'Rona-Free Hot Links, Vol. 9

*Alex Bregman is almost to his $1m goal for the Houston Food Bank.

*Brian McTaggart says Dustin Garneau could be a future manager. It took me a minute to figure out what a Dustingarneau was.

*Justin Verlander and Kate Upton are donating 25,000 N95 masks to Detroit first responders.

*Never, ever try to embarrass Frank Robinson.



*SI: What it's like to play in an MLB The Show tournament as yourself.

Former #Astros CF Michael Bourn still lives in his hometown.He owns 3 apartment complexes in Houston w/ about 60 tenants & is concerned w/ how they’re doing during this pandemic. So he’s helping them in a big way. Michael waived their rent in April & expects to do it again in May pic.twitter.com/38Y6Kb701m

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) April 17, 2020

*For many Latino players, Roberto Clemente's #21 is off-limits, too.



*Mental Floss: The town that got away with murder.

*GQ: The gambling nuns of Torrance, California

*Read the June 2019 Texas Monthly profile of Joe Exotic.

*Fiona Apple's new album got a 10 from Pitchfork, a rating which is usually reserved by them for the bass player from Radiohead playing scales over the sounds of whales humping.



*Old School Deadspin: Conquering the Carolina Reaper requires self-deceit, milk, and a lot of barf.



*If you want to read a whole lot about what happened to Leeds United (written by me), then click here.

*This is your brain on silence.





Each day gets better than the next.

Saturday Morning Hot Links

Good morning. I was outside in 32 degrees and sleet for four hours last night and I'll likely be dead by the time you read this. Pitchers and Catchers report in four days. We're now less than three weeks away from the first Grapefruit League game.

*First off: Happy Birthday to [Borat Voice] My Wife, the best Wife and Mom I ever could have asked for. Wish her a Happy Birthday, or I will prevent you from reading the Hot Links.

*Here's McTaggart's Spring Training preview. Luhnow:
Typically, teams that have been winning for four years like we have deplete their farm system to keep winning. We haven't done that, and we're not going to do that. We want to win for a long time. We want to win again soon, and I'm confident we have the talent to do it.

*Will Leitch tries to answer the AL West's most pressing questions, like, "Who is the Astros' 5th starter?" Also, check the 12-game division win prediction.

*Czech out Chandler Rome's piece on 2017 11th Round pick Brandon Bielak and his impending appearance in Big League Camp next week. Bielak threw 117IP between Buies Creek and Corpus with 131K:39BB and a 2.54 ERA / 1.15 WHIP. He has 173 strikeouts to 42 walks in 150.2IP over two professional seasons.

*Get your tickets for the Astros' Futures Weekend at Dell Diamond in beeyootiful Round Rock. 2:05pm on Sunday, March 31 where you can attend for anywhere from $7-$35.

*Peep AstrosFuture's post for the Crawfish Boxes on where the Astros' 2006 Top Prospects are now.

*No chance I return Frank's stare for this long. I would simply hang my head and apologize.

Never forget the Frank Robinson stare down, on this day, of remembering this great legend pic.twitter.com/SekADDAV38

— Baseball Bros (@BaseballBros) February 7, 2019

Don't miss Jack Dickey's piece on Frank Robinson in Sports Illustrated. Also: former Oriole Rick Vaughn on Robinson's softer side.

*Cleveland shortstop Francisco Lindor will miss basically all of Spring Training with a calf strain.

*The Spying investigation into my Beloved Leeds United will continue...

Later this morning 2nd-place Leeds will take on 5th-place Middlesbrough.

*Read the latest on the tragedy at Flamengo in Brazil.

*I once read that, if you want to be a great writer, you should write what you like to read. This is how I have 500 pages of notes for a potential book about Andrew Jackson's 1833 tour of the Northeast which, at some point, I will get around to writing. I like reading Very Weird Non-Fiction. So this is one of the weirdest non-fiction books I've ever read, and I highly recommend it.

*The Atlantic: How "Creed" forever changed the Rocky series.

*A Musical Selection:

Friday Morning Hot Links

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to one of the finest men to ever play the game of baseball not only as a player, but more importantly as a person. Rest in peace, Frank Robinson.

