It’s pretty easy to get obsessed with the MLB Trading Deadline, but as I get older I find myself getting tired of being jerked around.  In my mind, I’m able to live with certain guys no longer being on their previous team as long as I have proper time to visualize it.  For example, it was tough for me to accept Roy Oswalt in anything but an Astros uniform, but when I thought he’d land with the Cardinals, I started to make peace with it.  When he was traded to the Phillies, that messed up the entire part of my brain dedicated to processing Roy Oswalt’s existence in my feeble mind.  It’s a rather small existence, but still… Since there is a new Adam Dunn trade rumor just about every couple of hours, that part of me is in utter disarray.  I don’t know how I’ll contemplate him in a Tigers or White Sox uniform.  That wouldn’t look right.  What if he stays in Washington?  Will I still view him as a National or does part of me think of him as a rental from the Reds?  I don’t know.  That one may take some time.   But I do know this: it’s time to do some headlines:

• Roy Oswalt waived his no-trade clause in order to complete a trade sending him to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Not a bad consolation prize for basically giving Cliff Lee away this past winter.  In the past year, the Phillies have traded for three of the best pitchers in baseball (combined career record: 402-222) without giving up their best prospect.  Ifthe Yankees had done this, we’d have to hold an intervention for ESPN.com story commenters.  Either way, Team Roy should form a pretty good 1-2 punch as the Phils try to get back to the World Series.

• Terrell Owens signed a free agent contract with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis must be a glutton for punishment.  Here are his starting wide receivers, or as I like to call it, the “Depth Chart of Crazy”:

Chad Ochocinco: Twitter-addicted egomaniac who legally changed his name to “eight-five” in Spanish.  Budding reality TV star, possibly insane.

Terrell Owens: Egomaniacal cry baby who throws quarterbacks under the bus like temper tantrums: regularly.  Budding reality tv star, probably insane.

Antonio Bryant: Labeled as a “bad character” guy dating back to his college days at Pitt, he repeatedly gets into fights with his coaches, probably because of his ego, which usually leads to him having to find a new team (or because he fails a drug test).  Maybe insane.

See a trend here?  Sidenote: Marvin’s starting running back is Cedric Benson… So good luck with all that…

• The Baltimore Orioles hired Buck Showalter as their new manager.

I don’t know what took the Orioles so long, but Showalter is probably the best hire the Orioles could have made.  He has a solid track record of getting his players to play disciplined baseball.  Granted, he usually gets fired after three or four

There's a part of me that forgot this ever happened.

seasons because his players grow to hate him, but with 32 wins through July, the O’s aren’t really in a place to call the shots.  One O’s fan reaction: “Did Showalter count how many times ‘major league worst’ can appear in one article about the Orioles before he took the position?”  Needless to say, Buck will have his work cut out for him.  First suggestion: hire this man!  You can never have too many “Bucks.”

• ESPN reportedly killed a Vegas story on LeBron James that painted the player in an unflattering light.

The rumor circulating was that the writer misidentified himself to Team LeBron.  Silly ESPN, how dare they report something unflattering about a basketball player.  Best leave that to those scalawags at Deadspin!  And how come Bill Simmons wasn’t writing this piece?  He knows more about Vegas and the NBA than anyone!  Oh wait, it was because he was busy hopping off the Red Sox bandwagon to write a “This Third Place Boston Red Sox Team Doesn’t Entertain Me” article for the front page of sonsofsamhorn.com espn.com.

• Albert Haynesworth failed his physical with the Redskins for the second time in as many days.

And then Glenn Beck said something stupid.  What else is new?

Comeback story of the week:

• Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez made his minor league debut for the Washington Nationals’ Rookie League affiliate.

Duque is one of my favorite players of all time.  He tells people he’s 44 years old but it’s probably closer to 46.  Despite his World Series rings and career earnings over $34M, he’s still holding on to the dream.  Or he’s broke.  I hope it’s not the latter.  Either way, I’ll be pulling for him.

That’s it for me.  If you need me, I’ll be on a gigantic boat, resting my shoulder, preparing for one last summer push into the MLB playoff races and the start of football.  Gotta make some room in my brain:

I went to the Nationals game on Tuesday night in an effort to catch one of Steve’s outings.  You all know how that worked out: Steve’s shoulder got tight, Miguel Batista subbed in right before the first pitch, and the fans booed mercilessly.  Nonetheless, the game went on as planned and Batista pitched five shutout innings, propelling the Nats to a 3-0 win over the first-place Braves.  Despite the fact that most of the crowd stuck around for the entire game, Tracee Hamilton of the Washington Post thinks real fans don’t boo.  I whole-heartedly disagree, both with her premise and the idea of a reporter scolding me.  Here we go:

Forty thousand people turned up at Nationals Park on Tuesday night expecting Jim Riggleman to shout “Release the Kraken” as Stephen Strasburg strode to the mound for his 10th start.

Wow, quoting a crappy movie meme that was moderately annoying months ago.  Great lede.  You’re off to a stellar start.

That’s 40,000 people, but not necessarily 40,000 fans. Fans don’t boo the hometown team because of a pitching change. Fans don’t boo the long reliever who had a 10-minute warning that he was going to start. Fans don’t get up and walk out because one player is out of the lineup, even if that player is Stephen Strasburg.

