Florida reliever Todd Jones has long been CSTB’s journalistic hero. His old as-told-to columns for The Sporting News showed yours truly that if a big, burly dude like Todd wasn’t ashamed of flaunting his learning disabilities and backwards sexual politics in public, I’d have to get a lot bigger and burlier if I wanted to manage the same thing.

Tonight while on a fact finding mission at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, I had the opportunity to observe Jones up close and personal. While sitting alongside the Marlins bullpen, I spied Todd bringing autographed baseballs to a couple of heavily made up / perfumed individuals sitting a few seats to my right. I’ve long heard that signing autographs during the game was forbidden (or so Red Sox backup catcher Bob Montgomery claimed many years ago), and as much as I’d like to credit Todd for being a nice guy, I hate to break it to him that both of these girls had penises. What’s more, since we’re in Illinois, I’m pretty sure they weren’t married to each other.

Just prior to Josh Beckett serving up a gopher ball to Derek Lee (above) and leaving the game with an undisclosed injury, Jones borrowed a cell phone from a Cubs employee, presumably in an attempt to find a late night Sex Within The Confines Of Heterosexual Marriage-aholics Anonymous meeting.

Other than that, I think the fact finding mission was successful. For one thing, I learned there really is a Byron at Byron’s Hot Dog Haus.