WeekEnd HaloLinks: Black Friday Edition

Oooh. Here we are. The blackest of black days. Refrigerators are stuffed with leftovers, too stuffed to safely extract the items of a proper breakfast. The stores are already flooded with early-bird shoppers desperate for that amazing electronic item that on any other day would be the wrong choice, but this morning is at some price just too enticing to sleep through. The airports (where I probably am at the very moment you are reading this) are filling up with travelers scurrying to vacate their mother-in-law's place with sufficient time to imagine they still have a holiday break. And Christmas. Everywhere, anywhere the mercantile world has dropped any pretense of holding back and have launched their blitzkrieg of red and green promotional kitsch while pummeling us with bell-driven elevator music.

Ah, 'tis the season! Here. Have yourself a sweater! I expect that this particular one will sell real well in and around the city of Arlington, Texas.

Come hither, fellow, Halo fans, and take comfort in the sanctuary of LINKS:

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In Baseball

Trout: Mike Trout, with the understated tweet of the decade..........

Santiago: Hector is one very good dude. I sure hope he sticks. I like thinking that my team has this kind of quality people playing in my favorite uniform. Good job, Mr. and Mrs. Hector parents..........

MVP Snubbing: Yeah, Willie Mays was a phenomenal baseball player. Inner-most circle HoF, IMHO. And, yeah, he only won 2 MVP awards. But does that make him our Mike Trout foreshadowing? Does that excuse the contemporary Mike Trout oversight. Not on your life. In Mays' time, his league was stuffed with first-ballot Hall of Fame peerage and it was understandable that in many of those years those other greats would pop up with something superlative. How many first-ballot HoF'ers do you se playing the American League today?..........

Doomed to Repeat: It must be an odd year, because Jed Lowrie is on the move again. Back in 2011 Lowrie was treded by the Red Sox to Houston. Two years later, in 2013, Houston traded Lowrie to the Oakland A's. Two seasons later Oakland cut him loose and Lowrie signed back on with Houston which, after one year's use, have now in 2015 traded Lowrie back to Oakland again..........By the way, congratulations to Billy Beane for winning the Big Slash Award for Thanksgiving!

Ozuna: Marcell Ozuna, The Next Big Thing. If only we could get our hands on a guy like that before a Jerry Dipoto does. Oh wait, we still have a shitty farm system with no prospects left to trade. Who the hell has been our GM recently making such a hash out of the last 3 or 4 drafts???...........

Stuff: This link has a acouple of good things going for it. First, the not-so-very-news that Ben Zobrist - he of the still very good talent and no qualifying offer to suck up a draft pick - is being coutrted by every team in baseball. yeah, that won't cost anybody any money. And that is sure to do wonders for the Players Association when sitting down at he table for a new CBA and the who QO issue comes up. Anyway, the second part of interest is the part that focuses on how the dynamics of Sean Newcomb and Chris Ellis while they were still 'gettable'. We fans need to remain cognizant of the reality of trade winds. Things change and player values change also. What once was a fair opportunity might quickly sour, or might just as quickly accelerate out of reach. Our legacy example would be failing to trade Brandon Wood for a guy like, oh, Miguel Cabrera..........

Bautista: These sweaters should sell very well in and around the city of Arlington, Texas............

Digging Deep for Nothing: Winning the Rookie of the Year might not be EVERYTHING, but it sure beats not winning it. Especially when it doesn't mean a damn thing about how the rest of your career will go..........

Road Trips: The less-than-glamorous life of a professional baseball player on the road..........

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This Date In Baseball History: 1947 - Normally, I tend to drop off all the awards handed out on these dates, because they just run on and on and are not really significant historical moments. But this one truly is, and is truly relevant to us Mike trout fans: on this date Ted Williams - WHO HAD JUST WON THE TRIPLE CROWN - is edged out in BBWAA MVP voting by Joe DiMaggio. By a single point. What? A Triple Crown winner not being an automatic MVP?? What kind of black magic is this??? Legend had it that some Boston voter left him off the ballot entirely, but this was probably a rumor spread by a bitter Williams himself. It was actually some MidWest voter who left him off.........1956 - Ok, this award is also significant. Cy Young had just died in 1955, and MLB Commissioner Ford Frick had created the Cy Young Award, to be given out to the best pitcher. From 1956 through 1966 it would be given out to one pitcher in all of baseball, and starting in 1967 it would be awarded to one pitcher in each league. On this date, the very first CYA was granted to Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe. Newcombe, for the youngsters here, was black and had played briefly in Negro League Baseball. This was just the 10th season of blacks playing Major League Ball, and a black player was selected BOTH National League MVP and overall MLB Cy Young Award winner. (Newcombe also won a Rookie of the Year Award. try to name another player who has won all three such awards.)..........1956 - Charlie Peete, his wife and his children, all perish in a plane crash near Caracas, Venezuela as Peete was flying down to play Winter Ball. Peete was destined to become the first black regular for the St. Louis Cards...........1967 - The New York Mets send a young pitcher and cash to the Washington Senators in exchange for Senators' manager Gil Hodges.  Trading for a manager is something that doesn't happen very often. Two years later Hodges will lead the Mets to the World Series title..........2001 - Baseball owners vote unanimously to extend the contract of Bud Selig as Commissioner out to 2006. Selig had taken over as "interim" Commissioner in 1992, and was not granted "permanent" status until 1998.

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