So remember last year, when Barry Bonds dressed up as Paula Abdul and pretended not to be a dickface for an entire morning? Well, that was part of some spring training grabassery called "Giants Idol," and those wacky San Franciscans did it again this year. And I guess the person who gets to play Paula is the most overpaid person on the team, because Barry Zito played the role of Paula this year. And not very well, either:

[Zito] was a poor imitation of Bonds doing an imitation of Paula Abdul. The outfit was not nearly as impressive, he spoke in his own voice and didn't make much of an attempt to imitate Abdul's mannerisms. Last year Bonds had Paula's fake smile, was flirting with the contestants, flipping his hair, giving mostly rave reviews and even spoke in a falsetto voice to complete the impression. Zito did none of that.

Fucking piece of shit Barry Zito can't even do a decent Paula Abdul impression. You think for $126 million he might at least pretend to care about his work.

The Barry-Paula scandal, however, pales in comparison to the atrocity of the picture below, taken by Giants Jottings (via The Big Picture). Those people are Oscar Montero and Osiris Matos, alleged professional baseball players and now, lifelong nightmare fuel. My God.

Hilary Duff and Barry Zito were photographed leaving some chic, Hollywood nightspot recently.  While this will certainly be fodder for the celebrity rumor mongers and gossip rags, this coupling could not have come too soon for your assistant editor.  Why?  Quite simply they are both musical geniuses. 

From what I remember of an episode of This Week in Baseball, Zito plays guitar before every start to help him relax.  When asked if his talent helped with the ladies, he professed it was only a calming technique.  The dude had chops, and he is lefty.  He could be the next Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain.  Or at least the next Bernie Williams.  Oh well, he will be receiving $126 million to waste his talent on the mounds of the National League this year.

Zito is good, but Hilary Duff will undoubtedly be remembered as the 21st century's W.A. Mozart.  From her first compositions on Lizzie McGuire to "Girl Can Rock" on her album Most Wanted, she has bucked convention, explored new avenues of musical expression, and shown that today's pop music industry can be more than a pretty face, a waif's body, and sub-par musicianship.

Surely this is the greatest pairing of guitar virtuosos since Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton sharpened their axes for The Yardbirds.   I can only hope that some sort of  "Sonny and Cher" type variety show is in the works. -KD

Alternative headline for this post: THE GIANTS ARE FINANCIAL GENIUSES. Even though any baseball fan/analyst can tell you that any kind of contract for a pitcher longer than four years is generally foolhardy, the Giants know what the fuck they're doing: they signed possibly-on-the-downslope curveballer Barry Zito for seven years and $126 million. It's the largest deal ever for a pitcher, and the math works out to about $18M a year, with incentives if he continues to play the guitar and nail B-list tramps like Alyssa Milano.*

I don't really have much to say about this deal. I mean, I guess it could work out for San Francisco. On the other hand, the Giants are paying Barry Bonds something like $14 million this year, so I'm not going to give them too much credit.

The important thing to focus on here is that Zito once dated Alyssa Milano. Or maybe he was just photographed with her, I don't know. Whatever. Who didn't want her to become exactly what she became after watching her in Who's the Boss? I think you know I'm talkin' about Embrace of the Vampire (link NSFW). Those were the golden days, my friends.

*I probably made that up.