Last Tuesday, Cliff and I met in Manhattan for dinner. We walked a few miles north, up Manhattan’s west side, and caught up on our lives. When we got to the 72nd street subway station we saw Hillary Clinton supporters and Cliff spotted Rob Reiner, boosting for Mrs. Clinton. Cliff and I enjoyed dinner and then I came home and came down with the worst stomach virus I’ve ever had. I still haven’t fully recovered but it knocked the hell out of me something fierce for a few days there, which is why I haven’t posted anything of late.

Catching up, however, here are some links for you:

Over at Tiger Tales, Lee Panas conducted an interesting study on baserunning. Using the Retrosheet play-by-play databases, he determined the success rates for base runners in taking extra bases on hits and advancing on ground outs, air outs, stolen bases and other plays. Then, Panas combined everything into a single base running performance measure called Bases Gained Above Average(BGAA). According to his findings, Johnny Damon was the third best base runner in the American League in 2007.

Sam Borden, previously with the Daily News, is now a columnist for the Lo-Hud. Here is Jack Curry profiles Joe Girardi.

In the News, Don Mattingly tells Bill Madden that it is just as well he wasn’t hired as the Yankee manager, given the recent turn of events in his private life.

Yanksfan vs. Soxfan tackles the PECOTA predictions for the 2008 Bronx Bombers.

Also, I know this story is dated, but did you guys see this about Mike Lupica v. Lisa Olson? Yikes.