The boss man wrote an actual, non-Hot Link article here yesterday about Jose Altuve and how he stacks up with baseball's hitters. You can find that here.

It's Tags Time over at Astros dot com as the new mailbag is out and available to read.

The 2019 promotions have no rings, but we got Hugs for Homers and Reggie Fils-Aime Bobbleheads for 2019

Seriously, what's going on here? (shoutout to @1STROS on Twitter for pointing this out to me, and shoutout to me for google searching Reggie Fils-Aime and saving a picture of him onto my laptop computer and placing them side by side next to each other.)

ANYWAYS, more promotions for the 2019 season can be found here.

The PECOTA projections for 2019 have been uploaded yesterday, and the Astros are projected to finish with the best record in the regular season with 99 wins.

Chandler Rome writes a long article about Corbin Martin and Forrest Whitley throwing a ball 110 mph. I know it doesn't sound interesting, but it is. He's good at his job.

You can now watch Astros games without cable.

Luhnow says the Astros still might have another addition left in them before Spring Training.

Taking guesses on how the Astros outfield will look on opening day.

A quality opinion piece on arguing for new Astros uniforms to be spacesuits.

Former Astro and current traitor Hunter Pence signed with the Rangers yesterday.

Folks, another hi-res image of the world's most fascinating creature has hit the Internet.

Crows can think up to three steps ahead to secure food out in the wild and is very likely they could beat me in chess, checkers, stratego, othello, catan, ticket to ride, connect four, and maybe even scrabble but that one is just because I'm pretty bad at scrabble and I wouldn't put it past the bird to at least make it close.

Something I already know you guys aren't going to like but is exciting news for me, the 20 year old kid who watches professional League of Legends for 10 hours every weekend while I wait for baseball to come back, Germany is recognizing eSports as an official sport in Germany today.

Wednesday Morning Hot Links

Good morning to everyone and especially Tony Wolters. I am running on an exceptionally low amount of sleep thanks to that wild card game, which I should not care have cared that much about but boy, postseason baseball is just so fantastic. We got more tonight, with A's and Yankees at 8ET/7CST

We have times for the first two playoff games! I hope you work nights!

Don't have cable? There are still ways to watch the Astros.

There's a pep rally at City Hall at noon today, so I guess we're still using the term "pep rallies" in 2018.

Minute Maid Park was very full this season.

Alex Bregman has the best player value of anyone on the Astros, and has the lowest Cost per WAR in the playoffs (which, let me tell you, is good).

Speaking of Cost per WAR, the Astros are sitting in a pretty good spot on that front as well, sitting at 4th out of 8 of all the playoff teams. Not bad considering we are the reigning champions.

Alex Bregman, Justin Verlander, Max Stassi, and Charlie Morton were given some awards.

LOOK AT THESE TINY ASTROS! THEY USED TO BE SO CUTE AND GEORGE SPRINGER STILL IS 😍

Casey Stern on MLB Network Radio and TBS says whoever wins the Astros-Indians might mess around and win the whole thing.

Chloe, the girl who was yelled at in the now-viral video at Minute Maid Park, got to meet her favorite players.

Another child is going viral at Minute Maid Park but this time for all the right reasons as she belted out her rendition of the national anthem.

We have playoff picks and now I have more playoff picks.

Overall attendance across MLB fell 4% from last year, its lowest overall attendance since 2003.

I found funny stats!

New York is fixing a typo in the name of a bridge after 50 years of it not being spelled right.

UCF is selling 2 lbs of dirt from Mars for $20, except that it isn't actually REAL Mars dirt. It just looks like it. Make sure to..get you.....some...

On This Day in Baseball History

In 1951, the Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!

In 1974, Frank Robinson becomes the first black MLB manager in history as he signs with the Cleveland Indians.

In 1999, the last regular season baseball game was played at the Astrodome.

In 2012, Teddy Roosevelt FINALLY won The President's Race!

In 2015, Max Scherzer threw his second no-hitter of the season as the Nationals beat the Mets 2-0.