Baseball Prospectus says that last year, Bonds was worth about seven wins over a replacement-level player -- a borderline major leaguer, that is. The Hardball Times assigned him 21 win shares, meaning he was responsible for about seven team wins, total, not above anyone else. Either way, a pretty good contribution but not, thanks to limited playing time, a superstar one.
So let's see how the happy, harmonious Giants do without him. Will they warrior-spirit up and manufacture their way to 80 wins? That would be an eyebrow-raiser. They look from here like they'll struggle to get that magical 63rd win, the one that staves off the 100th loss.
We may never know how some other team will have its on-field fortunes affected by the injection of Bonds' bad juju into its clubhouse, but if that happens we'll keep a close eye on that too.
The petri dishes are ready. This column eagerly awaits the results and frankly hopes they turn out in chemistry's favor. I'd love to be able to use that right here in the Salon offices, where quite frankly I've grown tired of tiptoeing around Cary Tennis' suite of four cubicles.
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One thing ESPN does beautifully: TV ads [PERMALINK]ESPN takes a lot of guff from this and other corners, but one thing the four-letter has consistently done well over the years is TV advertising. The "This Is SportsCenter" campaign is reaching "Simpsons"-like levels for quality and longevity. The latest, featuring Teddy the Roller-Skating Cockatoo, takes a swing at user-generated content.
But it's rare that even that line of ads makes me laugh out loud, which the network's spot for its fantasy baseball product made me do the first time I saw it. The spot is a pitch-perfect parody of soap operas, complete with a hospital patient struggling to spit out "Don't trade Prince Fielder!" before flatlining.
It turns out there's a local angle, to the extent there can be such a thing as local in cyberspace. Mark St. Amant, who wrote about fantasy bass fishing for Salon last week, is the creative director-copywriter for the account, meaning he co-wrote the ads. St. Amant works for the Arnold Worldwide ad agency in Boston.
The ads have such a realistic soap look because they were shot on the sets of "One Life to Live" and feature actors from that show and "General Hospital"; they were directed by Frank Valentini, a top ABC soap executive producer and director. ESPN fantasy experts and ballplayers also appear, plus Jorge Posada's wife, Laura, who slaps the guy on the dance floor in the one spot that's aired so far.
St. Amant reports that "Torii Hunter was a great actor and really dug into his role, studying the script on his plane ride in and bringing a ton to the part." That's Hunter in the first ad, playing a police interrogator yelling, "You calling me stupid?" Chase Utley, Hanley Ramirez and Posada also appear.
The first ad actually consists of highlights of longer-format "webisodes" that appear on ESPN's Web site. Funny stuff, but -- no way to come this far without criticizing the worldwide leader -- ESPN.com needs a better video player.
Previous column: A-Rod and the home run record
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his Facebook page.
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