Friday Meltdown

Winston-Salem, NC -- I'm enduring a slow Friday afternoon, so I'll touch on a couple of points in no particular order.

• Going to check out the Charlotte Knights' park with Schnooks tomorrow night. One thing, the ballpark isn't located in Charlotte; it's in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
• I'll be back here in Winston to attend Sunday afternoon's Warthogs game against the Wilmington Blue Rocks. Nothing like watching a Carolina League game (after working 2 years for Carolina's Frederick Keys).
• Spoke to a representative of the Warthogs' ownership group last night and asked him about the new team name -- The Winston-Salem Warthogs are moving to a brand new ballpark downtown next spring. Check out the progress here. The front runner for the new team name is "The Dash."
• I'm a big fan of J.C. Bradbury's blog, "Sabernomics." After all, it combines the thinking of economics and baseball; my two favorite conversation topics. Bradbury, a fellow Braves' fan, is a huge opponent of Jeff Francoeur, often inferring to Frenchy's three month window of brilliance in the summer of 2005. He hasn't been good ever since, and here are his numbers this season to date: 0.253 BA, 8 HR, 41 RBI, 0 SB, 0.312 OBP, 0.411 SLG. Not good. I placed the stolen bases in there because Frenchy vowed to run a little more this year.
• This offseason could mark the exit of some legendary pitchers: Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux, and now Schilling.
• Andy MacPhail has been on the job as Orioles President of Operations for exactly one year now. The Sun's Rick Maese has his performance review here. I like how Maese examined everything from trades (exceeds expectations) to usher behavior (below expectations). I know Kevin's incident in 2005 (?) has something to do with that uproar.
• The Nats have the worst run differential in MLB; -90. This team can't hit.