Random Fandom

So Randy Johnson's ticked off about not being considered for the Cy Young Award. Or, rather, he's ticked off about not being discussed in an ESPN report profiling the NL race. It's a little unclear how this tirade came about (would it kill the Republic or MLB.com's reporters to detail the question that set him off?), but it appears from a distance that Randy wanted to get his name back out there for consideration and decided to use the media time as an opportunity to do it.

Also in that same article is a note that the D-Backs, having lost their AA-affiliate to the Cardinals, picked up the Tennessee Smokies. The Smokies are in the Southern League and were, well, the Cardinals' AA-affiliate. The D-Backs have a 2-year deal, which means all squads' relationships with the D-Backs are set to expire at the end of 2006. If you're interested, they're in Kodak, 20-30 miles east of Knoxville on the eastern end of Tennessee. The address of the stadium -- I love this -- is 3540 Line Drive.

Oh, and for what it's worth, since August 2nd -- in other words, after Luis Gonzalez shut it down for the season and Steve Finley got traded, the D-Backs have a 14-29 record (.326), compared to 33-74 (.308) for the 4 months prior. I'm not sold on Pedrique coming back, but at least the team hasn't completely collapsed here in the last couple months.