Hire Jim Essian

I wish Harry would rise from the dead and fuck both of their stupid faces.Despite it being the Rangers and the Astros, it was exciting to see the return of meaningful baseball last night. That is, until Ryan fucking Dempster showed up. There was a "could-have-been-cute" MLB commercial depicting several players "acting" out Abbott and Costello's classic ... Read More

Why is the Roundup so late? Because of a horrible, horrible thing that has come to pass. It's with a sadness in my heart that I report that Google is discontinuing Google Reader. Since HJE has existed, Reader has been the way I do the Roundup. For years, it was the easiest way to pull articles from all the terrible websites I read. Including this one. It was a quick (or exhausting) break from work. Now, I find myself forced to move over to Feedly. Which is...ehhhh. I'm sure Reader will pop up on Google+ anyhow. Which, by the way, is such a refreshingly clean social network. Probably because none of my friends ever post anything on it. Oh, well.

Twitter is a funny beast. It's interesting being able to read the innermost thoughts about what reality stars are having for breakfast. Or what actors think about politics. Or to see how some people who are hilarious on stage or screen are terribly unfunny at 140 characters at a time. Last week, I learned that former Curacaoan Cub Randall Simon was on Twitter.

Not with an erection. OR WAS IT? The new podcast is up. It's as out there as all the other episodes. We're still talking about P90X because, fuck you, YOU didn't do it. Unless you're Pre, our only listener. We celebrate the trading of Tony Campana. We spend an unusually long time talking about the new Die Hard movie. I forget to mention the most annoying thing about Darksiders 2. The stupid game doesn't let you navigate the menus with the directional pad. Trust me. It's obnoxious. The controls. Not the podcast. That's always obnoxious.

Oh my god, you guys. Ned Ryerson bestowed upon me one of the greatest gifts that has ever been given by one man to another man. It's a site called Thuzio. I don't know what Thuzio means, but if I had a guess, it's Latin for "washed-up athletes desperate for money".

Only one player in my lifetime made the top ten of both the B126 and the T79. That player sort of reminds me of Cousin Larry. Or William Katt. His name is Jeff Blauser. And the reason he even had a chance to hit his way up the B126 is because he is #3 on the list of The Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time. The only thing that could have made Blauser more obnoxious is if he were a Cardinal. And he almost was.

Well, score another blow for the sentimental idiot crowd. The Miami Marlins, in a move so profoundly stupid that everyone had to check twice to make sure Jim Hendry didn't sign the contract, have signed Adam Greenberg to a one-day deal (HT: everyone who sent this to me). Let's get something clear. This is not really a neat story. It's so dumb that I'm shocked the Rickettses didn't force the Theocracy to do it. There are thousands of players who toiled away for years in the minor leagues who were better than Greenberg and who never even get the chance to get drilled in the head by an honest-to-goodness MLB fastball. This is not meant to be mean-spirited, because I have nothing against Greenberg, but I think it would be hilarious if two things happened.

Go the distance.WRIGLEY FIELD OF BROKEN DREAMS Written by Bad Kermit FADE IN THEO EPSTEIN V.O. My name's Theo Epstein. I was born in New York City in 1973. Dad was the head of the Creative Writing Program at Boston University, so instead of Mother Goose, I was put to bed at night to stories of Casablanca, Homicide: Life on the Street, and Tell Me ... Read More

If you started internet browsing during the eighty-run ninth inning last night, you may have noticed that today is Lou Piniella's 69th (hee hee!) birthday. For those of you too young to remember, Hire Jim Essian was originally Fire Lou Piniella, which was originally Fire Dusty Baker (no, not that one). So, I will always have a warm spot in my heart for Sweet Lou. Though not for Dusty F. Baker.

I love Kevin Goldstein. His Twitter feed is excellent, he's patient with both dumb fan questions and dumber talk show host questions. The man can talk intelligently about nearly any minor league player in baseball. But he was dead wrong last night on the Score when he said fans were stupid to be mad about SoriaNO exercising his 10-and-5 rights just as we were stupid to be mad about TrollDempster doing the same. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. And not just for the reason that we can feel however the hell we damn well want to feel, because we're human beings with emotions. No, the TrollDempster situation and the SoriaNO situation couldn't be more different. Here's why.