Pads and Ends 03/22: Broken bones, nudity, hallucinogenics, and more

Welcome to Pads and Ends, a collection of links and rants about the Padres, other nonsense from around the world of baseball, and whatever else pops into my head at the moment. I’ll lead off with the Padres stuff just so those who couldn’t care less about the rest don’t have to sift for what they came here for. This seems like it could be a good daily feature, but I guess time will tell if that’s a thing people even want. Well, that and I’m the most consistently unreliable person you’ll meet, prone to flights of fancy and thoroughly unproductive weeks of wallowing in depression and typing nary a word. So, y’know, we’ll see. But I digress!

Before I get to the baseballin’, here’s something to listen to while you’re scrolling, since I aim to provide a fully immersive multi-sensory experience. I mean, you’re still on your own when it comes to smells, tastes, and touches, but I’ve got your eyes and ears covered.

Pads bits:

• Okay, this story is straight-up zany, and has everything you could possibly ask for in a headline. Do you remember Greg Reynolds? The Rockies took him with the second overall pick in 2006, he didn’t pan out, and wound up being signed as a minor league free agent by the Padres in early 2016. At the time all I really knew about him was that I remembered him appearing on an episode of Mythbusters; what I didn’t know was that he was recovering from a broken hand, and that how he broke his hand was a story for the ages. You really have to read the whole thing, but go into it knowing that everything I mentioned in the headline is from just this story.
• If you’re a subscriber to The Athletic, immediately go read this Manuel Margot jawn. If you’re not a subscriber to The Athletic, seriously reconsider it. That is, unless you’re impoverished, in which case I offer you a heartfelt, pursed-lip nod and an “I feel ya, fam”.

• Hey, guess whose game isn’t televised today!? This s**t is getting old. Fortunately the regular season is just a shout away.

Elsewhere in baseball:

• Again, this requires being a subscriber to The Athletic, but I’m including this before I’ve even read it myself, just because the subject is one that has interested me for sometime, and I have no doubt that Jeff Pearlman somehow managed to make it even more fascinating. It’s about Rogelio Moret’s strange exit from the game.
• Have we finally seen the last of Jeffrey Jay Gowan’s kid?

• Mike Napoli will not be returning to Cleveland. If he had survived the cuts, it would have been his second stint with the team.

• It happened a couple days ago, but in case you missed it, the Indians also cut loose old friend Melvin Upton.
• I live in the Reds’ viewing area, so I guess I’ll be seeing a lot of Kennys Vargas this year.

• Welp, it’s official. Organizations can continue to legally pay minor league players in couch change and bread crusts. This is infuriating despite being so expected.

End hits:

Get it? “End hits”? You know, “end” because of “Ends” and because it’s at the end, and “hits” because, uhh, baseball. Also, I guess this only works if you’re already aware of the Fugazi album titled End Hits.

• Perpetual disgrace Dan Sileo continues to make a fool of himself at every turn. Now he’s buying Twitter followers en masse, and trying to play off the Padres distancing themselves from him as a personal choice he made.

• And, to get the thought of that horribly cartoonish buffoon out of your mind, here’s something pleasant to go out on: