Last week the Reds announced that Cam Bonifay and Mike Squires would join the front office as special assistants to GM Walt Jocketty. At the same time, they announced Jamie Quirk as a professional scout.

Bonifay comes to Cincinnati via Pittsburgh, where he was the GM for the Pirates from 1993-2001. So you know he’s quality. One wonder’s whether he’s coming aboard to tell everyone else what not to do. As in, “Cam thinks we ought to extend Dusty Baker for another two years, so I guess we’d better not.” Of course, since then, Bonifay acted as Jocketty’s special assistant in St. Louis. Similarly, Squires had been a Major League scout for the Cardinals since 1995.

Here that sound? It’s the sound of millions of snark-enjoying web surfers crying out in anguish as they discover the news that Fire Joe Morgan is calling it quits.

Like Ken Tremendous wrote, it’s been a good 21 years, and I will greatly miss their criticism of stupid writers and broadcasters everywhere. Now it’s up to others to mock the ignorant and pointless drivel.

I’m sure Dusty Baker was a close second.

“Link-eh…linkeh”
“Lin-seh-come,” corrects the CTS.
“Who the hell is Tim Lincecum?” I say.
“Someone the Reds could have drafted.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that the NL Cy Young winner is someone I’ve never even heard of?”

But by this time, he was already pulling up the list of draft picks. The Reds chose Drew Stubbs in 2006 when they could have had this year’s Cy Young winner. Thank you Wayne “Kriv-dawg” Krivsky. Not to say that Stubbs won’t still turn out to be the bomb or that the Reds were lacking for Cy Young-caliber pitching this year: hell, Edinson Volquez even got Rookie of the Year votes he wasn’t eligible for.

Award Non-rookie 4th Place in Rookie of the Year Voting

See that little table just above here? That’s the results of the 2008 Rookie of the Year voting, as performed by the Baseball Writers of America. The writers did manage to get the top two correct, as there was no doubt the Cubs Geovany Soto was the best rookie, with the Reds Joey Votto a close second. Congratulations to both of those players who had breakout years in the bigs.

However, see that little asterisk next to the name of Edinson Volquez in fourth? That’s there because he wasn’t even a rookie! It’s really nice to see the writers doing their best to ensure that criticism of their intelligence and voting ability has no basis in baseball blogs. Maybe they can follow this up by voting for Babe Ruth for Cy Young.