What in the name of Vidal Sassoon is going on around here?

Some famous wigs are getting chopped around baseball, and at least those two guys got immediate mojo out of getting their ears lowered considerably. Vladimir Guerrero homered — and got the mock silent treatment in the dugout — his second game sans locks. Sure enough, Magglio Ordonez went long after going short, too.

Ah, but the locks aren’t the thing, are they? It’s just a coincidence, right? Besides, Vlad played the dreads pretty nattily beneath that sticky helmet, but not many will miss Magglio’s mull-fro — at least he’s auctioning off the curls for charity. What’s next? Manny’s dreads? (Ah, Manny and dread fit so well in a sentence these days . . . )

Maybe it’s just this simple: It’s summer, and the boys are getting their summer cuts in.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Mr. October
Shares a spot this summer night –
Hmmm, A-Rod’s numbers

But on Wednesday night, the highlight was much more frightening, and could have been a lot uglier. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

A sharpened projectile in the form of the barrel of Elijah Dukes’ broken bat went tumbling through the air all the way to Green’s shortstop spot. It got there right along with the ball, narrowly missing seriously injuring him, and not once but twice. The bat glanced, fortunately on a smooth side, off him as he tried to field the bouncing ball. But it still might have gotten him as he pursued the ball to the outfield, as the bat came down and stuck into the ground like a javelin.

Yikes. Yikes again. Don’t want to even think about what could have happened. This isn’t the Visigoths commercial with axes and maces. This was real, a real deadly weapon and real scary.

While broken bats have been part of baseball for a long time, when is this kind of thing going to stop? Dukes was using a maple bat, and while he’s not doing anything wrong by doing so, the testing being done to avert this sort of thing obviously hasn’t caught up yet, no offense to the testers. Well, maybe the bats should go on the shelf for now. Who’d really argue?

If you’re old enough (ahem!), you might remember Steve Yeager taking a chard to his throat in a game while on deck. But can you remember a lot of flying spears like the ones we’ve seen the last few years? Come on, no you can’t. It didn’t happen. Not like this.

And enough already.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Joe G blew a fuse
Begged for thumb in a June swoon –
Oh so inventive

It is something to be examined, however: If he’s suspended for 50 games, how’s he playing in the Minors? After all, it’s a rehab appearance, meaning there’s an attachment to the Major Leagues, in a sense. Not that he or the Dodgers are doing it wrong, just wondering if it’s worth considering. The flip side, of course, is that the rule says the Dodgers are without him for 50 games, not 50 games and whatever it takes for him to get ready to play.

If somebody isn’t auctioning off Manny’s No. 99 Isotopes jersey for charity, they ought to.

Early All-Star thoughts: Starting pitchers should be Zack Greinke of the Royals against Dan Haren of the D-backs, and for the first time in years the National League will be the more dangerous lineup the starter will have to face.

One final day to get your Ping! in: The College World Series has one game left.

What up with the NL West? The winningest team in ball in the Dodgers and two of the top three early Wild Card contenders in the Giants and Rockies. What happened to the big shoes and funny red nose?

The defending AL champs are fourth in their division, and it’s going to be hard for the Rays to get past all three, or even two, especially the way the Jays are going.

Ping!

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Obama winds up,
Pitches in July classic –
Presidential deal

Make an error like he did Friday in a Yankees-Mets game to flip the score at the end, and it’ll be remembered. It’ll certainly be shown more than 10 million times, because it already has been shown about 6 million. Nothing like a Big Apple blooper to cement an image you’d just as soon not have.

That it was A-Rod who hit the lame pop-up that Castillo dropped, well, make up your own punch line there. But what really counts is that you have to reach back pretty far to remember a play like that with the circumstances remotely the same.

Everything’s bigger in New York. Especially the errors.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Doc Halladay, ouch
Blue Jays’ horse injured in June –
That just has to hurt

For those not inclined toward either one of the megateams, it’s almost enough to bring a tear to the eye for the poor lads from the Bronx. Ah, OK, maybe not, or actually not at all, or full disclosure not in a million years. But it’s kind of weird, the Sox getting off to a 7-0 mark in the season series. Lopsided as it gets.

Now, the standings tell us something a little bit different, so let’s not go planning any parades, Nation. Empire still has a lot of season left, even in the most overhyped yet still always intriguing series in the game. And even after all this, it’s only a one-game lead. In June.

