How hot is Oakland’s Jack Cust? Even Barry Bonds thinks he oughta be tested. Recently acquired from San Diego (for whom he tore up the PCL the past two seasons in Portland), Cust has 8 HR’s, 20 RBI’s and 16 walks in 13 games, his latest heroics coming with a 3-run dinger off Matt Cain in the A’s 4-2 defeat of the Giants yesterday.

ESPN’s Buster Olney points out Cust will earn less this entire season than Roger Clemens will rake in for merely 3 days on the Yankees roster. While that’s true, Buster isn’t considering all the money the Bombers will save by not having to fly or room the Rocket on road trips.

I had hoped I would never again have to type the name “Brian Knobs” for any reason whatsoever. Damn you, Jonny Gomes, damn you.

Kudos to the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick for pointing out this morning that a trip to a modern big league ballpark (well, Shea Stadium, anyway) means putting up with all sorts of annoying, infantile sounds effects coming over the tannoy. Given that Phil’s readership might’ve actually attended a game sometime in the last 20 years, said column was about revelatory as declaring water to be wet.