" Jeter, SS, $19,600,000: hitting .299, 6 HR, 26 RBI, 44 runs, 8 SB
5. Mike "The 19 Million Dollar Moose" Mussina, SP, 19,000,000: 7-4, 3.89 ERA, 61 K, 21 BB, 1.34 WHIP
11. Kevin "Angry" Brown, SP, $15,714,286: 4-6, 5.48 ERA, 45 K, 15 BB, 1.61 WHIP
16. Jason "Steroids" Giambi, 1B, $13,428,571: hitting .242, 5 HR, 20 RBI, 19 runs, 0 SB
25. Bernie "Backup" Williams, CF, $12,357,143: hitting .238, 3 HR, 20 RBI, 16 runs, 1 SB
27. Gary "Twitch" Sheffield, RF, $11,496,689: hitting .300, 10 HR, 41 RBI, 40 runs, 6 SB
30. Jorge "Bare Hands" Posada, C, $11,000,000: hitting .297, 9 HR, 34 RBI, 27 runs, 1 SB
39 (tie). Mariano "Pitched 25 Innings This Year" Rivera, RP, $10,500,000: 3-2, 1.05 ERA, 29 K, 9 BB, 15 saves

What a bunch of overrated, overpaid trash. Only Rodriguez, Sheffield, Posada, and Rivera are even coming close to having respectable seasons, and there is no way I will ever accept that A-Rod, currently placing in only four major AL leader categories (he's third in walks), is worth $25.7 million a year. Not when he also lists above the fold in strikeouts (46) and caught-stealing (3, when he only has 6 successful steals???).