Wow, it feels like it's been a lot longer than a month since I posted over here. It's been a busy month, that's for sure! The reason for the pause is because I moved. I'm out in Durham, N.C. right now doing an internship with Baseball America and it's awesome! Check out my new blog (conorincarolina.blogspot.com) to read about the road trip out to NC and what I've been doing out there. But now that the dust has settled, I'll try to post here more often. I've been doing a great job keeping up with the new blog, but you know what they say..."Start new blogs, but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold." Something like that!

So, the Mariners are designating sections of the Safeco Field as "peanut free zones" for two upcoming games this summer so that children with peanut allergies can come watch the Mariners lose.

Link... http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_peanut_free_baseball.html

Hey Mariners — know what I'm allergic to? Jose Vidro!

Thank you, I'll be here all night.

I totally need one of these for my collection...

So I went to the AquaSox tonight and was excited that they were playing the Yakima Bears because I really wanted to see their center fielder, Colin Cowgill. If you'll recall, Cowgill was one of the ten hitters I liked in this year's draft. He's a small guy, listed at just 5-foot 9, but the bat's legit.

In the 8th inning tonight, facing reliever Doug Salinas, Cowgill looked at three balls in a row. When the fourth pitch came in, it was close and he began to sprint down to first, but the umpire called him back — strike one. Cowgill got his revenge, though. The next pitch was a belt-high fastball that Cowgill smoked over the right-center wall.

When I checked the box score when I got home, I did a double-take when I saw that it was his 11th home run of the season. ELEVEN freaking home runs in just 16 games. To put it in perspective, the next highest home run total in the Northwest League is three. He has more home runs than any other team in the league. Cowgill has almost 20 percent of the league's home runs — it's ridiculous.

I'm going to the game on Sunday and I hope to see Cowgill again. But if he's not there, I completely understand.

The Tampa Bay Rays have been such an awesome story this year. Their $44 million payroll this season is second-lowest in the majors and yet they have the best record in baseball.

The lowest payroll goes to the Florida Marlins at about $22 million — yes, half of what the other team in The Sunshine State is paying their club. The Fish are one game back in the tight NL East with a 42-39 record.

Your Seattle Mariners, on the other hand, have a payroll of almost $120 million, writing checks to the worst team in baseball.

It's now how much money you spend, it's how you spend it.

Here's my quick two cents on maple bats. I've been putting off the topic because I was just hoping that it would go away. Unfortunately, it's not. It seems I can't listen to MLB on XM for more than 10 minutes without hearing some sort of commentary on the maple bat controversy swirling around baseball.

The quick version: I don't care.

But, I'll get into a little more detail...

This might come across as cold blooded, but I honestly don't care that umpire Brian O'Nora had to leave the game yesterday with a mild concussion and a bloody forehead. My reasoning is that not all the blame can be attributed to the type of wood Miguel Olivo was holding. Just as much blame can be place on O'Nora, in my opinion, because he chose to wear an umpire mask that basically hasn’t changed in oh, I don’t know, about 100 years? O’Nora didn’t adapt and change with the times to wear the more-protective hockey-style mask many umpires are now wearing behind the plate. And that’s his choice – but it’s just that, a choice. He chose comfort or tradition over more protection.

Baseball can be dangerous. If umpires are all of a sudden afraid of dodging bat barrels, they can forego the $120,000 starting salary and let Mike Muchlinski have a job. Or they can choose to wear a helmet in the field. MLB had no problem with John Olerud doing it and this year the basecoaches are required to wear helmets. No biggie. But MLB shouldn’t step in over a few broken bats.

It’s not an MLB-related problem, but I think amateur players continuing to use metal bats is a much bigger issue for the game in general. Kids die from the ball coming off of those at such high speeds. Brian O’Nora got a couple days off of work and a Band-Aid.

Like everyone else, the news today came as a shock. Not that I'm complaining, I think it's the right move for the team, the timing was just a surprise for me.

