Selected steamy links 4 U

Alyssa Nakken, the first woman to ever hold an MLB coaching job, is now the first to ever be interviewed for a manger position (with the Giants). Cool! But former Giants player Aubrey Huff, who objected Most Definitely to Nakken’s hiring as a coach, feels that her interviewing with the team is unfair to men; let’s read what he has to say.

‘“I criticize the @SFGiants interviewing Alyssa Nakken for manager when there are thousands of qualified men that have decades of experience in @MLB,” Huff, a member of the Giants’ 2010 and 2012 World Series champion teams, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The amount of low-T…feminized beta cucks calling me sexist is exactly why America is no longer a respected global superpower.”’

OK, Aubrey.

Meanwhile, Kim Ng, the first woman to be a baseball GM, is leaving the Marlins. After highly-respected stints on the front office staff of the ChiSox, BoSox, Yankees, and Dodgers, Ng was hired as the Marlins’ GM in November 2020. At that point, the Marlins were coming off a 57-105 season in 2019 (and 31-29 in the COVID year). Under Ng, they won 67, 69, and 84 games, this year reaching the postseason. (Although their prospect rankings are pretty low.) The Marlins told her she was getting demoted to the #2 spot, and she told them “no thanks.”

The Red Sox have hired former Twins reliever Craig Breslow to be their GM, or one of their GMs. Over The Monster is mildly enthused. Credit to the author, Dan Secatore, for being willing to say that not every swank-college grad is, inherently, a megagenius. (Since, Boston is known for Harvard, MIT, etc.) Looks like Breslow got the job over Twins GM Thad Levine, who must really want a bigger-market position.

Sam Feld, probably my favorite of the scabs who took over writing for Deadspin when the longtime writers all got pushed out, snarks on Dusty Baker. Is “better off with a pool noodle at the plate” the most original thing to say about a struggling hitter? It sorta sounds like something I’ve read before. Still funny, though.

Always-excellent SB site Outsports mentioned that the Rangers are the one team totally against having a Pride Night, and it’s probably because one of the owners is a loonburger on hating gay people. From the article’s lead photo, you can see a teenager and two children interacting with a Diamondbacks mascot holding a rainbow flag and learning how, either, they should be gay, or it’s fun to interact with mascots.

The LA Times has this story about how more teams formerly broadcasting on Bally Sports are turning to old-fashioned, over-the-air free TV. Why? While the broadcast rights aren’t worth as much, free TV broadcasts get far more viewers than pay cable. And more viewers means more lucrative advertising the team can do during games.

There’s a new baseball league starting in Dubai (!), intending to catch the attention of baseball fans in countries which generally prefer things like soccer/rugby/cricket. Several retired MLBers will be participating, including our old acquaintance Bartolo Colon.

A former Twins draftee got arrested in Nevada for the accused murder of his wife’s parents. His girlfriend got arrested, too. And the wife’s sister thinks the wife was involved. (They’re suing each other.) This stuff’s too ugly for my taste, but you can read it here. I’m assuming the truth is either way more complicated or way more banal than the gruesome early headlines.

As a palate-cleanser, It Ain’t Over, a 2022 documentary about Yogi Berra, is now available on Netflix (and at your public library). The movie is kinda corny and old-fashioned, but it’s quite likeable all the same -- especially on Berra's lifelong love of his beautiful wife, Carmen Short. Our original Blog Lord, Jesse Lund, wrote this nice farewell to Berra after his death in 2015 (Berra’s, not Jesse’s). One amazing thing the movie points out right away: Berra had 358 career home runs, and 414 strikeouts. The 2023 Twins had 233 home runs, and 1654 strikeouts.

Finally, our old friend Trevor May has retired. May’s spent the last few years in Oakland, and he had some choice words for A’s owner John Fisher:

To the A’s organization and every single person part of it, I love all of you. Every single one of you except for one guy. And we all know who that guy is.

Sell the team, dude. I tried to get a “SELL” shirt, it didn’t get here fast enough. Sell it, man. Let someone who actually, like, takes pride in the things they own own something. There’s actually people who give a shit about the game. Let them do it. Take mommy and daddy’s money somewhere else, dork.

And also if you’re gonna just be a greedy fuck, own it. There’s nothing weaker than being afraid of cameras. So that’s one thing I really struggled with this year was not just eviscerating that guy.

Do what you’re gonna do, bro. You’re a billionaire, they exist. You guys have all this power. You shouldn’t have any, because you haven’t earned any of it. But anyway, whatever. It is what it is. The reality is you got handed everything you have. And now you’re too soft to take any responsibility for anything you’re doing.

Yeah, whatever, Oakland is Oakland. You can make all the cases, it’s not a great city, bah bah bah bah bah bah bah. But you’re putting hundreds if not thousands of people out of work that have worked somewhere for decades. And you haven’t acknowledged that at all.

So just be better, that’s all we’re asking. Just be a human being. Because this is just billionaire keeping up with the Joneses: He sees all the other billionaires’ yachts, he wants a big yacht too, and that’s what all this is about. And it literally is that stupid. It’s that dumb. It’s that dumb. It’s that dumb.

As Neil deMause put it, May was “instantly becoming possibly the most popular player in history with Oakland A’s fans.” Maybe not all of history, but certainly one they like right now. We like him too, Oakland fans!

That’s all I got for now, wish I could promise more, but I can't... it's a link dump, folks, I just wanna close these browser windows.