News to Youse: Rays Open New Era

It all comes down to Joe Maddon, the mastermind. He's so easy to like and even easier to buy into what he's saying.

I had a pleasant conversation with him about red wines. My brother had a pleasant conversation with him about 'all things pickled'...

Now people complain they are too long, then when I write a short one, I get grief for that, too!!

Brignac looks like he's just entering puberty and is tall and thin, but his bat has surprising pop. He'll never win a batting title, but he'll lead all shortstops in SLG, one day for sure.

Kd, your assessment that he could be a centerfielder - I never thought of it, but yeah, he could! Physically, people are always going to compare Brignac to Derek Jeter when he first came up - and Jeter SHOULD be a CF. Brignac is a better fielder than Jeter and with more power, but Jeter is definitely more of a contact hitter.

You should be warned that this Manny Stiles guy is a HUGE fan of Mr. Dukes and is ready to bettle dimly witted jokes about him with facts.

Such as: Dukes was never arrested for the "You dead, Dawg" incident and his divorce is now final. Too much was made of the situation because the woman (niShea Gilbert) was an utter, total mean bitch (and pure gold digger) and her lawyers tried to take everything to the court of public opinion over the actual court. But you didn't hear THAT story in the "news" did you?

Sure, the Rays had to cut ties with him to achieve what they were trying to do - build a team where individuals were part of the whole. But I've met him several times and Dukes isn't the bad guy everyone wants to make him out to be...