Knowing Our Roll

The Baseball Blogosphere is filled with good stuff today... here's a look at some of the stories from our esteemed Blog Rollers.

Starting off with an absolute must read for junkies... Michael Claire wrote a piece titled A Brief History of Robotic Umpires.  Claire, founder of Old Time Family Baseball, takes you through the historical progression of robotic/electronic strike callers.  It's a very entertaining piece with some great pictures.

The Nats Blog (as well as Old Time Family Baseball) discuss the Pine Tar incident that went down in the bottom of the 8th inning of last night's Rays/Nationals game.  In case you missed it, here's a recap of what took place - Davey Johnson asked home plate umpire, Tim Tschida, to check the glove of Joel Peralta.  Following a brief investigation, Peralta was thrown out of the game, his tail between his legs and his glove confiscated.  Peralta being thrown out is hardly a huge deal but the story took a turn towards Telemundo Soap Opera Drama during Joe Maddon's post-game press conference.  You see, Johnson didn't pull the "foreign substance" card out of nowhere - Johnson knew that Peralta's glove would be lathered with the substance because Peralta had played with the Nationals in 2010 and people in the Nationals dugout intimately knew his tactics.  So Maddon called the Johnson snitch a "p**sy move."  I wouldn't want to be a Ray standing in the box when Stephen Strasburg toes the rubber tonight.

The Hall of Very Good continues their HOVG Heroes segment with a snippet on Boog Powell by Dean Hybl of Sports Then and Now.

Mariners Blog at the Seattle Times (Geoff Baker) chatted with Ichiro Suzuki after reaching the 2,500 hit milestone.  Ichiro is an introvert so any interview that he gives is worth reading but this one is especially interesting as he reflects on the milestone and some of the things that have motivated him over the course of his Hall of Fame-worthy career.