=== Walk the Light ===

Jason and his fiancee' are doing a walk for leukemia and lymphoma.  Very cool.  Why not head over and clink the jar?  You even get his very worthwhile premium info as a bonus.

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=== Seahawks ===

Two books are needed to understand the NFL locker room:  Out of Their League by Dave Meggyesy and North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent.  (The movie was nothing like the book.)   Long story short:  a losing NFL locker room is a lot like Cellblock D:  dark, dangerous, and not the most harmonious spot in town.

Chemistry is important in baseball, but it's much less important than in basketball or football.    In football, your teammate needs to be pretty much where you expect him to be, at the right split-second, and in basketball, your teammate needs to be exactly where you expect him to be, at exactly the precise split second.

Defensively, you must anticipate your teammate.  That cannot be done if you hate him.

.................

Chemistry, it says here is roughly this much of the game in each pro sport:

Basketball -- 60%

Football -- 40%

Baseball -- 20%

The 2008 Seahawks were playing under a lame-duck coach, and that incoherency was the difference.   You could see it in their terrible turnover differential, for instance.

Already in preseason, the Seahawks *look* like they're playing up to their talent again.  They've got the quarterback with the West Coast Offense in his head, they've got a legit feature wideout for him, and they've got talent around the both of them.  Don't be shocked at a radical turnaround.

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=== PBNW on the Draft ===

Jon Shields has a comprehensive article on baseball's amateur draft.   It's one of his best, which is saying a lot.

Selig is of course angered at teams who exceeded slot, which I believe would include his former-staunch-supporter M's. 

Jon notes that for many players, such as Rich Porcello, going directly to baseball out of HS is a great thing -- whereas stiffing the amateurs would trend them into colleges that tend to exploit the HS players.

He also notes that an international draft could blunt the only real sword that a lot of poor MLB franchises have left.

Good read.

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=== September Callups ===

Sodo Mojo has a one-stop shop for all your September-expansion needs.  Gracias amigo.  :- )

Wakamatsu has indicated that he'll take fewer, rather than more, guys from Tacoma in September.  Doesn't want a lot of guys just hanging out.

I'm not complaining, but that's odd, coming from a guy who himself spent so much time trying to get into an ML clubhouse.  Maybe Wok will be one of those few managers who doesn't take out his playing frustrations on his desk.

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=== Matt Tuiasosopo ===

Tui's rampage continues.

His last 10 games, he's .351 and now he's running a 1.00 EYE on top of everything else.   He homered Saturday and homered Sunday.

The second half, he's come back and hit 310/410/570 ... and very importantly, on the year he's hitting RHP's (.524 SLG) better than LH.  We harp incessantly on the fact that Tui will lean out over the plate and pound a slider off the RF wall.

He's a natural 6'2", 225 lbs.  He's got the family-bequeathed, hard-wired self-image that he belongs in pro sports.   He is a former SS and a 30-homer third base prospect the way you engineer him in SkyNet's factory.

This is your third baseman for the next six years.  Is Adrian too entitled for Tui to get some acclimation time in September, or ...

Do we get to bogue on Tui, Morrow, Carp and Mike Wilson for the last month?

It'd be a nice cappuccino finish,

Dr D