By JIMMY D / Bonds away! Barry set for hot streak | Jimmy's archive

Everyone’s favourite baseball player hit homer No. 746 Sunday, breaking a string of 14 games when he neither homered nor drove in a run. That’s right, 14 games and no RBIs for Barry Bonds.

Everyone in San Francisco cheered and everyone else pretended to yawn.
Well, Jimmy is predicting a hot run for Bonds, if anyone cares to take Jimmy’s crystal ball gazing into account in their waiver wire scouring or swap scheming.

With Hank Aaron’s 755 lurking in the near future, Jimmy sees a flurry of homer activity for the next week or so before pitchers stop throwing to him at all.
The guy has 50 walks and only 117 official plate appearances.

If your league counts free passes as a positive category, Old Sour Puss is still a dynamite piece of thee fantasy puzzle. He leads the majors by a mile in that category, as usual.

Only once in his past 21 games has he not walked and 10 times, he walked twice or more.

And for everyone whining and bitching about Bonds and steroids allegations and how that is the only reason he can hit, zip your lip please. If baseball has been awash in juice the past decade, then more hitters should have monstrous, Bonds-like stats. Or maybe all the pitchers were juiced too, so it was even-steven.

Anyway, dislike Bonds because he’s a dour, argumentative, unforthcoming, brooding ogre of a person and teammate if you wish, but give the man his due. He is going to be crowned baseball’s homer king before June is out and he’ll probably say something embittering and annoying when he does.

Get used to the idea. He faces Mets, Phillies and Diamondback pitching in the next 10 days.

Brawny Braun

No, not Bobby Baun, you silly Leaf fans.

Jimmy’s two baseball waiver wire manoevres last week had polar opposite effects on his roster. Picking Philly’s hot Pat Burrell was a bust, going 0-for-the-week while snagging LHP Jarrod Washburn was a boom (he won twice for the hot Mariners).

This week, the Jackals will continue to live and die with Burrell and suddenly fading Jack Cust in the outfield, while swapping in Jose Contreras of the White Sox (he starts twice this week) for James Shields (the Tampa righty who continues to throw well, but who never wins because the D-Rays suck).

And just in case he is as good as advertised, Jimmy plucked Milwaukee 3B Ryan Braun off the waiver wire. The rookie just got called up, hit a homer and swiped a bag.

He has excellent power and good speed and will get an immediate chance in that exciting Brewer lineup we talked about two weeks ago. He is on Jimmy’s bench this week, but he is worth a look for sure in your league.

Knuckle-head Jimmy

Jimmy got his knuckles rapped (cyber-rapped anyway) for last week’s diatribe advocating knuckle sandwiches for NBA players who try sneaky, dirty, violent stuff.

The context was the Robert Horry foul on Steve Nash and the stupid league rule that basically punished Nash’s team much worse than Horry’s, because of pathetic one-game suspensions that were handed out.

Jimmy opined – while stressing this was not to be condoned in the household or the playground - that the NHL culture, where cowards don’t take cheap shots because they know there will be knuckle-sandwich repercussions, is better.
A Jimmy reader replied that stiff fines and charges “under the criminal law” would dissuade those inclined towards violence.  

“So I have to say shame on you and shame on the Herald for putting such dumb ‘macho’ stupidity to print,” he scolded.

Which is all fair and good politically correct commentary. Jimmy’s point was that sneaky players in a league that rewards cowards can play the system; pull a dirty stunt, create a small fracas, sacrifice himself for suspension knowing the other team will be drawn into it because of a stupid rule.

League edicts, fines, tough talk and suspensions don’t always get the job done.
It reminds Jimmy of a Rick Tocchet quote from a World Hockey Championship in the 1990s (back before he said less sageful things like “Yeah, running a mini-sportsbook with this dirty cop dude sounds like a good idea” came from his mouth.)

After watching Czech and Russian players high-stick, cross-check, slew-foot and otherwise pull other vicious cheap shots in a game, Tocchet said he saw five incidents in the game that would have been suspensions in the NHL.

But there was never a punch thrown, nobody ever had to stand up for their actions and everyone continued to praise the European game for its civility.

“This game shouldn’t be for cowards waving sticks,” he said at the time.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Stay busy, stay lucky.

Jimmy D