Still I wonder …

  • Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles passes along perhaps the greatest parable ever written: “It’s about a fox who sees a pile of moldy grapes in a dumpster behind a Cheescake Factory.”
  • In a lengthy piece for True Blue L.A., Phil Gurnee looks ahead at the 2012 Dodgers with downcast eyes: “My spider senses are all tingling disaster disaster, and try as I might, I can’t shake it.”
  • Imminent future Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin has been “working out” Dodger youngster Dee Gordon among others this winter, according to Joe Lemire of SI.com.
  • Jay Jaffe, trustworthy as they come for Hall of Fame recommendations, offers his 2012 list to date at Baseball Prospectus: Larkin, Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez and Lee Smith.
  • Former draft phenom Brien Taylor, whose career was thwarted by an off-field fight, turned 40 last week. Mike Azisa of Fangraphs looks back at the derailed success story. Sample quotes:

    “I’ve been through 28 drafts,” said Scott Boras back in 2006, “and Brien Taylor, still to this day, is the best high school pitcher I’ve seen in my life.”

    “If I’d been doing things that were stupid and didn’t make any sense, I would have felt a lot worse about it,” said Taylor in 1994, a year after the injury. “I feel that what happened with me is a family thing and I was there for my family. But I don’t feel bad about it for one day because the reason it happened is not because I was being stupid out there.”

  • At Grantland, Jonah Keri looks at “The Myth of the Small-Market Window.”
  • Earl Pomerantz tells us what happens when someone speaking French asks Jim Appel his name.
  • Finally, Alex Belth shares a story at Bronx Banter that was simply and wonderfully impressive.