As soon as I heard that the Pirates were interested in Sean Casey, I thought it seemed like a likely deal. Casey would have the chance to be nearly as loved near his home as he is here, plus Pittsburgh has some pitching to offer. Win-win.

But it took until Marc said it was true for the possibility to really hit me. I didn't expect it to feel so weird. I…I…I think I'll change the subject now. There will be plenty of time to second-guess the wisdom of Dave Williams later.

On the Post Away! thread over at On the DL, someone suggested Dan O'Brien as the possible identity of the mystery man described in this posted comment:

This NL Central general manager once ate 16 Boston creme doughnuts in one sitting. He was supposed to be on a diet, but he was sneaking out of the house late at night for his sugary fix. At first, his wife thought he might be cheating…that is until she found chocolate on the sleeve of his shirt. Either way, he was caught red handed.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that it is a physical impossibility for Dan O'Brien to get sugared up on Boston Cream. How would he ever keep his slender figure and perfect complexion?

It looks like the Cardinals have lost their bid for A.J. Burnett, refusing to guarantee a fifth year in their offer. Instead, he'll sign on with the Blue Jays for five years and $55 million, just shortly after the team signed B.J. Ryan to a five-year, $47-million contract.

In related news, the Blue Jays will be setting fire to piles of money outside their stadium later this week. Honestly, what has gotten into teams and their free-agent bids this season? Give people a little bit of ESPN money and all hell breaks loose.

Speaking of the Blue Jays, twice in the last couple weeks, someone has gotten to my site via a search for “Adam Dunn Blue Jays.” Finally! My inside source! When Dunn goes to the Blue Jays, just tell everyone you heard it here first.

And speaking of the Cardinals, the Reds not-so-recently signed one of their minor-league pitchers in Jimmy Journell, and rumors swirl about their interest in Wily Mo Peña and Austin Kearns. I'd love to hear from my Cardinal contingent about what we should expect from this Journell character, as well as what you'd like to see, outfield-wise. I'm not interested in no freakin' Marquis!

I got my own copy of Funnyball in the mail today, and was I ever excited to find the punctuation error in the introduction. Those of you who like to collect memorabilia with goof-ups had better hurry: I'll be correcting that one in the next 24 hours or so. I was so enthralled that I flipped through the book all the way to the funeral home tonight.

Oh, by the way, this post isn't going to be particularly baseball-related.

My uncle Jan was known as “Big Jan” because he'd passed on his proper name, January August May, to his son. It was a name I'd heard so often that it was no longer unusual or bizarre; it simply represented the jovial, round man with the thick Hoosier accent who punctuated my childhood memories.

Uncle Jan was an early adopter of technologies, so his house was always full of forward-thinking innovations, if not always fully functional ones. He was the first person I ever knew with a big screen television and a satellite dish. The satellite dish stretched up as tall as his tiny ranch house in rural Indiana and took as long as 10 minutes to change between feeds. Still, it meant that I could watch Smurfs twice in a row when I stayed for a visit in my early childhood.

Uncle Jan was an eclectic collector. His bedroom ceiling was filled with wind chimes. His cabinets were filled with fiber optics, holograms, and Van de Graaff machines. His driveway was filled with tiny cars like VW rabbits and AMC Pacers. His garage was filled with sheet metal, duct tape, and odds-and-ends that he picked up from people's houses where he installed heating and air conditioning systems. It was from these pieces that he assembled Pissbot, a robot that stood on his front lawn, repeating his own name to passers-by and displaying the strategically placed hose that earned him his name.

Uncle Jan was a lover of animals and plants. His little domicile was home to dogs, birds, guinea pigs, and whatever other creatures didn't have any other place to go. For a while, Uncle Jan would rove around his neighborhood at night planting apples in his neighbors' yards. During that phase, he liked to call himself “Janny Appleseed.”

Uncle Jan was a nontraditional thinker. He would carry around photos of forests or fields of wheat and, in all seriousness, point out to you where you could see the face of a fairy or the footsteps of a fleeing leprechaun. I so clearly remember when, after helping us evaluate the foundation of a house we were considering buying, he pulled out these photos and subjected the real estate agent to them. The fact that she didn't warily edge away won her my business loyalty.

Uncle Jan was a selfless philanthropist. He didn't just volunteer to carry his and his wife's families on his back, but people he just met on the street as well. His penchant for giving away labor and materials was what eventually drove his heating and air conditioning business under. Uncle Jan defined the phrase “generous to a fault.” And though just about every single thing he contributed to my young life turned bad in one way or another, it was impossible not to maintain an image of him as this generous oddball, an all-year Santa in a white tee of questionable cleanliness and yellow ruler suspenders.

As I sat tonight in the funeral home's chapel, I was struck by how odd the scene was. This was the man who took his family for massive kite-flying outings; would he have approved of his loved ones weeping to the tune of John Mayer?

But before we left, they played th B-52's, and all was as he would have had it.

The fastest way to get your link added to the side bar of Red Hot Mama is apparently to write about your RHM girl crush. It took less than eight hours.

If you didn't already make your way to redbirdbrain when she and Bellyscratcher did that whole which-home-run-is-better debate (or even if you did), you'll definitely want to make it over there now for this gem.

In a wine-induced giddiness, Ms. Birdbrain lists as many players from each major league team as she can, complete with snarkery (especially for the Astros). You'll notice that the Reds' paragraph is the single longest, for which I deserve some of the credit, and that it includes Javy, for which I deserve ALL of the credit.

My new tagline:
Red Hot Mama: Making Javy Valentín Better Known Than Sean Casey.

It's so nice to know I'm making a difference.

Anyway, redbirdbrain is now one of my three linked Card blogs. Visit her often, leave her some nice comments, and offer her a job so she can buy my book.