Looking to the future, here's my wish list for Bavasi's replacement, in no particular order. Some of these are light on info, but that's because I just spent four hours in a painfully-long City Council meeting for work and I just wanted to get my list out there ASAP. I'll add more information later, possibly even doing a separate writeup on each of my 10 hopefuls...

• Chris Antonetti - Assistant GM for the Cleveland Indians Antonetti's the poster boy for the position over at USSMariner. I would love it if he came here but, while USSM makes a good case for why it'd be a sweet job, I'm not holding my breath.
• Paul DePodesta - Assistant GM for the San Diego Padres
DePo didn't get a fair shake in Los Angeles. But, he's worked under some of the best GMs in recent history in John Hart, Billy Beane and Kevin Towers. His MO is that his personality is better suited in an assistant's role, but I'd like to see the Mariners give him another chance.
• Ben Cherington - Director of Player Development for the Boston Red Sox
Cherington started his front-office career as an intern with the Cleveland Indians in 1998 and joined the Red Sox staff as a scout later that year. The Red Sox have a great thing going, apparently have very close relationships within the front office and Cherington grew up as a Red Sox fan, so he might be tough to lure away from Boston. Listen to an interview with Cherington here: http://www.nhpr.org/audio/audio/fp-2003-01-09.wax
• Jed Hoyer - Assistant GM for the Boston Red Sox
Another member of the Red Sox front office, I'd be calling anyone who has spent time working under Theo Epstein.
• Peter Woodfork - Assistant GM for the Arizona Diamondbacks
Noticing a theme here? Yeah, I want someone young and smart that has worked with successful teams that have a more analytical approach. Woodfork is the assistant GM in Arizona, where he followed Josh Byrnes from Boston.
• Thad Levine - Assistant GM for the Texas Rangers
Levine currently works under Jon Daniels and, before that, worked under Dan O'Dowd in Colorado. Good GM bloodlines, if you ask me.
• Logan White - Assistant GM for the Los Angeles Dodgers
Logan White differs from some of the names on this list because he comes from more of a scouting mold. But, he's masterful at what he does. Check out some of the talent the Dodgers have reeled in during White's tenure: Loney, Broxton, Martin, Billingsley, Kemp, LaRoche, DeWitt & Kershaw.
• David Forst - Assistant GM for the Oakland Athletics
Making the Mariners better while making the A's worse? Music to my ears. I have no idea how much Beane's rubbed off on Forst since he's been the assistant GM since 2000, but I'm sure he'd bring a much-needed change in philosophy this system so desperately needs.
• Bruce Manno - Assistant GM for the Atlanta Braves
I don't know a lot about Manno, but he's been in the game since before I was born. I'll do more research on the guy tomorrow. Right now, I'm wiped...
• Mike Rizzo - Assistant GM for the Washington Nationals
Like Logan White, Rizzo comes from the scouting side, but he's another one of the best in the business. Before heading out to DC, Rizzo was the scouting director for the Diamondbacks from 2000 to 2006. A lot of talent came during that period: Webb, Hairston, Tracy, Uggla, Snyder, Jackson, Quentin, Drew, Reynolds, Upton, Owings, Scherzer, Brett Anderson. Josh Byrnes has an awesome team, but the credit should go to Rizzo.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about the baseball slang term "golden sombrero" and how it came about. So, in honor of Willie Bloomquist accomplishing the feat tonight, here is a rundown of my thought process...

I was driving at the time, so I couldn't click over to Wikipedia and learn about the origin, but I didn't need to. I had come up with a perfect solution for how the term was derived. If you don't know, in baseball, when a player strikes out four times in a game, he gets the proverbial "golden sombrero." I thought about the term literally — what would a golden sombrero be like in real life, I thought. It would certainly be a nice gift for a guy that just whiffed four times in a game. Is he supposed to wear it? What would that be like? Ooh ... that's it! It would be so heavy, he would hang his head in shame, like he's supposed to after striking out four times in one game! BINGO!

When I did look up the term, I was not satisfied with the result.

"The golden sombrero comes from hockey's hat trick, three goals in a game. More grand than a hat would be a sombrero that is gold. It is awarded to any player who strikes out four times in a game."

I like my answer better.