My gig at The Hardball Times doesn’t leave much scope for mercilessly panning major league teams. So from time to time I’ll come here to give you updates of the laughable from around the league…

When you’re a beat writer for the Kansas City Royals, it only takes one article to make them look ridiculous on three levels…

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100813&content_id=13407730&notebook_id=13409752&vkey=notebook_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=kc

Bloomquist expresses happiness for Guillen

“Jose is a unique teammate, and I mean that in a good way,” Bloomquist said. “I think sometimes he was misunderstood a little bit. One thing I know for sure about Jose is he wants to win and you’ve got to respect that about him. Sometimes he might say a thing or two that might not jibe very well with everybody else, but the bottom line is the guy wants to win. He’s a competitor and, above all else, I’ll take that any day of the week — a guy that wants to win.”

Willie Bloomquist, a teammate of Jose Guillen on both the Royals and the Mariners, was happy that Guillen landed with the contending San Francisco Giants.

“That’s what it’s all about — trying to get to the postseason,” Bloomquist said. “Especially with someone later in his career like him, it’s all about trying to get a ring and win the thing.”

Guillen, traded with cash on Friday for a player to be named, had his share of home runs and RBIs as well as a few controversies in his nearly three years with the Royals.

What I think Willie means to say here is that he’s glad there are still organizations like the San Francisco Giants who will acquire fringy veterans just for the sake of having them. Being a fringy veteran himself and of equally dubious utility, Bloomquist has to be heartened that there might be life (in baseball at least) after KC.

Kendall’s longevity celebrated by Royals

Just before Jason Kendall took the field for the 2,014th time as a catcher on Friday, the Royals honored him for his perseverance and longevity.

Kendall was presented with a plaque of a full-sized, blue-and-gold catcher’s mask, a framed jersey bearing the No. 2,000 and a montage of photos from his games. The Kauffman Stadium crowd saw video highlights from his years with the Pirates, A’s, Cubs, Brewers and Royals.

This response could get pretty lengthy. I could focus on Kendall’s lack of talent. I could question the decision of every franchise post A’s to play him. I could even rip the Royals for cutting All-Star John Buck so that they could add Kendall for two years. Maybe I’d note that Kendall’s played a whopping 107 of those games as a Royal.

But my real question is…Why did they wait until game 2,014 to honor him for #2,000? At first I thought to myself, there must be some explanation, perhaps they were away? Nope, home for game #2,000 (and 2,001 in case they were worried he would slip and fall before the game). The only explanation I can conceive is that the Royals didn’t realize it until it was too late and then decided “Oh, we should honor him.”

I wonder if the photo montage included his broken ankle…

DeJesus to be honored for Heart and Hussle

Left fielder David DeJesus will be back on the field on Saturday night — but just long enough to receive an award before the game against the Yankees.

DeJesus is the Royals winner of the Heart and Hustle Award presented by the Major League Baseball Player Alumni Association. The award will be presented by former Royals outfielder Brian McRae.

As goofy as it sounds, the award is given to a player on all 30 teams so I won’t get into a rant about unnecessary awards. I wonder if Carl Crawford is disqualified because he’s too good to need to Hussle?

What I find comical is that the Royals had to reach to their disabled list to pick a viable candidate. Their team is that devoid of Heart and/or Hussle.

2,014 game player Jason Kendall was also considered for the award but was found not to have hussled in games 1,487 and 1,993.