First we learned that Manny Ramirez does Yoga.  Then we discovered that John Maine is lacking in testosterone.  And before today, we applauded Eric Byrnes for promoting the 'stache.  Now we can celebrate one more Byrnes: he needs his red bat. 

It's almost as if the NFL and Roger Goodell came up with the ban on various bat colors.  I'm guessing Byrnes wouldn't be 6 for his last 60 if he had his big red bat. 



Yea... something like that.

It’s often said that the Cardinal/Cub rivalry is a friendly one.  That’s only true because so many friendships and relationships have fans of either side, so naturally it’s friendly for them.  For fans who don’t know each other, the rivalry is just as nasty as any other—go to a Cards/Cubs games in either city and you’ll see several incidents.  If they ever played each other in the NLCS, more than likely the fans who know each other would no longer get along either.  

This week saw another turn in the rivalry, as Jim Edmonds signed with the Cubs to the chagrin of both teams’ fans.  It’s not too often that players switch from one team to another, especially ones of Edmonds’ stature.  This week’s Top 7 looks at those who have.

7. Tie for 7th place
There are several guys worth mentioning so we’ll have to make this spot a tie.  Shawon Dunston is a guy who has withstood the test of time—people still today talk about the Shawon-O-Meter, his ungodly arm, his uncanny ability to refuse walks, and his borderline insane intensity.  Jeff Fassero and Jason Marquis deserve mention because they are two rare guys who can actually bond Cardinal and Cub fans because both fanbases despised them.  Todd Wellemeyer has pitched well for the Cardinals, which pisses Cub fans off to no end because his ERA for them was around 600.  Still other guys, like Delino DeShields and John Mabry, are just kind of there, and it’s easy to forget that they played for both teams.

6. Gary Gaetti
Gaetti had a great year for the Cards in 1996, their first division title in nine years.  He moved over to the Cubs in 1998 and helped them down the stretch in their wild card run, hitting somewhere around .780 in his first couple of weeks.  Hailing from Centralia, Illinois, he is also the subject of a southern Illinois legend—he apparently hit a home run in high school at Mt. Vernon that hit a warehouse across the street from the school some 550-600 feet from home plate.  Anyone that ever played in Mt. Vernon in high school surely heard the story. 

The Cubs made it official this morning: Jim Edmonds is now their centerfielder.  With Felix Pie struggling offensively, the Cubbies were seeking a left-handed bat and Edmonds apparently fits the bill, according to Lou Piniella:

"He's got experience.  He's played in big situations. I think here at Wrigley Field with the crowd and so forth, and the fact that this club can win, I think those are all positives for bringing a veteran player."

Edmonds' '08 numbers makes one wonder just how valuable his experience is, considering he's got eight more strikeouts (24) than hits (16) in 90 at bats this season.  His OPS sits at an abysmal .498, ironic seeing as the man he's replacing, Felix Pie, has been a tad better offensively.  Pie is hitting .222 with a homer and 7 RBI compared to Edmonds' .178 and 6 RBI, and his OPS is .571.  Essentially, Edmonds is three hit game away from being "on par" with Pie offensively.

Obviously, that's not a huge difference, and both players certainly have their offensive faults at this point, but you'd think most people would favor giving the young guy more time to develop at the pro level.  And regardless of stats, Pie is a better defensive player than Edmonds at this stage of his career. 

Part of the fun of seeing a former player on your favorite team sign with their bitter rivals, is that you can have a laugh at their expense by mocking their rookie card.  Okay, maybe that really isn't fun for most people, but it is for those of us who are searching for a way to introduce a new batch of Worthless Cards to the JoeSportsFan.com collection.

In this case, our presenter is none other than Jim Edmonds who recently signed with the Cubs after being released by the Padres.  In his 1994 Topps rookie card, you could already see the fire in his eyes as he stared out to centerfield and thought to himself "someday I'm going to make routine catches out there and proceed to fall down and act injured so everyone will fawn over me."  Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, Jim's card didn't make the cut this month, but many others did, so check them out here.

And if you don't have time to cycle through them all, don't worry, we're pretty sure that Gem Mint Ten will be posting them on their site within a few days. 

The Spygate controversy is pretty much over (no matter what Arlen Specter says), and while Roger Goodell and the NFL did all it could to mimize the scandal's significance by burying it into the second week of May, there is one thing we can all take from it: the Patriots need to shut up and quit whining. 

Sure, nothing came of Spygate, and the Boston Herald even issued a retraction about the Super Bowl weekend piece it ran suggesting the Pats taped a walk-through of a Rams practice.  Yippee.  That doesn't take away from the fact that the Patriots cheated to gain an advantage at one point or another.  If you listen to Robert Kraft and Tom Brady, you'd think the Patriots were the victims in all of this. 

Wednesday morning, Kraft appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box" and had some interesting things to say.

"Our people broke a rule the first week of the season and since that there's no team in the history of sports who's been under more intense scrutiny.  And we were able, over the next 18 weeks of the season, to go 18-0."

"I think the American public sees us as the best sports entertainment product in the country . . . and we hope we can continue doing that next year.  And it's just sorry that it had to end on this sour note."

"The rule book for the NFL is many hundreds of pages and we realize it's beyond the scope of a coaching staff of personnel people to be able to administer properly."