Casey Blake's Beard Grew Back; Derek Jeter Had a Milestone

When Casey Blake shaved his beard back in March, it broke Sam's heart. In fact, no one's seen or heard from him since that last despondent blog post. Well, Sam, you can stop sobbing into your pillow and rejoin the rest of us in the baseball blogosphere because today I watched the first three innings of the Dodgers-Phillies game and Casey Blake's beard is back.

In this same game, Andre Ethier has gone 3/3 with 3 runs and 3 RBIs. And you know what, I BENCHED HIM. What kind of Fantasy Manager benches Andre Ethier? The same kind that still has Ken Griffey Jr. on her team. "Negligent" is absolutely the wrong word. "Emotionally punitive" and "death-anchored to superstition" are closer. I'll never forgive Jayson Werth. I'll be drafting Derek Jeter in the 3rd round for the next ten years. I'll....

Well, no. Let's just stay on the topic of Derek Jeter. He got his 2,874th hit on Sunday night, passing Babe Ruth on the all-time hits list. I was watching the game at the gym and almost started crying tears of joy on the treadmill.

Did you know that, along with being the Yankees all-time hits leader, Derek Jeter has more hits than any other active player in the Major Leagues? People love to tell me about how much they hate Derek Jeter. You can't be a reasonable, self-affirming person with a positive world view and hate Derek Jeter. Maybe I'll make 100 audio recordings of me reading his autobiography out loud and mail them to all of the Jeter haters in my life, because I think that that could really improve the emotional climate of our times.

ANDRE ETHIER JUST GOT ANOTHER HIT. This is too much. I'm so full of sports feeling and fury that I'm going to stop writing and join Sam in semi-retirement.