Mose Schrute and the rest of the gang at Fire Joe Morgan are calling it quits.

After 21 years, and almost 40 million posts (we'll have to check those numbers, but it's something like that), we have decided to bring FJM to an end.

Although we have not lost our borderline-sociopathic joy for meticulously criticizing bad sports journalism, the realities of our professional and personal lives make FJM a time/work luxury we can no longer afford.

I have to say that FJM was instrumental in my getting interested in sabermetrics, and it was amazing how funny a few people could be while writing essentially the same post every single time some sportswriter wrote something asinine.

Awesome work, guys.

(There's some chatter about this in the previous Zoinks! thread, but I figure it deserves its own thread in which we can cry.)

Jack Zduriencik has fired Bob Fontaine, according to Larry Stone.

One source said that Fontaine was called into a meeting with Zduriencik on Monday and informed that he was being dismissed. According to the source, "He didn't even have a chance to fight for his job."

Now we just need him to fire Bob Engle, find a high-level job for Lee Pelekoudas, and we'll be back in business!

Sigh.

I don't know a ton about the inner workings of the Mariners organization, but I know that if there were a list of people the team needed to get rid of, Fontaine would be damn near the last name on it.

Good luck in the future, Bob. You should be able to find a job no problem. Milwaukee could probably use some help.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the game and are planning to watch it later, I imagine this will have some spoilers in it.

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Mr. Steven Strasburg will take the mound in a few minutes to take on the Cubans. I can't seem to find it on TV, but NBC is streaming it -- with no commentary.

I've never seen the kid pitch, so I'm pumped as hell and ready to indulge in the Strasburg hype, which I have thus far avoided. Work be damned. Plus my girl just bought me some Pike Kilt Lifter online for my birthday (can't find it down here in Strasburgland), so I'm ready for some baseball.

Go Steven! Go USA! LOSE MARINERS!

I thought that I wouldn't give a shit about the Olympics this year, but after the amazing Opening Ceremonies and the equally amazing 4x100 swimming relay tonight, I figured a thread for the Olympics was in order.

I'm not really a "RAH, RAH, USA!" type of dude -- and I think the last time I cared about the Olympics was 1996 -- but I have to say that the first three days have been very fun. With the French swim team vowing to "smash" the U.S. squad, it was a blast to see the United States, as a rare underdog, pull off an upset in the 4x100 relay.

And I can't say it enough: If you missed the Opening Ceremonies, open up Azureus or whatever you use and go find it. It was truly incredible. And if you can find it in HD, even better. It was a spectacle.

WOO SPORTS!

P.S.: As much I'd love to talk politics, this is LL, so I'm declaring this thread a ZOMG NO POLITICS! zone. The mods obviously have the right to override that, but I'm playing it safe.

In his column today , Seattle Times columnist Jerry Brewer repeats a lot of the stuff we've been saying for years about Bavasi. And while he doesn't brag about it, he could have mentioned that he was virtually the only mainstream Seattle baseball writer to oppose the Bedard deal before it happened.

I like Brewer, and this piece further cements his awesomeness in my mind. I especially like that he's pushing for the M's to hire young, hire smart. "A Theo Epstein type," he urges.

He does make a few statements that make me facepalm, such as saying that Beltre "merely provides a slick glove"  and that Bedard "only wants to throw 100 pitches, then he feels his job is done." That last one might be accurate to a certain degree, but I still think it's a bit cheap. It's not Bedard's fault he's made of glass, and I think he's made it obvious that he wants to win. Just because the guy's not a great interview doesn't mean he's a "9 to 5er," as Brewer calls him.

But other than those qualms, it's a good column from a guy who has, in my opinion, come out of nowhere in the past year or so and has proved to be one of the most logical, reasonable sportswriters in the Puget Sound. For all the love we have given Geoff Baker for being a change of pace, for bucking the trend of local writers toeing the M's partly line, I think Brewer deserves a nod as well.

Finally, my favorite quote is from Mr. Bavasi, who reminds us one last time that while he not a good fit in the GM chair, he's a fucking stellar quote:

I asked Bavasi on Monday about Bedard's pitch-count threshold. After bouncing between defending and explaining Bedard, the axed GM — clearly exasperated — said I needed to ask the pitcher.

"You gotta ask him," Bavasi said. "You gotta ask him. Good luck. And he's gonna have some stupid answer, some dumbass answer."

Anyone watch the documentary on ESPN2? I recorded it on Tuesday but just watched it tonight, and I thought it was pretty good. I know next to nothing about Japanese baseball, so, for me, I found the attitudes of the players and the behavior of the fans to be the most interesting part of the film -- the pep rallies, the chanting, the banners, etc.

It was made by three NYU film students and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It seemed less corny than most ESPN productions, though it did have the obligatory "montage with kinda sad music" moments, but they weren't overdone.

It also focuses on Valentine's -- along with the whole Chiba Lotte Marines organization's -- efforts to create a farm system in Japan to try to strengthen the league and eventually help prevent the best players from leaving for the United States.

All in all, worth a viewing, I'd say.

If you're interested, here's the New York Times' take on the film .

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Also, Friday is Bike to Work Day. If you have a bike and live fairly close to your place of employment, jump on that shit! I try to ride three days a week, but with laziness and hangovers, it usually ends up being one or two. But yay Friday!

Nate Silver just posted the 2008 projected standings, and it's not pretty. (Subscription required, I believe.) The M's are projected to finish in last place, going 73-89. The culprit is no surprise: The M's are projected to score the fewest runs in baseball, except for -- of course -- the Giants. And the team as a whole is seen slugging under .400 -- again, better than only the Giants.

Here's a link to the Unfiltered post.

Also: I shall fill out my post by pointing out that this is my first diary, and I'm very, very proud of it. Basically, it's the first time I've gotten HTML links to work.