But hard not to take note when two teams that go toe to toe like no other are looking like they’re going toe to . . . oh, make up your own punch line.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Manny, a warning,
already out till July — man,
he’s being Manny

That could apply to the No. 1 pick with extra cheese, Stephen Strasburg, who’s universally adored by scouts. But really it applies to the whole she-bang.

For sheer inundation and celebration, this year’s First-Year Player Draft hit an all-time hype high, with MLB.com and MLB Network covering it like a blanket. Point is, they probably didn’t imagine the draft being held on a dedicated network or the Internets, neither. But it’s hard to miss now, that’s for sure.

Amazing how much information there is on these guys, how much video, how you can now really see for yourself what’s being evaluated. If you’re a real Minor Leagues geek, and not everybody is all in but everybody should be a little bit, then you’re in heaven.

It gets a little more sticky from here, of course. Starting with Strasburg’s negotiations, which could elevate to the $50M range. Wow.

Here’s to the 29th-rounders and the like.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Johan gives the ball
Slowly this early in June —
K-Rod saves for Mets

Andre Ethier, for example. With his walkoff homer Saturday, Ethier contributed back-to-back game-winning hits, and continued a strong season. And with Juan Pierre doing his thing and Orlando Hudson proving to be one of the better late pickups of the offseason, the Dodgers are still cruising right along in the NL West.

And that sets up a scenario where they could be already in complete control of the division by the time Manny returns. And in a certain sense, that could make the second half difficult for the Dodgers with the potential of no real pursuers.

You hate to hand it to the Dodgers so early, but there’s no compelling reason not to at this point, either.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Perfecto through six,
Lester gave Sox a June boom –
This lefty has it

The possibility that the Braves might catch him and their fan base and a lot of people by surprise by releasing him apparently wasn’t a factor in their decision. It should have been.

And in the end it became a way uglier farewell than it needed to be, relegating Saturday’s much-ballyhooed debut of Tommy Hanson to footnote status. Maybe he’ll change that with his performance.

Listen, the Braves’ veritable tomahawk chop of a 300-game winner was clumsy, and based on John Schuerholz’s apologetic statement Friday, if they had it to do all over again, it would have been different. But Glavine’s possibly a bit in denial, and definitely escalated the situation with his comments Friday.

His choice, and that’s fine. He wasn’t treated very well this time, true. Then again, he has been paid, oh, close to $80 million over his career by that organization, so perhaps the conference call of woes was a bit overboard. Plenty of people, players and fans alike, were pleading his case. He could have taken a higher road. <p />

But the Braves sure could have as well, and if they had that might have changed everything — except the fact that they still would have and should have replaced one Tommy with the other.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Super Regionals
Bringing some ping to the spring —
Next stop, Omaha

Probably not too many who saw him in his first life, pitching for the Expos — watch out in either dugout — thought this day would come. Some with the Mariners obviously thought it would, because they took the leap of faith. Once he got into his time in Arizona, it was hard to imagine he would not.

For the better part of a decade, Big Unit was the man. Bigger and badder, and better. Intimidation plus execution. Competitive fire, channeled to perfection.

He’s the second oldest to get 300 done behind Phil Niekro, but don’t forget he was a late starter, too — a college guy, he didn’t debut till he was 24. And by the end, he’s not tossing up knucklers like Niekro, either.

All the Cy Young Awards, all the strikeouts and now this? Cooperstown’s got to be a lock, no?

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
What a catch, this Carp
St. Louis holds on in June
An ace and Pujols

While a moving experience (as in, moving van moving) had a little something to do with it, it’s another reminder that the true grinders are the MLBloggers who just can’t, don’t and won’t stop. And kudos to them for their consistency.

In this little intermission, we’ve seen a few interesting developments, from a 10-game winning streak by the Padres of all teams that did absolutely nothing to put a dent in the Dodgers’ NL West lead to a double-dip of rookie firsts Saturday night — Matt Wieters with his first hit, David Price with his first regular-season win.

While we’re catching up, Luke Scott’s hitting homers like Babe Ruth — six in four games — and Chris Carpenter just got knocked off a Greinke-esque scoreless streak. We had CC playing Cleveland, the NLCS rematch at Wrigley and Ryan Howard doing a grand imitation of Mike Schmidt.

In other words, the grind keeps on going even when The Grind is on the sidelines.

Yakyu Haiku
That’s the American tradition of baseball in Japanese, and here’s an Americanized version of a Japanese tradition:
Sans Manny for weeks,
And the Dodgers at May’s end?
First place, NL West