Umpiring, Easy Wins, Youkilis vs. Teixeira, the Dodgers, and More

A few quick baseball points for your mid-afternoon:

• Flip Flop Fly Ball is back at it with two new graphics (posted above). Open them up to see the whole thing. They do an awesome job on that site.
• I said after the NBA playoffs that I wouldn't complain about MLB umpires all season. I lied. The third base umpire, Marty Foster, made up a rule in the Yankees loss on Monday. I think Derek Jeter has gotten his fair share of calls by putting down a quick tag and beating the runner to the base, even if he never tagged him, but to actually hear an umpire think this is how the rulebook is supposed to be interpreted is a bit ridiculous. River Ave Blues talks about how Foster cowardly didn't show up for to defend himself and instead sent his crew chief, John Hirschbeck. PeteAbe agrees and gives credit to Hirschbeck for his willing to speak and be so candid (he called Jeter the classiest person he's met in baseball and admitted a mistake). I think it's really good when the umpires admit their mistake. They're human. The human element to the game is good (except, maybe, not when they make four bad calls as Bronx Banter writes). We never know what would have happened if Jeter had been safe (I said at the time the steal was a bad idea, regardless), and we move on. Right? Well, River Ave Blues says that Hirschbeck changed his story one day later. You already admitted a mistake and moved on...why make the situation worse?
• How's this for an easy win? Alan Embree won a game without throwing a pitch. Zero pitches. "Embree became the first pitcher to earn a win without throwing a pitch since Jays pitcher B.J. Ryan, who won for the Orioles over the Tigers on May 1, 2003. STATS Inc. has no record of any other pitcher accomplishing the feat since it began tracking pitches in 1986." And I thought David Robertson being 5-0 in one-pitch outings was easy living.
• Kevin Youkilis or Mark Teixeira? I think it's really, really close. If I had to pick one over the other, I may actually go with Youkilis (I know, a shocker). The AL is stacked with first basemen from Youk and Tex to Miguel Cabrera, Justin Mourneau, Carlos Peña, and Russell Branyan. The Hartford Courant let some bloggers debate it. I stopped caring about who was in the All-Star Game quite a few years ago.
• When he's not mopping up games, Brett Tomko is a big painter.
• Are the Yankees actually a better defensive team than last year? I say so and so does FanGraphs.
• Sorry Ken Rosenthal, Juan Pierre is not an All-Star. Manny Ramirez is a better candidate than Pierre. Speaking of the Dodgers outfield, I agree with FanGraphs: move Matt Kemp up in the lineup. This guy is good and for some reason, he's somewhat buried in that lineup by Joe Torre. The Dodgers trainer is trying to find a way to predict sports injuries, according to the New York Times (very, very interesting, especially in a supposedly-post-PED baseball world).

Other spots news:

• LeBron James may be staying or may be leaving Cleveland. I think we're exactly where we were before this news came out. I still hope/think he'll be on the Knicks.
• Maybe I was too harsh on Donald Brashear. He's had a really tough life according to the Washington Post
• Some props for my fellow Hebrew, Jason Lezak, for giving a nice tribute to his Jewish heritage.
• This is a pretty nice tribute for losing.
• So I guess loyalty is gone for Singh?

Two non-sports links:

• Alex from Lost getting on the Subway at 33rd Street (6 train). Though that's cool and all since that's the Subway stop closest to me, I have to say that her and Jeff Goldblum being together is a little strange. He is only 35 years older...
• I've stayed away from the Michael Jackson stuff, but the fact that he's being buried without his brain caught my eye. I wonder if he and Teddy Ballgame spoke about that decision.