Open Thread: Link dump edition

Ah west coast baseball. Nothing quite like staying up past your bedtime to watch the Yanks. Here’s some stray links to help you pass the time…

• Finally, a Michael Kay drinking game. We need to come up with one for Sterling now.
• After inking a deal with Cablevision to broadcast Yankee games online a few months ago, the service is now expanding to include Verizon FiOS subscribers. Time Warner can’t be far behind, right? Eh, doesn’t matter, their sevice sucks anyway.
• What side of The Damon Debate are you on? I’d be cool with a one year deal plus an option, but only at a reduced cost. Like, $5M per plus incentives.
• Baseball America polled scouts, managers, etc., and named Austin Jackson the Best Batting Prospect in the Triple-A International Leage (subs. req’d). Zach McAllister has the Best Control and Reegie Corona is the Best Defensive Second Baseman in the Double-A Eastern League.
• Jayson Stark has a great piece on the Stephen Strasburg situation, which I suggest you check out. The signing deadline is next Monday at midnight, and I’m still in the camp that thinks he’s going to sign. It’s almost impossible for his stock to be any higher, and if he has to “settle” for $15-18M, he’d still crush the previous draft record and be set for life. How can you turn that down as a 21-yr old?
• While on the subject of the draft, Bradley Suttle’s $1.3M bonus in 2007 is no longer a fourth round record. The Royals broke it today when they signed ex-Yank draftee Chris Dwyer for $1.5M. Suttle, meanwhile, is out for the year with a shoulder issue.
• Olympic baseball is no more. At least until 2020. I might as well point you towards this post from my 2008 Olympics coverage since we just talked about Strasburg.
• Bryce Harper: good at baseball.
• Former Yankee Andy Cannizaro was traded to the White Sox. Andy hit .250-.333-.625 in nine plate appearances with the Bombers back in 2006.
• Joe would kill me if I didn’t mention this: Les Paul, the man who invented the electric guitar and is responsible for rock music as we know it, passed away today. At 94-yrs old, the dude was still playing shows in the city this year. A true legend.

Anyway, use this as your open thread for the night. We’ve got a few hours to kill before the Yanks-Fightin’ Ichiros game starts, so talk about whatever you like here. Just be cool.

Late add by Joe: Over the past few weeks I’ve been noticing a trend in the comments that get sent to the spam filter. Not only do most baseball-reference links go there, but if you use the word badass, without a space, your comment will not show up. Why that is, I have no idea. It’s just that ever “please moderate comment” email I get seems to have that word in it.