I’ve let my subscription to Men’s Journal lapses again, but fortunately for the rest of us, the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham keeps fully abreast of all dude fitness issues and also manages to snare the following quote from a profile of Orioles skipper Buck Showalter :

“I’d like to see how smart Theo Epstein is with the Tampa Bay payroll. You got Carl Crawford ’cause you paid more than anyone else, and that’s what makes you smarter? That’s why I like whipping their butt. It’s great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, ‘How the hell are they beating us?’ ”

As Abraham points out, Showalter (above) once managed the not-so-poverty stricken Yankees along with the 2000 Arizona Diamondbacks, who sported a healthy $77 million payroll. Showalter also extended his streak of not winning World Championships with the the Texas Rangers, who at that time did their share to reinforce fiscal insanity by paying Alex Rodriguez more money than God. Perhaps this sort of tough dude rhetoric will sell a handful of O’s season tickets, but you know Peter Angelos will just give the money back to the fans, right? Because it’s so much more fun trying to win games without the proper resources — all the better for Showalter to demonstrate his vast knowledge. If you’re wondering why Baltimore routinely overpaid for veterans on the downside of their careers, the answer is very simple — they didn’t have a genius like Buck ready to outsmart Richie Rich Theo Epstein!