SF Giants Bring Mike Stanton from Nationals to shore up bullpen

This should help take the pressure off Benitez and quiet fans and KNBR's Ralph Barberi in the process. Good move.

PITTSBURGH -- The San Francisco Giants boosted their bullpen for the stretch run, acquiring veteran left-handed reliever Mike Stanton on Friday from the Washington Nationals for a minor league pitcher.

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2006 SEASON STATISTICS
GM W L BB K ERA
56 3 5 21 30 4.47

The Nationals will receive 19-year-old right-hander Shairon Martis, who was pitching at Class A Augusta. Martis threw a no-hitter for the Netherlands against Panama during the World Baseball Classic in March.

Stanton was 3-5 with a 4.47 ERA for the Nationals. He could be valuable in the Giants' push for the playoffs, having pitched in the postseason in 12 of his 18 major league seasons, including six playoff appearances with the Yankees (1997-2002).

Entering Friday, the Giants were third in the NL West, three games behind division-leading San Diego and a half-game behind Arizona.

The trade was announced while Stanton was in Los Angeles with the Nationals to play the Dodgers. He'll join the Giants in Pittsburgh on Saturday, but the team still has to make another move to clear space for him on the roster.

Stanton has appeared in 56 games this year, second-most in the National League. He has 1,083 career regular season appearances, third-most in the majors.

The trade was the second addition in a week to the San Francisco bullpen. Right-hander Vinnie Chulk joined the Giants on July 21 as part of the deal that also brought first baseman Shea Hillenbrand from Toronto in exchange for reliever Jeremy Accardo.

Harold Reynolds - Petition Drive To Get Job Back Picking Up Steam

There's a new website called "Freeharoldreynolds.com" which features an online petition to convince ESPN to give the fired baaseball analyst his job back.

I hope it gets tons of signatures. As of this writing it has 126.

It seems that the mainstream media was too quick to bury Reynolds without knowing the whole story. There's also a much needed social discussion about the events leading up to his dismisal; a discussion being buried in the press.

It's said that there are "different rules" for black men, and this is accepted in some corners by African American men. But the very existence of "different rules" -- where Reynolds probably should not have had lunch with, let alone hug a white intern, whereas it's OK for a white man to do this (and yes, I'm guessing she was, but knowing ESPN and the sports industry in the USA it's doubtful she was anything else) -- implies that subtle racism is alive and well.

I don't care what anyone says, until proven otherwise, I'm resting with the point of view I originally expressed. I'm extremely confident I'm correct, especiallly given sport's tendency to go and search for young white female interns -- and generally they're blond. The sports execs in these organizations go after them like sharks chasing chum in the water.

I've seen this first hand. I took a good friend of mine who's white, female, and blond and who has no problem hugging me to a Christmas party hosted by a sports network I will not name, and before we could leave she'd already scheduled a time to be interviewed for -- you guessed it -- an internship.

Yep.

Once the alcohol flowed and the food was consumed some of the white males in charge were asking all kinds of questions, and one guy who just didn't know any better started into a conversation with me about African Americans and some attittude he had I didn't recall for posterity. I was there to achieve an objective, so I didn't care. Aside from my putting in face-time, she wanted a sports internship, so I took her to the party knowing exactly what was going to happen, and I was right.

It was all too easy.

As of this writing, she's had internships with two major sport teams.

The ball's in the court of others to prove me wrong.

Our social reconstruction's far from over, let the process continue.