LINKAGE: Wrapping up Griffey stuff, Jose Guillen is still crazy | Tacoma News Tribune

My last day as Reader Representative for the News Tribune. One quick note from my reader rep duties, a nice lady called this morning at 5:15 a.m. and left a message to rant about how bad it was for the Mariners signing a "washed-up, over-weight outfielder that left the first time around." She went on for a good few minutes, saying "if they are so bad to resort to signing Griffey, then they must be really terrible and I'm not paying one cent to see them."

She didn't leave a number to call her back to discuss, but if I did I would have two questions:

1. "Why in all that is normal are you reading the paper at 5:15 in the morning?"

2. "How the heck did you get it delivered so early?"

Anyways, let's get to some links for your Friday afternoon.

First of all, here's the link to Larry's daily story.

Columnist John McGrath checks in with his thoughts on the Griffey signing.

Gregg Bell of the AP, checked in with his daily story from Peoria.

Bell also has this nice story on Mariners prospect Nick Hill , (pictured above/AP) who is having to serve out his time with army before joining the team.

AUDIO: Junior's agent Brian Goldberg was on with Softy today on KJR outlining how the signing process went.

ESPN's Keith Law offers his feelings on the Griffey signing - using the word shortsighted. Law also debuted his MLB draft blog and has a link to Prospect Insider's Jason Churchill in his first post.

Let's go around baseball ...

Further proof that Jose Guillen is still insane - he ripped his own ingrown toenail out of his foot.

Jon Paul Morosi of the Detroit Free press has this story on Carlos Guillen.

Here's a profile on Yu Darvish - the latest Japanese pitching phenom - is not related to Ryan Divish, unfortunately.

Federal Way's Travis Ishikawa (pictured left/AP) would be the starting 1B for the Giants if the season opened this week, but he isn't taking it for granted with so much time left till opening day.

It wouldn't be a day without some steroid talk.

The NY Post's Phil Mushnick took commissioner Bud Selig to task for his role in all of this.

One of the drugs that A-Rod said he got in the Dominican Republic, isn't actually sold there.

I have no words for the headline of this story on Barry Bonds, just see for yourself.

Not baseball related, but still interesting...

From Buster Olney's blog: I don't like snakes. I hate them and the picture and this story frightens me greatly.

And finally, >rapper Lil Wayne got the ESPN logo tattooed on his arm since he's now blogging for the world wide leader. I know Larry has an assortment of tattoos, similar to that of Dennis Rodman, but I don't know that he has the News Tribune logo tattooed on him. I will also pass on getting a Mariners Insider tattoo in script across my back.