Did you consider maybe the fans were booing because they were pissed off at the situation?  Do you think half of the 40,000 people there even knew who Miguel Batista was?  They didn’t care: they were upset because they probably paid a fair amount of money to see Steve and now at the last second, they found out he’s not pitching.  Instead, they’ve paid $40 for a bleacher seat to see a guy who had a career record of 95-110 going into that night’s game.  Also, were you at the game?  The stadium was packed up until the last out.

Hopefully much of the booing was expressing disappointment rather than disagreement with GM Mike Rizzo’s decision. Rizzo did exactly the right thing.

Tracee, sorry to force your detour off the Pretentiousness Turnpike, but anyone who has read even one story about Steve’s odyssey to the big leagues realizes this was the right decision.  No one was upset with Rizzo.  They were upset that they left work early, sat on a crowded train and dropped $40 on a ticket just for the privilege to watch Nyjer Morgan flail around centerfield.  Come on.

But a ticket to a baseball game is a ticket to a baseball game, period. It’s not a money-back guarantee to see one particular player. If you buy a ticket to a Lady Gaga concert and Lady Gaga doesn’t take the stage, then you ask for a refund. But in this case, we’re talking about a team sport.

Here’s another real-life situation sports fans can relate to: baseball games and Lady Gaga concerts!  Are you serious?  Let’s say I get hit in the head one day and decide it’d be a great idea to buy a ticket to a Lady Gaga concert.  Even with said head injury, I don’t think I’d ask for a refund if she didn’t show up.  I’d consider it a wake-up call to reexamine my life choices.

In truth, everything about a baseball game is subject to change. Players can be injured or traded or sent down, even minutes before the first pitch. “Bull Durham,” about another hard-throwing pitching phenom, includes many pearls of wisdom, such as: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains. Think about that for a while.”

Another tired clichéd sports movie reference shoehorned amidst useless generalities that couldn’t be more obvious… And this is just the first one I quoted… What’s your point?

Pleasing a large crowd that includes both fans and Strasburg looky-loos is a challenge for the Nats. Baseball fans won’t boo Rizzo’s caution, but part of Strasburg’s raison d’être is to attract non-baseball fans, not only to sell more tickets but also to try to convert them into a more permanent kind of fan, the kind who will buy tickets without the allure of Strasburg on the mound. It’s hard to make converts, however, when they walk out in the first inning.

Hambone, were you actually at the game?  I was and I saw zero people leave the game in the first inning.  In fact, the majority of the crowd stayed until the last out, cheering as Matt Capps struck out the last batter.  Furthermore, why can’t Nats fans be picky?  The team has been beyond crappy the entire time it’s been in DC.  It’s an organization that’s been run on a shoestring budget by guys like Jim Bowden.  The team has been an embarrassment playing in a gorgeous stadium funded by taxpayer dollars.  You know what?  If people want to leave in the first inning, good for them.  They’ve earned it.  What have the Nationals done to garner any type of loyalty?  Drafting two really good players?  The riches of Steve and Bryce were rewards for ineptitude.

In “Bull Durham,” Crash Davis tells Nuke LaLoosh, “When you were a baby, the gods reached down and turned your right arm into a thunderbolt.”

He could have been talking to Strasburg. But the thunderbolt doesn’t come with a lifetime guarantee.

And if the gods won’t protect it, the Nats will.

Nailed it again, Master of the Obvious.

If you missed it, here’s a taste of what you should’ve seen brought to you by the guys at VBS.tv.  Check your television schedules to try to find a rebroadcast of it, its worth it to see the Birth of Big Air. Even cooler is that it was produced by Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jonze. Amazingly, we got no cash for this plug, we just like the high flying bikes.

At least we know how Floyd Jr. keeps himself busy when not running from Manny Pacquiao

Everyone knows Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. is a bit off but no one should blame him for it. It obviously comes from his father.

Floyd Mayweather Sr. went off on Manny Pacquiao during an On The Ropes Radio interview earlier this month.

“I’d tell him he’s a faggot,” Floyd Sr. said, when asked what he would say to Pacquiao face to face, if given the chance. “That’s what I’d tell him. I’d tell him he ain’t nothing but a little sissy; a little girl.”

“The only thing they’re trying to do is to switch this around and make it look like it’s my son that’s scared,” Mayweather Sr. continued. “He ain’t the one that’s scared. I know who’s scared.”

Mayweather Sr. didn’t stop there. He decided to go full Mel Gibson.

“My problem is, Bob Arum don’t call no [expletive] shots,” he said. “The fight can be made anytime they want the fight to be made. ‘Little Floyd’ definitely ain’t scared of no Pacquiao. That’s the last thing in the world that little Floyd is scared of—a little Filipino midget. Definitely that’s not the case.”

Money’s father ranted about Arum backing Pacquiao because he represents him and how his son should get more money because…well I don’t really get it.

There’s also something about drug testing and Miguel Cotto in there. However there’s no mention of how Pacquiao would fight Cotto because his son won’t agree to the fight even though Pacquiao agreed to Olympic-level blood testing.

Still haven’t seen boxing embarass itself enough? Here’s Danny Green vs. Paul Briggs from Australia. 30 seconds of the sweet science at its finest. Stick around for the post-fight interview.

Don’t try to tell me Don King wasn’t in the house that night.

Sit down, Albert Contador. Your Tour de France dick move was impressive but it’s the slow season. Enjoy your dirty cycling win.

Here’s a real contender from South Africa. Watch Supersport double their lead over the Golden Arrows in hilarious and emasculating fashion.

I don’t know about you but if I’m that Arrows keeper, I’m going into that guy like Paul Scholes and Roy Keane on a normal day.