Andy Phillips’ Autograph is Not Worthless; it’s Worth Much Less than Worthless

Poor Andy Phillips. After homering on the first major league pitch he ever saw, he went on to hit only 13 more, due partly to injury and personal misfortune. By all accounts, Phillips is a nice guy and has never been in serious trouble with the law or anything like that. Thus, unfortunately, it is solely his lack of success on the field that has pushed the value of his autograph to below $0. That’s right, his autograph is worth $-7.00:

Price for Andy Phillips Autographed Official Major League Baseball: $9.99 (if you don't want to give them your e-mail address, screenshot is here)

Price for regular Official Major League Baseball: $16.99

Need some pregame fungo balls? Might as well buy out the Andy Phillips balls from Steiner. They’ll PAY you to take them over an unsigned ball. Granted, if I signed a baseball, I’d drive down the value too, since it would then be “blemished.” But I never played in the majors – are there no Andy Phillips fans anywhere?

Ode to Ozzie

Not Ozzie Smith. Ozzie Guillen. I have now officially run the full gamut from being disgusted by him, to grudgingly accepting him, to desperately wishing he would somehow come manage the Orioles. Not only does he win, but I am so tired of mealy-mouthed coaches who are "noncommittal" about everything or march out the same old tired tropes like "Just taking things one game at a time" when asked about an impending firing. Please. Do it Ozzie-style:

"You think Jerry come to me and say, 'We might fire you?' What do you think I’m gonna say, no? Hey man you got a lot of reasons to do it. How many games have we lost?”

Awesome.

Some other highlights:

On quitting: "I'm not a quitter. When I want to quit, I'll do a lot of stupid things and make sure they fire me and get paid."

On why Wrigley sold out for the Sox-Cubs interleague tilt but the Cell did not: "Because our fans are not stupid like Cubs fans. They know we're shit."

On Dustin Pedroia: "That kid should be in the circus and I have to walk him to face someone else. He should be riding some horses and I have to walk that kid. It’s very weird when you walk a guy who is 4-foot-11."

On what motivates coaches: "Our satisfaction is to win games. That’s the only thing we really care about. You look at our salary [it] sucks. The only reward we have as coaches is winning."