Today's links have been through rain, through snow, through heat and through gloom of night -- O, the Gloom! -- but still they have been completed, roundly ...
* Another night, another razor-thin win over the supposedly excellent Cardinals. But what of the Padres? Are they really this good? (No.) Are they destined to become pumpkins? Well, here's what Geoff Young says.
* This is a month old, but evergreen as Carson Cistull wonders Why do we watch? Particular games, that is. (The only thing missing -- which is easy for me to say, since I was sitting at the table when he came up with the list -- is a points system that would let us put a number on each game.)
* Speaking of evergreen, seems like lately there's just no escaping Wiffle Ball, right? Recently, I almost struck out my brother with a Wiffle-Eephus pitch. One of my pals plays in an actual league. There's a lovely new book. And this might be my favorite T-shirt in T-shirt history. Video games, schmideo games ...
* Josh Wilker's book tour is over, and somehow he's led to thoughts of Doyle Alexander (and Frank Pastore, but the less said about that ...).
* When I was (much) younger, I took a great deal of foolish pride in the Royals' status as the most successful expansion team. Well, no more. As Bill Chuck notes, there's now four-team race for that title (and the Royals aren't one of them).
* I wrote about him yesterday, but now you really get to know John Axford.
* It's getting better all the time (unless you're a Brown Pelican), and the latest example is historical WAR all over the place, including FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com. Oh, the things we can do!
* I can't believe R.A. Dickey's really 35. Usually it's fair to say that an apprentice knuckleballer has many years ahead of him, but Dickey's middle-aged even by knuckleballer standards. Still, that doesn't mean he can't help the Mets, right? Salfino's got all the grisly details.
* "The check's in the mail. Yeahhh, that's the ticket." (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)