After blowing a save earlier this season, Brad Lidge lost his job as the Astro's closer, and was relegated to being the set up guy. He "regained" his form, and dominated as the set-up man. Meanwhile, in my fantasy baseball leagues, I picked him up off waivers and waited. And last week the manager of the Astros started telling reporters that Brad Lidge was going to get his job back soon.
Upon reading that, some savvy owners in my league started offering deals for Lidge, attempting to get him cheap in the hopes he became a dominant closer again. Now I have plenty of closers and RPs anyway - Valverde, Gregg, Fuentes, Myers, Soriano - so I can afford to trade Lidge, provided I'm getting good value. So yesterday afternoon one guy offers me a good deal - not the kinda deal for a top closer, but solid for a middle-tier closer. Lidge isn't even that, not yet. While watching the game yesterday, I see Lidge come out in the ninth with a one-run lead trying to close out the game. My first thought - why try him out as the closer again in a one-run game?!? Why not wait until a two or three-run lead game, so to give him a little room for error. He immediately gets ahead of Mark Kotsay with two quick strikes, then left one up high that Kotsay slammed for a homer like his name was Albert Pujols. Tie game, blown save.
Not wasting time, I accepted the offer before the dude could pull it. I'm sure Lidge will get another opportunity as the closer, maybe next game. And maybe he'll do well, or maybe not. But I ain't sticking around to see it - he's not worth the gamble... I sold high on him, and am happy with that. Personally I hope Dan Wheeler gets the job as closer back, so the dude can cut Lidge again, and maybe I can pull this trick again.
Speaking of Dan Wheeler, did you know he's is the actually the second greatest backup Wheeler? William A. Wheeler served as Vice President to the underrated Rutherford B. Hayes (one of those Presidents, like John F. Kennedy, that get their middle initial used all the time when they are mentioned - unlike, say, Richard Nixon or Zachory Taylor - why is that? Is it to differentiate Rutherford B. Hayes from Rutherford Wille Mays Hayes?). How did William A. Wheeler become Vice-President? From Wikipedia, of course:
Wheeler was a delegate to the Repubican convention in 1876, which had just nominated Rutherford B. Hayes on the seventh ballot. The convention was recessed for dinner, and as a sop to Roscoe Conkling, the party bosses announced that they would let the New York delegation pick the candidate for Vice President. So some of the delegation were discussing the matter and they were stymied. They couldn't think of anyone who they would want to stick with the position. Then one of them began to giggle. "What about Wheeler?" he chuckled. Soon everyone was having a hearty laugh, including Wheeler, and the next morning he was, much to everyone's surprise, nominated by acclamation.[1]
Governor Hayes, when he heard of what had happened, remarked: "I am ashamed to say: Who is Wheeler?"[2]
See the greatness that is Rutherford B. Hayes? More on Old’ Ruthie: He was the one that “won” the election despite losing the popular vote by like a wide margin (over 250,000 votes). He became President only after the (Southern) Democrats got the Republicans to agreed to pull all the federal troops from the South, as laid out in the Wormley House Agreement.
During his presidency he ended Reconstruction, and ordered federal troops to intervene to stop B&O Railroad workers from on strike from rioting, leading to 70 of them getting killed. Insert your Monopoly joke here
And, of course, he screwed over Argentina as an arbitrator, when he gave the Paraguayans the Chaco region after the War of the Triple Alliance (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay vs. Paraguay in the Battle to be the South America’s Next Top Guay). Those Paraguayans were so happy they named a city (Villa Hayes) and a department (Presidente Hayes) after him. In other words, Hayes is more popular and well known in Paraguay than in the USA. Maybe Paraguay has him on their currency….
So more post lunch discussion tidbits on Presidents, currency, etc:
- The $500 bill featured a portrait of William McKinley.
- The $1,000 bill featured a portrait of Grover Cleveland
- The $5,000 bill featured a portrait of James Madison
- The $10,000 bill featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase
- The $100,000 bill featured a portrait of Woodrow Wilson
No chicks on our paper money, though! What do we look like, Canada/England? Of course there are Sacajawea coins and Susan B. Anthony coins. Sacajawea is the only single mom on currency. I love how the US government forces these dollar coins down our throats... like, if you buy stamps you get dollar coins for change... those dollar coins are like WNBA of the treasury.
And, as a coworker pointed out, it's shocking that Teddy Roosevelt isn't on anything! That cat was tough as f*cking nails... he even survive that assassination attempt by an anarchist:
"During a stop in Milwaukee on his 1912 "Bull Moose" campaign for the presidency, Roosevelt was shot at close range by John Schrank, a psychotic New York saloonkeeper. Schrank had his .38 caliber pistol aimed at Roosevelt's head, but a bystander saw the gun and deflected Schrank's arm just as the trigger was pulled. Roosevelt did not realize he was hit until someone noticed a hole in his overcoat. When Roosevelt reached inside his coat, he found blood on his fingers.
Roosevelt was extremely lucky. He had the manuscript of a long, 50-page speech in his coat pocket, folded in two, and the bullet was no doubt slowed as it passed through it. He also had a steel spectacle case in his pocket, and the bullet traversed this, too, before entering Roosevelt's chest near the right nipple. Thus, one could say that Roosevelt's long-windedness and myopia saved his life!"
Thus proving the old adage that Bull Mooses are hard to kill.
Alright, that's our history lesson from today... we'll skip the "Polk" song by They Might Be Giants....
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