Because killing it is just too cliche. So now we wait: for Kendall, for Payton, for Guffman.

I’m having trouble thinking along with Kevin Towers at this point. If all of this maneuvering has been done with the goal of bringing Jason Kendall to San Diego without severly impacting the budget, kudos to Towers for orchestrating it. But I’ll hold off making any judgment until I see what actually happens.

While we’re waiting, and because I have nothing better to share with you, I’ll toss out a list of books I’m currently reading or planning to read in the very near future:

• Sporting News Baseball Register This is an amalgamation of the old STATS Major League Handbook and the venerable Baseball Register. It contains full minor- and major-league statistics for everyone who appeared in a big-league game in 2003. There’s also a manager register that includes year-by-year records as well as tendencies for the most recent season. Other goodies include 2003 leader boards, active leader boards, and single-season lefty-righty splits. I didn’t buy last year’s version because it looked like a weak imitation of the old Handbook, but I’m finding the current release quite useful.
• The Bill James Handbook This one is laid out more like the old Handbook but also contains yearly runs created totals for hitters. Other handy information includes extended defensive statistics, year-by-year managerial tendencies, park indices, and year-by-year win shares for all players active in 2003. There is a fair amount of overlap between the Register and the Handbook, but there are just enough differences to justify a spot on the reference shelf for both. They complement each other well.
• Baseball America Almanac 2004 Team-by-team full organizational pitching and hitting stats; fielding stats for full-season leagues; coverage of minor, independent, winter, and foreign leagues; college, high school, and amateur snapshots; a complete listing of picks from the 2003 draft (including which players had signed by press time). I have every edition of this one since 1997 and still refer to the older ones every now and then.
• The Mental ABC’s of Pitching (H.A. Dorfman). Written by a sports psychologist who has been employed as an instructor/counselor by numerous big-league baseball clubs over the years, this book examines a slew of different issues that confront a pitcher over the course of a game, season, and/or career. Each topic is covered in a very short, easily absorbable essay. The problem is described, often with real-world examples and inspirational quotes, and steps for overcoming or mastering the problem are given. Provides a lot of food for thought while watching pitchers.

There are others, but they don’t have to do with baseball. Plus I’m out of hot chocolate.

That’s all for now. With luck, I’ll have something more interesting to report tomorrow.