So David Price and Jon Lester will become the new Justin Verlander and Sonny Gray/Jarrod Parker -- and Game 5 of the American League Divisional Series may become Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. Perfect. The more addresses change, the more the plot stays the same.
Only this time, Billy Beane had better not haul out the “playoffs are a crapshoot” line. Nobody’s thrown more dice than he has this summer, and there’s still another trade deadline to go.
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And that deadline isn’t any likelier to include the Giants than this one did.
A few infielders went hither and yon (Nick Franklin, Asdrubal Cabrera, Stephen Drew, blah blah blah-de-blah blah), the Rays gave up their quixotic chase for the postseason as though they were the old White Sox, the Tigers blew everything up and reassembled it to maintain their hold on the final game of the A’s series, the Phillies stood pat and the Giants got locked out because . . . well, because they have nothing anyone craves, really.
This will of course be blamed on Brian Sabean for the wrong reasons, but that’s expected. The farm system is the problem here, and the loyalty contracts are a secondary issue, but not his willingness to deal or money issues. They’ve made the budget jump in the past for deals they liked, and if they had a deal that wasn’t low-level meh, they’d have done so again.
They got locked out because nobody likes what’s on their shelves.
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And nobody likes ESPN/Sirius’ Jim Bowden, who apparently got caught lifting a bogus trade rumor from a phony Twitter account and then dropped his own in a panic. He was Ralph for awhile, and God knows what he’ll be tomorrow, but I’ll bet at least one lesson was learned.
Namely, read those Twitter accounts a little closer because there are people with free time and happy fingers.
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This was a good trade deadline day, though, because it allowed sane people to forget about the utter pointlessness of football practices. Injury reports, schminjury reports.
Show us a femur or pipe down.
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Or at least some underwear, like Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 brand of men’s delicates, which have led to –- of course it has –- a lawsuit.
Fitness human Christopher Renzi patented the “CR7″ trademark in the U.S. in 2009 for use on his website and small clothing range. In response he has received several letters from the Danish company that makes Ronaldo’s underwear line asking him to relinquish his trademark so that they can sell the good in North America. The company has also written to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to have Renzi’s trademark cancelled.
Renzi has now filed a lawsuit against the Danes and Ronaldo claiming owns the license, while the Danes claim they hold the exclusive worldwide rights and that Renzi only tried to jump Ronaldo’s claim for a settlement.
Knowing what you know now about this legal conundrum, go commando. Just to make a statement.
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And finally, Marshawn Lynch’s holdout ended in roughly the time it takes for a praying mantis to eat her mate, like most NFL holdouts. It’s nice to have all the leverage . . . as Aldon Smith, among others, is about to learn.
