Empty the Bench

- Fed up with the play of his White Sox, Ozzie Guillen apologizes to fans, says the team is a joke, and asserts that we thought he was a good manager when the team was winning. No, Ozzie, we actually never thought that.

- Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ian Snell wants to clear the air: he was done cooking, for chrissakes, and was simply cleaning out the edge of the burner. What’s the big deal?

- Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks on signing Juan Gonzalez to a two-year, $24 million deal back in 2002: “Juan Gonzalez, for $24 million, after he came off steroids probably… we just gave that money away.”

- Elijah Dukes, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays outfielder who impregnated a 17-year-old girl on his step-grandmother’s living room sofa, calls into a sports talk-radio station and confirms that his mother never smoked crack, but he knows how much it costs in “the hood.”

- You could say the Detroit Tigers’ collective bats are coming alive; as a team, they’re batting an outrageous .333 so far in the month of June.

- Pedro Martinez is still officially a Major League pitcher. No, really. He’s throwing bullpen sessions now, should be facing real batters in practice in a few weeks, and succumbing to another significant injury in about a month.

- This is probably nothing new to Washington Nationals fans (all seven of you), but one of these guys–we can’t pinpoint exactly who it is–has a nasty, filthy habit of chewing gum during live broadcasts. Loudly. Can someone in management please ask him to stop?

- Frank Thomas is trying. Oh, lord, how he is trying.

- 2006 National League Manager of the Year Joe Girardi is being mentioned as a strong candidate to fill the same position for the Baltimore Orioles. He may have been/still is stalling in hopes of taking over for Joe Torres in New York, but a managerial job is a managerial job.

- Johan Santana is back on track, throwing just 92 pitches (!!) last night against the Mets in a complete-game shutout win, 9-0. Oddly enough, however, he did it while only recording one strikeout. “I wasn’t even trying to strike anybody out. I didn’t even get to two strikes,” Santana said. “I’ll trade my strikeouts for all those kind of outs right there because it’s quicker.”