Q: Why does Jake Westbrook look like he's about to throw up?

A: I don't know, but it terrifies me to find out.

Will the prophecies be fulfilled? Or will your months of constant worrying be proven valid? Is this blog still running? All of these answers and more, on the next scintillating edition of T.A.M.S.Y.

Q: How do you calculate a team's magic number (or more specifically, how do you calculate the Cleveland Indians' magic number)?

Talkin' baseball: Why, don't mind if I do.

A: The magic number (the number of wins + opponent losses a team needs to clinch the playoffs) can be calculated via this guy's method — essentially:

M# = 163 - W_team-1 - L_team-2

Thus the Cleveland Indians' Magic Number over the Detroit Tigers, per today's standings, is (163 - 83 [CLE wins] - 66 [DET losses]), or 14.

Baseball Prospectus' magical robotic prediction machines put our odds at making the playoffs at 97.5% (on Aug. 15th, it was 49.5%, so the past few weeks have gone about as well as possible, unless you're a Tigers fan, in which case, sorry).

The way we're playing now, behind the pitching of Sabathia, Carmona and Westbrook, we should have a shot against anyone in October. Unfortunately, "anyone" will probably turn out to be both the Yankees and Red Sox, both of whom terrify me.

(Specifically what terrifies me is the prospect of the unbearable pain of losing to either one of those loathsome teams' loathsome fan bases. But then, beating both teams in one postseason would be eventually looked back upon as the greatest accomplishment of our entire mutual lives, so it's an exciting kind of terror).

Yes, it's a great time to be a Cleveland sports fan. Too bad we don't have a football team, or this fall would be really exciting!

Because four of you care, here are some Cleveland sports blogs worth subscribing to:

• Let's Go Tribe
  
• Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times
• Vinny & the Hornless Rhino
• Many Go; Few Understand
• Brian Windhorst's Cavaliers Blog
• Why Wahoo Weeps [pending me starting it]

And Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball is great no matter which team you follow.

Q: Which do T.A.M.S.Y. readers worry about more day-to-day?

A: The results of our first reader poll are in! Sorry for the delay; it took me some time to parse the data, as I was overwhelmed by the massive response from six of you, or five not counting me.


Clearly, you have your priorities straight, placing the Indians' pennant hopes above all other concerns combined, by a 2-1 margin.

Osama bin Laden also remains terrifying, and for good reason: We haven't heard anything new from him in years; he was last known to be suffering from health issues that include a weak kidney, diabetes, osteoporosis, an enlarged heart, low blood pressure, a probable chest wound and possibly cancer; and he's holed up in a cave and virtually unable to contact anyone. Clearly the only explanation is that he is alive and well, and a grave danger to our children.

No one chose "Hepatitis B" or "Hepatitis C," because apparently my readers are indifferent to their own sexual recklessness.

Q: Are baseball umpires racist?

You can be my ace pitcher it don't matter if you're black or white.

A: That's the question posed by Time in regards to a recent study led by an economist at UT-Austin, and the answer may surprise you:

The highest percentage of strikes were called when both the home-plate umpire and pitcher were white, and the lowest percentage were called between a white ump and a black pitcher. The study also found that minority umpires judged Asian pitchers more unfairly than they did white pitchers. It’s a significant disadvantage for Asian pitchers because the MLB doesn’t have any Asian umpires. Interestingly enough, Hamermesh’s research found that the race of the batter didn’t seem to matter...

Still, as J.C. "The Baseball Economist" Bradbury writes, the better question may be the less sensationalist one: Does race influence umpires?. And the answer is Yes, slightly, but probably not consciously. Money quote:

The good news is that the effect of the bias is very small, a little less than one pitch per game. And I don’t think there is much that can be done to alter this, as it is probably the result of something deeply rooted in the human psyche. I don’t believe that umpires set out to make calls along racial lines, it just happens.

As Bradbury notes, "the discrimination that exists shrinks in QuesTec ballparks, when the umpires are being monitored." That doesn't necessarily imply the umpires are making a conscious effort to be more color-blind — but it does strongly suggest they're more committed to making accurate calls.

Not to digress too far into baseball nerdery, but the umpires union should stop being such crybabies about QuesTec. Of course, in the post-Tim Donaghey era, they may not have a choice.

