Holy mackerelcowshit.  Place all Philadelphia emergency workers on call IMMEDIATELY.  From today's Philly Inquirer:

Quarterback Donovan McNabb will be at Citizens Bank Park tonight because he wants to meet Cincinnati Reds star Ken Griffey Jr.

Drop Griffey from your fantasy team immediately.  If you're an Eagles fan, trade in your #5 jersey.  Something bad's gonna happen.  A piece of stadium overhang will fall on them as soon as they shake hands. Or McNabb will break his ankle on home plate, causing him to reach out and pull Griffey's arm off.  The cacophonous snap of tendons will sound like Independence Day fireworks as far away as New York.  Leave the kids at home, Philly fans.  It's gonna look like a Tarantino flick down there.

Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr owed teammate Josh Fogg $1500 — I'm guessing Fogg sold him a tendon — so Junior paid him back in pennies.  Whew, $1500!  That's almost .004 once you convert it to Barkleys.  (Note: .004 is also the Mariners' team batting average.)

There were 60 boxes of pennies, $25 worth to a box, stacked in his locker — top to bottom like cereal boxes in Kroger’s…

“I’m a man of my word,” said Griffey. “And when you owe a man $1,500, you pay him… Just think, each box weighs 16 pounds, so the man has 60 bowling balls in his locker.”

Fogg was mystified and mesmerized and finally said, “I’m going to take them out to the bullpen and count them. I have a lot of time on my hands out there."

You know what else is fun?  Paying a hooker in pennies.  If she complains, you just tip her with an extra roll of pennies.  To the back of her head.

[Deadspin] 

Aaron Harang and the Reds shut out the Dodgers 1-0 last night, sending Los Angeles to its sixth straight loss.  The Dodgers have now been shut out three consecutive games and haven't scored in 28 innings.  How are the Dodgers going to produce runs?  Well, the '86 Mets and strippers tell me cocaine helps you score, so maybe they should look into it.  Is there any cocaine in LA?

Harang gave up just four hits in eight innings of work to improve to 11-3 on a team that can't score runs and is habitually 15 games under .500 — pretty impressive.  Ken Griffey Jr (of course) drove in the Reds' only run, and even robbed the Dodgers of a couple hits with some impressive plays in the outfield.  The Reds are now 49-64.  That's good enough for, what?  Second place in the NL Central?

Other MLB scores: Kip Wells, inspired by LaFawnduh, outduels Maddux as Cards win 2-1… Red Sox beat Angels 9-6 to avoid sweep.  Dustin Pedroia and Mike Lowell led the offense, while the bullpen kept the Angels in check after Jon Lester was chased early… Juan Uribe's two-run homer ends 13-inning marathon; White Sox win 6-4 over Tribe… Wang-Halladay: Roy K's 8 in 7 innings as Jays cool off Yanks.

Ken Griffey Jr hit his 587th home run last night to surpass Frank Robinson and take sole possession of sixth on the career home run list as the Reds beat the Braves 10-3 at Turner Field.  It was the 24th of the season for Griffey, who mysteriously refuses to injure his legs in what's becoming his best season as a Red.

Not to be outdone by some future Hall of Famer, Reds rookie starter Bobby Livingston, who got the call-up from Triple-A before the game, went 4-for-4 with an RBI in only five innings of work.  How do you pull a guy who's 4-for-4?  It's the National League, man.  Do a double-switch and let him play left field or something.  It's not like the Reds have anything to lose.  The status quo got them a 38-55 record; I don't see why they can't flirt with the unorthodox.  Keep the hot-hitting pitcher in the game.  Let midgets pinch-hit.  Put some cheerleaders on top of the dugout.  Especially put cheerleaders on the dugout.  That one goes for all teams, actually.

Other MLB scores: Corey Hart and Ryan Braun homer to power the Brewers past Arizona.  Hart and Braun: '70s music group or paper-towel companies?… Old fat guy David Wells now throwing knuckleballs; Pads beat Mets 5-1… A-Rod hits homer number 32 (496 career) as the Yankees beat the Jays… Mariners win; Ichiro provides the quotes… Man-Ram and David Ortiz homer as rookie Kason Gabbard pitches three-hit shutout for Sox.  Also: Kason is a dumb name.

The AL and NL rosters for the MLB All-Star game have been finalized, and people somewhere are upset that Player X was left off the roster for Player Y (and by "Player Y" I mean "Brian Fuentes"), and those people have the irrefutable stats to prove it.

The game's in San Francisco this year, and the big story is that Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr will start in the same National League outfield for the first time since (I think) 1999.  Two second-generation stars representing Good and Evil, playing on the same team in a half-hearted and pointless effort that will guarantee home field advantage in the World Series for neither player's team.  The story practically writes itself.

So go ahead and be upset that Dmitri Young is the 4th first baseman on an NL roster that has only two shortstops, but understand that (a) the fans voted for everybody they wanted to see, and (b) it's not like the voting was for something important, like the presidency or American Idol.  Man, it seems like just yesterday that America was divided along racial lines between Ruben and Clay.  Some wounds never heal.

The Yankees continued their annual warm-up for season-long domination in preparation for their inevitable postseason collapse yesterday by beating the Reds 8-7. Most newsworthy part of the game? The bee attack.

The game was briefly delayed in the bottom of the fifth inning when a swarm of bees crossed the infield, sending Yankees fielders scurrying for foul territory to avoid getting stung.

“I’ve never seen that before,” third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. “I was actually pretty scared.”

The good news, though, is that nobody was stung. Except Ken Griffey, Jr., who was stung sixty-seven times, had an allergic reaction, and is expected to miss two months. I mean, I didn't read the entire article, but when the Reds play someone you can just assume something like that. I think that's even part of AP style now. I have to check.

Naturally, this is going to be the hottest game-night promotion since the birth of bobbleheads. "Release a Swarm of Bees on the Yankees Infield" Night at Safeco Field, for me, would make the Mariners' sorry history totally worth every miserable year. Just thinking about that possibility has put me in an amazing mood. Or maybe that's just the bottle of Thunderbird talking.