Some Friday Stuff....

...for those of you who, like me, are still sitting at your desks at 2 p.m. on a summer Friday afternoon, quite seriously contemplating what went wrong in your life that ultimately led to you having a job where you're still sitting at your desk on a summer Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., just counting down the minutes....

So anyway, as the great Ethel Merman once said - let me entertain you! So without further ado, a few Random Friday Thoughts.

First up - Mike Pelfrey. Whom I was starting to call "Hellfrey" before his last two starts. And as sure as I'm sitting here at 2 p.m. on a summer Friday afternoon (did I mention that before?), I was not alone in the "Hellfrey" thing. I had even considered writing a little ditty wherein I would make the case to support my opinion that the next time Pelfrey should get a major league start would be when Hellfrey-zesover. Read it quickly, you'll get it, trust me.

Anyway, Ollie Perez could learn a thing or two from Pelf lately. Pelf seems to be learning to fight through struggles and setbacks and various adverse occurrences while he's out there, and learning how not to fall apart because his shoelace becomes untied, because he doesn't like the angle of the sun that particular minute, because his mother yelled at him when he was five years old, or other similar serious issues. He seems to be growing up before our very eyes, and although these developments are extremely recent, they are the type of growth developments that just don't get reversed once they've occurred. Maturity and growth are not something that one can learn; if they were, well, things wouldn't be the way they are. They're very difficult to achieve, especially while performing in the spotlight under pressure, so Pelf is really impressing me these days.

Ollie, on the other hand, I just don't know these days. I've come to the conclusion that he is indeed what they refer to in the trades as a "head case." And considering we have a pitching coach whose idea of good advice is to contemplate a butterfly's navel while warming up his pitcher du jour, enough to qualify one for the moniker of "head case" in many baseball circles, I'm not sure these two are a good match. Ollie may well need tough love and a good dose of reality, not the Petermeister Zen crap that The Jacket is so fond of eschewing.

Bad karma, baby, just plain bad karma.

Overall, the team has now seemed to have arrived at the crossroads of Playing Mediocre And Boring Baseball Street to Let's Go Out There And Win This Thing Street. They're there -- they simply need to decide, once and for all, for certainty, on which street they wish to continue their travels, and then firmly and surely guide the team bus down that street, with no turning back.

And if they choose the latter street, and the team bus crashes, there will be many, many casualties, for Let's Go Out There And Win This Thing Street is without doubt a tough and challenging road to navigate, full of twists and turns and perils and unexpected hazards; a much tougher and challenging road than Playing Mediocre And Boring Baseball Street, and the Sunday driver just out for an afternoon spin need not apply.