Q: Are you in Chicago, going to be in Chicago, or a fan of the Chicago Cubs?

A: Two completely unrelated notes on the Windy City:

• Playwright Tracy Letts (Killer Joe) recently premiered a new show, August: Osage County, at Steppenwolf, and Chainsaw Calligraphy's Marisa Wegryzn says Wow. Wegryzn applauds Letts for thinking grandly in an era of theatrical minimalism, and says a bunch of other things that make me excited to check the production out when I'm in Chicago later this month.¹ Check it out, Chicagoans.
  
  
• Chicago Cubs' GM Jim Hendry is easily one of the worst executives in baseball, but donating $6 million and two prospects to Billy Beane in exchange for a catcher with an OBP of .261 and a SLG of .281 is impressively moronic even for him. The Cubs are actually decent this year (they've got a one in three shot at the playoffs), but until they fire Hendry, they deserve nothing but excruciating misery. Sorry.
  
  UPDATE: Now that the deal's cash considerations have been revealed (the Cubs will only end up paying around $850K for Kendall, with the A's and Pirates covering the rest), I'd like to downgrade this deal from "impressively moronic" to merely "dumb and pointless."
  

¹ And if you live in Chicago and have connections at Steppenwolf and your name is Brant and you're reading this, MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Q: Are ESPN and MSNBC having an affair?

A: If you get your baseball coverage from ESPN, you may notice something strange near the top of the redesigned recap pages.

Presented by MSNBC.com? I've heard of hardball with Chris Matthews, but this is ridiculous.

Keep in mind, ESPN is owned by ABC (or they're both owned by Disney, whatever). MSNBC is the lovechild NBC had with Microsoft. Also, ESPN is "the worldwide leader in sports," whereas MSNBC can barely be trusted with the news.

This is like McDonalds saying their Playlands were "brought to you by the Olive Garden." Or like Ticketmaster saying their... oh wait, I forgot, Ticketmaster is an illegal monopoly. But why would ESPN look to MSNBC for help in presenting baseball coverage?

Well, they wouldn't, and they don't. The baseball recaps are handled, as always, by the Associated Press. The "presented by" peacock is just part of the kajillion dollars MSNBC is pouring into its new "Fuller Spectrum of News" campaign (see, "A Fuller Spectrum of News" is, like, a play on words, because the NBC logo has a lot of different colors, and because they were worried that if they came up with a tagline that was catchy or memorable, too many people would start watching MSNBC and it might go to Joe Scarborough's head or something).

So MSNBC isn't really "presenting" these recaps, so much as they're presenting ESPN with many, many dollars. I don't have a problem with it, per se — it just seems a little strange. When coverage is "presented by" a news organization, it usually implies they, like, did the actual covering themselves.

NONESSENTIAL POSTSCRIPT: From the aforelinked recap page, check out the video of Jason Michaels' sweet/terrifying catch to seal the game for the Tribe (it's about halfway through).

Q: Oh Keith Richards, what WON'T you snort?

A: Pretty much anything he hasn't already allocated for injecting.

Richards: I snorted my dad's ashes, and they went down well

In an astonishing admission that might surprise even his fellow band members, who have become used to his wild and eccentric behaviour, Keith Richards said he could not resist snorting the ashes while high on drugs.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," said the 63-year-old in an interview with NME. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a shit. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

That's just preposterous. I am shocked and offended. I mean, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that the other Rolling Stones could still manage to be surprised by a Keith Richards admission. Mick Jagger could walk in on him trying to snort the Queen, while she were still alive, and it wouldn't constitute a surprise. Come to think of it, the only thing that would have been surprising is if Richards were left alone with a powdery substance and didn't snort it.

Trust me, folks — I didn't spend 11 years at Cal Tech getting my PhD in Surprises to have some punk-ass reporter from England tell me what constitutes surprising.

---

On a more tender note (if you can get more tender than doing lines of your dead father); and speaking of dudes who know their way around an eightball: Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton: White lines fade away.

The onetime top-rated baseball prospect — and latertime coked-up burnout — is getting a second chance (and a first chance in the big leagues) with the Cincinnati Reds. His debut at the plate today made for an adorable story.

