• The Texas Rangers are determined to make this Darren Oliver relationship work and have signed him to a one-year deal or until they're eliminated from the playoffs where they'll dump him off on a contender once again.

• Ken Davidoff heard something a while ago about the Yankees asking about Carlos Zambrano but he didn't deem it necessary to write about until everyone else did.

• Cliff Lee is still confused as to why the hell he is going to Seattle: "I was caught off guard by the whole thing. The day before it happened I heard all the rumors. I called my agent, he called them and they basically said it was not real. Don't believe the rumors, don't believe what you're hearing. So at that point I thought for sure it wasn't going to happen, then the next morning they called and confirmed that it did happen."

• Peter Gammons says screw this Winter Meetings crap and let's yell about Sarah Palin. BECAUSE HE CAN.
• Ken Rosenthal throws some shit at the wall.

PHOTO: Courtesy Josh Carp/SIAdvance.com

Remember when that blogger said that thing about Raul Ibanez and then all those non-bloggers got so worked up about it and then they brought the blogger on TV and made him look pasty white and we all had a big laugh about it? It had something do with the irresponsibility of suggesting something that may or may not be true about a baseball player when you don't have proper evidence. This is, of course, something that a serious mainstream journalist would never never ever do.

Hey, isn't the Los Angeles Times a "mainstream" newspaper? Would that make columnist Jerry Crowe a real mainstream journalist? Let's check his latest "column" and find out.

Thanks to Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, etc., fans outside St. Louis must wonder, 'Do we celebrate Albert Pujols or suspect him?' . . .

Pujols has batted four times with the bases loaded this season and three times has hit grand slams. . . .

In his only other at-bat with the bases loaded, the St. Louis Cardinals slugger delivered only a two-run single. . . .

Sadly, it makes you wonder. . . .

Yeah, those four at-bats really make you wonder. You know what else makes me wonder ... wasn't it "wondering" that got Jerod Morris in so much trouble? I thought we weren't allowed to wonder anymore. Can Outside The Lines please host another round-table discussion so that I can figure this out?

I've got no beef against Jerry Crowe, except for maybe that his column format is less rigid than Larry King's old USA Today ramblings. (That was the entirety of what he wrote about Pujols. Not exactly an in-depth investigation.) But the bottom line is that Jerod and Jerry are the not the first, nor will they be the last people, to speculate about a player's off-the-field actions in print. Like Rick Telander, who basically did the exact same thing, just a couple weeks before Morris wrote his post. So will we ever stop pretending that having an opinion column in a newspaper is different than having a blog?

BE RESPONSIBLE! THE WRITTEN WORD IS POWERFUL!

Los Angeles Times Writer Wonders Where Albert Pujols Gets His Talent [MLB Fanhouse]
Dodgers' Manny Ramirez eventually will have to be in hostile environment [Jerry Crowe]
Fehr leaves strong legacy ... except for one thing [Ken Rosenthal]
The Unfortunate Ambushing Of Jerod Morris' Raul Ibanez Post [Deadspin]
Rick Telander Defends Ryan Theriot Against Rick Telander's Steroid Accusations, All Hell Breaks Loose [Deadspin]

Morris, if you don't know, wrote the blog post which intimated that Raul Ibanez's incredible production so far this season could be artificially enhanced. Ibanez did everything expected of a man wrongly accused, even offering to open a vein or poop in a cup, to prove that his lofty numbers through June are legit.

The OTL segment yesterday afternoon trotted out the blogger in question (Morris), Philly Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez, and baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal for a little on-air tryptich window debate about the expanding roles of media and a sports blogger's place in this dynamic hierarchy, and the outcome was predictable: Morris was made the reckless fool, Gonzalez the literal and figurative middleman, and Rosenthal played the Bill Donahue role of Captain Angry Pants.

And based on the explosive reactions from bloggers and mainstream media alike after this brief segment, it appears it's The Summer Of Buzz all over again. Actually, it's not, so everybody calm down.

First: Did anyone actually read Morris' post? It was far from accusatory or gossipy in its hypothetical rundown of Ibanez's power surge. It was a blog post — a wonky, fantasy baseball-centric breakdown with an added personal flourish by including an email quote from one of his buddy's dashed-off observations that ended with "I thought they were testing?" And Morris, God bless him, took it upon himself to disprove his friend's theory by trotting out all sorts of career splits, stadium breakdowns, lunar calendar power output, etc. to see if there was any reason to believe the barroom speculation about Ibanez juicing. You know, just for fun, because that's what this is supposed to be most of the time. Of course it was inconclusive because, well, HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY KNOW IF IBANEZ IS ON STEROIDS BY TRACKING STATISTICS. Look at this ridiculously long list of mediocrity and start tracking their stats. Tell me what you come up with.

Second: John Gonzalez's initial column was not as mean-and-nasty as everyone thinks it is. In fact, Gonzalez is one of the good guys in this equation because he actually reads blogs and was simply shining on a light on the new media landscape we live in and how these things can turn into bigger deals (ahem) if they're not approached carefully. He was right. (Full disclosure: he's a buddy of mine, I called him for an explanation, and to be honest he seems very, very annoyed by how out of control this thing has become. Because he's Mexican.)

Plus, Gonzalez wasn't the person who decided to ask Ibanez in the locker room about what he thinks of the Midwest Sports Fan's "accusations." Yeah, that was Inquirer beat reporter Jim Salisbury. He should do a follow-up story tonight, bedpan in hand, to take Ibanez up on his offer.

Third: Ken Rosenthal doesn't have a fucking clue. Not in life, or in his baseball knowledge, but in the execution of his whole pointless attack, going borderline Albom-esque ("I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS!") on poor Jerod over a perfectly reasonable post that didn't deserve to get the national lambasting it did. Partially this is ESPN's fault for orchestrating this whole segment as some sort of poor man's "Costas Now," hoping they could re-open this tired debate again to confuse all the old, out of work people flipping through the channels yesterday afternoon. What is this scary thing you call "blog"?

Fourth: Jerod Morris has to go outside. Seriously, son, you're making us all look bad if you don't spray tan yourself before you go on national television to get yelled at. Learn from the professionals about how to best prepare for these definitive media moments.

Fifth: Everybody stop talking and typing about this immediately.

As you were.

Mitchell has denied that he was responsible for the leak that happened right before Game 7 of the ALCS — he said, oddly, that he "had no prior knowledge of those allegations," which makes us think the Mitchell Report is going to suck — but it's perfectly reasonable, we think, to ask: Mitchell doesn't have any alternate agendas, does he? Don't get us wrong: We don't think he's going to be strategically releasing steroid names of Rockies over the next week. But because the whole investigation has been done in extreme secrecy, it's reasonable to wonder whether everything's on the up and up, who's leaking what, what's going on.

Because Byrd's right: He is a Red Sox guy.

Mitchell Investigation Raises Questions [Fox Sports]
Mitchell Report Petition [It Is High ... It Is Far ...]