HILLENBRAND TO SAN FRANCISCO: YEAH, THERE'S NO IRONY THERE

Know how I know you're gay? You did a Google Images search of "San Francisco"+ "gay pride" and claimed it was strictly for comedy value.

Well, the Toronto Blue Jays really showed Shea Hillenbrand who was boss.

It's probably a coincidence, sure, but the Jays trading the disgruntled DH who once infamously called Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein a derogatory term for gays to San Francisco is irony, on a base level.

Of all the places Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi could have sent that Red State roughneck, he trades him to the team in the self-proclaimed gayest city on earth. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

It's funnier than the San Francisco 49ers offence.

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair? Hillenbrand doesn't even have hair. Not to go all Bill Simmons on you, but this is a reality show that should, nay, must happen. Take Hillenbrand to the Gay Pride events and the Exotic Erotic Ball and all sorts of various only-in-San-Fran stuff, and let the cameras capture his eyes bugging out of his head. Hey, it's his own fault. He wanted to play every day. He didn't specify where.

As for the trade itself, the Jays also sent seldom-used reliever Vinnie Chulk to the Giants in exchange for 24-year-old righty reliever Jeremy Accardo (1-3, 4.91 in 40 2/3 innings this season).

Who are the Jays getting in Accardo? According to what I found posted at Rob Neyer's website, he throws in the mid-90s and has an occasionally nasty split-finger pitch; when he's on with it, he can be very effective. The Giants had him filling in as their closer a few weeks ago when Armando Benitez was injured. It's also worth noting, as Ricciardi and the Blue Jays brass no doubt did, that he has a very good strikeout-to-walk ratio (40 Ks, just 11 bases on balls this season).

It appears the Hillenbrand saga wrapped up pretty nicely from a Toronto fan's perspective. It's win-win: A win for the Jays for divesting themselves of one of baseball's most overrated players, and a win for Hillenbrand, who gets his wish to be in the lineup every day, even if it's on a team that's going nowhere fast.

(Please don't write that the Giants are only a half-game out of first in the NL West. It's the NL West. The Tacoma Rainiers could probably win that division.)

At least it's not like the Giants don't have plenty of experience with me-first ballplayers who engage in general dickishness.

So, in the end it can all be summed up with a line heard on The Daily Show a while back: there's no I in team, but there are two in dickishness.

How long will it be before Hillenbrand tries to call out Barry Bonds for not hustling? To be a fly on the wall of the Giants clubhouse ...

Related:
Vernon Douses Shea's Bridge-Burnin' (July 21)
The Breakup, Blue Jays-Style (July 20)
Shea Ya Later (July 20)