Fouled-Off Bunts: Part Two, The Link Dump

Lotsa extra non-bloggy goodies today....

The Nationals are apparently interested in luring Bobby Valentine from Japan. Lots of people hate Bobby V. He's an agressive, wiseass personality. But he wins. His teams play hard. They play smart. But his personality dominates the team, and becomes the focus. And lots of people have a problem with that.

Sports Network, some sort of wire service, ran a generic recap of the Nats season. You won't find anything surprising here.

Moon Gwang-lip reviews the performance of Koreans in baseball. Didn't we used to have one of those? Oh yeah:

Kim Sun-woo kept a low profile early in the season. In the 12 games he played for the Washington Nationals, formerly known as the Montreal Expos, he posted only one win and ended up being abandoned.

Only moving to the Colorado Rockies in August, the 28-year-old found what he couldn’t find at the Nationals. With the help of Kim Byung-hyun, now a teammate, he learned how to bring his genius into full play.

He clinched five wins in a row including a shutout in a game against the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 24. And the final result was six wins and three losses with the ERA of 4.90, the most glittering one in his five years’ struggle in the Major League. It certainly seemed to have satisfied the Rockies’ management and shed a bright light on his prospects for years to come.

Kim, however, had difficulty controlling the ball in some of his appearances.

``Moving into another team turned out a to be a good opportunity for me,’’ Kim said.

``I learned many things from (Kim) Byung-hyun and I discovered the ability that I am supposed to have. I was not good at the final games, but I don’t give much care to that. As I get older and older, I think I become more confident.’’

Abandoned is certainly the right word! :)

The Pitt Post-Gazette has an interview with Tim Grubbs, who did the PBP for the New Orleans Zephyrs, the Nationals Triple-A team. It goes into his background, but also how he and the team were affected by the hurricane.

Community Service. Charity. Blah Blah. Apparently the lack of Nationals power makes kids go hungry at night.

Your non sequitur of the week goes to Mike Wise and his column about Freddy Adu:

In the most hideous performance at RFK Stadium since Frank Robinson let Cristian Guzman hit, D.C. United lost its chance to defend its championship, and perhaps its 16-year-old sapling of a soccer star.

It's funny because it's true. Misery truly loves company, I suppose.