* ESPN’s Rob Neyer, ostensibly hung over after the bacchanalian SABR convention, finally awoke from his slumber and linked to Bugs&Cranks this week, about the Diamondbacks’ potential for signing Barry Bonds. At the beginning of his latest post, Neyer points out (to stalking bloggers everywhere): "You know how blogging works, right? You link to me, I link to you, and so on and so forth." Apparently Rob has an itchy back and is tired of handing out free rubs. He still features a peculiar blog roll – five Yankee blogs and no Sox blogs among his 21-team pow wow – but it’s good to see he’s reading Bugs&Cranks, whose 32-member delegation got lost en route to the SABR convention and wound up in Ogden, Utah.

Rob’s latest entry discusses the case of Andy Marte. Remember him? He was the guy the Sox acquired from the Braves for Edgar Renteria and $11 million in 2005. He spent about four minutes in Boston; I might have run him over in 2005 and not even realized. Anyway, after Johnny Damon fled to the Yankees, Marte was the centerpiece in the trade for Cleveland center fielder Coco Crisp, whom the Sox targeted as a replacement for Judas. These were big developments for all four teams back then, involving two center fielders, a shortstop, and a supposedly marquee prospect. Three years later, you could throw them all against the plate-glass window at Sonic and have a pickle-slide race. Marte would probably finish last, but would any fans care? None of these guys had the impacts they were expected to have. Sure, Rent-a-Wreck hit .332 last year for Atlanta, but he’s now been unmasked as a National League creation — again! — hitting .254 in Detroit. This after hitting .276 for the Sox during his one season in Boston, when he committed 176 throwing errors.

* The disparity between home-road records this season has been discussed at great length, by such disparate scribes as Jayson Stark and Perez Hilton. They’ve discussed various possible causes: the computer-generated schedule, which has made teams tired; the absence of greenies, which has made teams yellow; and the heavy influx of rookies, who apparently don’t recover as well as veterans from drinking binges and trips to Scores. None of these investigations has arrived at an incontrovertible cause, but I think I may have found it: Luck.

I need to examine this anomaly further, but one statistic stood out while examining the records at Baseball-Reference.com: The difference in Batting Average on Balls in Play for road batters between last year and this year. In 2007, the BABIP for Home batters was .306. The average this year?.307. But the BABIP on the Road? It was .304 last year and only .289 this year. Perhaps it’s as simple as that: road hitters have been unlucky so far this season. Like I said, I have to look at the numbers a little more. After all, maybe road teams are striking out more this season, or hitting fewer line drives, etc., and that’s the cause of more losses. But maybe road players are simply hitting the ball At defenders this season. That has nothing to do with fatigue, drugs or inexperience. That has to do with luck, which will probably turn around in the second half.

* Perhaps the Yankees should have given out golden thongs to the first 20,000 fans on Wednesday. Maybe then Jason Giambi and his mustache would not have finished third to Tampa Bay rookie Evan Longoria and Chicago outfielder Jermaine Dye in Last Player balloting for the All-Star Game. The game’s in New York right? Of course it is. And now that the siren call has seemingly ended for Starting Pitcher: Mariano Rivera, Yankee fans and reporters want to make sure The Greatest Failed Starter in Major League History at least Closes the game — and not Boston’s Jonathan Papelbon. Never mind the obvious mitigating factor: Terry Francona would want to win with His guy on the mound and not worry about placating the home crowd of a third-place team. The idea, put forth in this Newsday blog, that Francona would be worried about incurring the wrath of Yankee fans, seems rather naive.

Cam Martin is a Sox fan who lives in Yankee country (Fairfield County, CT). He also writes for Bugs&Cranks, Rotohog and Barnes & Noble Review, and he edits The Hub for Comcast SportsNet New England.