By the time Hamilton's name was announced as a pinch-hitter at Great American Ball Park, the crowd was on its feet for an extended ovation that made him back away from the plate and break into a broad smile.

In that moment, he hadn't done anything yet as a major leaguer. It's what he had already accomplished in his personal life -- getting his cocaine addiction under control, getting his life back on track -- that made the crowd of 42,720 stand and cheer.

"I've never witnessed anything like that," Hamilton said. "I've never been part of anything like that. The way I'm feeling is hard to describe."

Now, T.A.M.S.Y.'s not exactly bullish on Hamilton's chances of cutting it in the bigs — but a story like that's enough to make even our cold, cold hearts all toasty.

So let's ignore for a moment that this story takes place in Cincinnati, and that the crowds were probably just cheering that he's white.

EARLIER: Just joshin', Cincy baby, you know I love you. Sort of.

Q: Remember that would-be "dirty bomber," Jose Padilla?

A: If you're like most of our nation's capital, writes Andrew Sullivan, you've probably forgotten him.

Sullivan's essay in the Sunday Times will surely jog your memory -- and his account of what's happened to Jose Padilla in the four years since Bush dubbed him an "enemy combatant" will leave you with some disturbing new ones.

• Jose, Victim of a Sinister New America [Sunday Times] [via the Daily Dish]

"Pucho" Padilla: Not such a "dirty" bird after all?

Note that the media hysteria from 2002 about Padilla's ominous plans to detonate a dirty bomb was probably bullshit; the crimes for which he was finally charged don't even mention it. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors seek to block Padilla's attorneys from asking questions the Pentagon doesn't care to answer.

Of course, Americans only have time to be outraged about one Padilla, and they prefer to focus on the one who can throw a baseball. Not that paying Vincente Padilla $11.25 million per year isn't outrageous -- it totally is. Dude's not even that good.

Q: Does what goes around come around, and also vice versa?

A: You best believe it, bitches. And when I say "bitches," I mean "esteemed readers." Anywaysies: for evidence of the above eternal truth, look no further than tonight's karma-heavy headlines.

#1) The Toronto Star: Church to probe priest who fondled Foley.

Dayyyayumn, church! That is some serious eye-for-an-eye shit, Old Testament-stizzazz!

Now all we need is for several congressional pages to rape that church's congregation, and the circle of fuck will finally be complete. At which point we can go back to our normal lives, hunting down the killer of JonBenet Ramsey.

#2) MLB.com: Cameras notice spot on [Kenny] Rogers' hand.

Wow. The implications of this story are so intense, I can't even begin to make sense of them. In fact, I have literally no idea what any of that story means.

Do note, however, that the cameras were probably biased, as they have sought revenge on Kenny Rogers ever since he punched one of them in the face a year ago. Revenge is sweet, isn't it, cameras? Not sweet enough to mess with Rogers' bizarre mutation into Cy Young, but sweet nonetheless. Or whatever.

The moral of the story is, don't fuck with cameras or Florida churches, unless you want to get accused of cheating and anally violated. If you enjoy both, however, I recommend punching a cameraman at a Miami baptism.

Q: Are Mets fans silent, deadly?

A: No, they're loud, obnoxious and deadly. But it's QUIET funny that you mention that, because the Mets and Cardinals are in the middle of QUIET a battle.

ESPN.com told me so QUIET recently.

OH SNAP EMBARASSING TYPO!

[NOTE: My blog is slowly becoming the crazy old man who writes daily letters to his local paper listing punctuation errors. DEAL WITH IT.]

Also, Endy Chavez just made what will probably be --especially if the Mets win -- considered the greatest catch in postseason history (suck it, Willie Mays), to rob St. Louis' Scott Rolen of a two-run homer.

Of course, T.A.M.S.Y. hates all teams from New York, but it really was a snazzy little catch. Congratulations to Endy, baseball player and huge fan of The Answer May Surprise You.

ALSO: Sexy Teenage Susie recently linked me to this kickass New Yorker story about clumsy kajillionaire Steve Wynn and his enormous drunken elbow. Very entertaining.

Q: Do you hate the Yankees as much as John Green does?

A: If so, you should turn on ESPN2. Daniel Cabrera of the Baltimore Orioles is about to take a no-hitter into the bottom of the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium.

UPDATE: Stupid Robinson Cano.