FanHouse Delgadoservesomebody

Have you seen the commercial for this year's All-Star Game yet? If not, here's a brief summary. A hand comes out of the sky and pulls the Gateway Arch out of the ground. It turns out that the Gateway Arch is a magnet that can attract baseball players and fans to it. (A special magnet.) The hand moves it all around America, picks up a bunch of people, then dumps them all on the Busch Stadium turf while Albert Pujols stands there and scowls. It's amazing.

It takes a minute to watch, but an eternity to comprehend. Fortunately, The Dugout's Speculation Station is here to help. Your Dugout is after the jump, and so is the video.

Yesterday, our own Josh Alper (screen name HamburgerAlper) related journeyman pitcher Hideo Nomo's retirement. Within, he made a point to observe Mr. Nomo's brief statement:

"Retiring. July 17, 2008. I announced my retirement from my playing career."

Hideo Nomo, droppin' beat-poet science.

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

The first meeting of The Dugout's Speculation Station was met with considerable success. Its panelists -- Brian Bannister, Carlos Delgado, and Chipper Jones -- contributed their thoughts in a (largely) rational and orderly manner, and as a result, a greater understanding was grasped of the item at hand.

Today, The Speculation Station turns its curious and objective gaze toward a 1988 commercial for the Nintendo Entertainment System's R.B.I. Baseball. Let's wish our thoughtful participants well as they attempt to digest and understand this material!

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

Anyone who has watched a local Cincinnati Reds broadcast is familiar with the JTM commercial that plays at least every other commercial break. It features Bronson Arroyo singing a song about frozen food products, and it is tremendous. With commercials like these, a simple pithy remark just will not cut it. Oh, no.

That's why I have decided to assemble the Speculation Station, a tribunal that gives special attention to things like this. Video of the commercial, as well as tonight's Dugout, are after the jump.

Today, Carlos Delgado hit two home runs against the Braves. This is especially significant because he has spent most of his 2008 season battling through a brutal slump. After his second home run, the crowd roared in anticipation of a curtain call. Delgado refused. The Mets' television announcers spent the next half hour weighing the merits of his decision. By the end of it they were throwing out words like "symbiotic" and "jerk."

The question of whether the fans are justified in booing Delgado is beyond the scope of this chat room. Today's Dugout is after the jump.

On Thursday, New York Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado expressed more disappointment over his team's historic collapse at the close of the 2007 regular season. He's quoted as saying, "It was very disappointing because we know that we had the best team."

I have no doubt that he knew. Have you watched him in the dugout? Whenever he leaves the field and goes down the steps, he reaches straight for his notebook and spends a few minutes scribbling and flipping through it. He's not the only player to ever do that, but it's certainly a rarity for a position player to become such a student of the numbers. He's gathered so much data over such a long career that they should probably just duct-tape those notebooks to the next deep-space telescope we shoot into orbit, so that eons later, distant ancestors of our alien conquerors will be able to use Delgado's notes to re-construct our DNA.

Tonight's Dugout is after the jump.