Q&A Wednesdays

Today's Q&A deals with distributing credit for the young talent that's just now arrived (mostly to point out that Cam Bonifay's scouting director Mickey White deserves some credit). There's also a question from the only person in Pittsburgh not happy to see Jason Bay offered an extension, Perez, Burnett, Bullington, Pete Mackanin treating Maholm and Ian Snell like they're made of glass, a farewell to Bobby Hill, and a question about JJ Furmaniak's number, which elicits one of my favorite Dejan answers of the year (if only because it's specifically for people like me who complained at the beginning of the year about Dejan's love for hockey analogies).

Q: Call-up infielder J.J. Furmaniak is wearing No. 66, not a fact missed in your Pirates notebook by your longtime readers.

What are you implying here?

He wouldn't be Canadian?

Maybe Jason Bay should wear that number. He's done everything asked and more since coming aboard, short of becoming an owner.

Randy Duncan of Meadow Lands

KOVACEVIC: That Furmaniak has some nerve wearing Alan Faneca's number in this town.

Anyways, things close up with with Dejan asking for a new name for the "North Side Notches" part of the daily notebook and a puzzlement over where the Pete Mackanin letters are. I have a suggestion, to write a letter about Mackanin is to suggest that the writer condones him being in charge of the team past this year (why ask a question a guy you KNOW won't be back?) and NO ONE wants to even entertain anything close to that kind of idea, thus we're just not asking.