If only he could've hit the ball as well as he hit the floor.

Some people fade from the spotlight gracefully... Boone is obviously not one of those people.

Bret Boone, no matter how much he tries, can never stop embarasing himself.

At least Boone will never again menace the Twins' lineup. Let's hope he gets the help he needs.

He is also one of those people that won't go down without a fight. Unfortunately for him, he is losing.

Time to give him a Booney-bouncer-flip.

Bret the Hitman Boone will unleash his rage in a country club near you!

Other members of his foursome had different reactions to his outburst. Mark McGuire told reporters to focus on the positive things Boone had done in the past. Sammy Sosa stressed Bret's inability to comprehend how polite society operated. Rafael Palmeiro flatly denied this event actually occured. The caddy, Jose Canseco, was later found rummaging through their golf bags looking for "secret staches".

Three days after this incident, Detroit signs him to a 3 year / $33 million deal.

-Pander
The "wherefore art thou Bret Boone" White Sox fan.

Oh Boy.

All I can do is shake my head.

You missed the best part of the original gossip item:

"He showed up at the General Managers' meeting last month with his hair dyed platinum, hoping to catch some attention."

Bret is so sad. He went from being so good...

its okay. im still a fan. :-) he was real nice when i met him during the short time he was a twin.

Really?! He hit the floor!? 'Cause I heard he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a f*cking BOAT!

not meaning to mention curses or anything but has a single good thing happened to any Boone since Aaron hit that homerun off Tim Wakefield to win the ALCS?

Uh the Indians paid Gimpy Boone a lot of money to hit under the mendoza line for 2/3 of the season.

Pander,

Don't forget the money they paid him to sit out a year and rehab the knee he tore playing basketball...

YF

Bret Boone? What is he, five feet tall? I'm sure they were shaking in their boots.

"Make me!" ??? Is he a five-year-old?

rumor has it booney was drinking with JC.

eh, Boone has always died his hair. You just didn't have him long enough to notice :)

FWIW, there was a rebuttal article locally that said that the squib in the Vegas gossip column was just a TAD bit exaggerated for effect.... to quote Boone, "It's Star magazine stuff, I feel like I'm Paris Hilton."

On another topic anyone else see Peter Gammons saying that Piazza would be a good fit for Minnesota - he could help Mauer learn how to be a better catcher, could be a dangerous DH and would be an above-average replacement catcher when Mauer needs a rest. I'm liking it more and more... well, except for the idea of the damn pixie vests.

Hits like her too.

DCT -

Was Piazza ever a good catcher? (Hitter, yes.)

The Piazza bandwagon is growing!

The guy still knows how to hit, he's great on TV, and it would just be a hell of a lot of fun to have him around.

Plus, we need more guy on the team that have last names ending in vowels.

He managed a game well, didn't have the best arm - yeah, that's an understatement - but he knew how to handle pitchers and how to work the game.

>Plus, we need more guy on the team that have last names ending in vowels.

Agreed.

I like Piazza as a DH. I like Redmond as the back-up catcher, though. I do like having a duo of Mikes to mentor Joe, though. And the last name would help our team a bit.

Piazza was never a good defensive catcher. He would be the last person I would want as a mentor to a young catcher. Since everyone is picking on Boone today, his dad was a pretty good catcher or maybe you could ask Johnny Bench to come to spring training and help Joe out, but if you want him to learn how to handle a staff and play good D, Piazza is not the one to teach him.

If he is your DH that will be a good fit, just don't let him near Joe :)

p.e.m.

PEM:

I second everything you said--we dont need Piazza as a backup defensive catcher--we already have a good one in NBP!!

As a DH maybe--but we could do better...

"Pander,

Don't forget the money they paid him to sit out a year and rehab the knee he tore playing basketball...

YF"

You sure about that? I was pretty sure the yanks cut him as part of a "forbidden recreational activities" clause since he was playing pickup baskettball, and didn't give him squat, and that the Indians didn't hire him until he was ready to play.

Mebbe I'm wrong :|

Still, Bret wins the 2006 "Sammy Sosa 2005" award for player who has fallen the farthest in the shortest amount of time. Runner-up: Rafael Palmeiro. 2006 front-runner: Barry Bonds (depending on performance and certain testimony).

I'm pretty sure you're referring to Aaron Boone here, not Bret.

Uh, the injury references Aaron, the "futility" award goes to Bret. I mentioned both in the same post, gotta pay attention! :)

Hell, let's just call them the Fabulous Boone Boys to simplify things.

In other news. Matt Morris got into this off-season's "monopoly money for pitchers" theme, and now he's a Giant.

Help me out here, who will win the NL West?

Every team except for Colorado is "fair", none even remotely "good"...is it San Diego and their "at least we re-signed a couple of our boys!" squad?

I could do without the "Uh," since I did realize that's likely what you meant...it just wasn't clear when reading, so I thought it should be cleared up to avoid confusion (as it is possible there are people who don't get Gimpy is equivalent to Aaron). No harm, no foul.

Twins on the 40-man roster with last names ending in vowels:

Santana
Castillo
Morneau
Radke
Silva
Liriano
Castro
Punto
Tiffee
(Alex) Romero
Eyre
Pirdie (the Rule V kid)

Total: 12, including 3/5 of the starting rotation (or 4/5 if Liriano gets in there) and 100 percent of the team's scrappy utility infielders.

Percentage of 40-man roster with last names ending in a vowel: 30 percent

Percentage of letters that are vowels: 19 (23 if you count "y")

In conclusion, it appears that the Twins are already well stocked with players whose last names end with vowels, with a proportion even higher than that of vowels to overall letters, so there would be no need to bring in Piazza for that reason. (If, however, the Twins wanted to bring him in because he's a good hitter who might still have something left in the tank, it's fine by me).

However, you'll notice that although there's at least one each of names ending in a, e, o, and u, there are none ending in "i." Here are my suggestions for players the Twins could bring in to fill the gap:

Free agents:

Kazuhisha Ishii
Matt Mantei
Dan Miceli
Mike Mordecai

Via trade:

Ichiro Suzuki
A.J. Pierzynski
Jason Giambi
Hee-Seop Choi
David Delucci
Kazuhiro Sasaki
Tadahito Iguchi
Lou Merloni
Joe Borowski
Jason Conti
Jason Grabowski
So Taguchi
Jason Grilli

Also, David Segui and Jeremy Giambi, though I'm not sure if they are still playing.

There really aren't that many good players whose names end in "i." In conclusion, I think MLB needs more Polish guys.