I’m sorry. I just can’t get over how this guy has a column with a major(-ish) newspaper.

Marcus Hayes awoke from his 12-hour Twitter slumber today and began responding to some blowback from his strange hollering into the August air.

NBC’s Hardball Talk picked up a portion of that story, noting that Hayes is the first mainstream writer to accuse Ken Griffey Jr. of using steroids (and maybe he did, maybe he didn’t– the point is Marcus has absolutely no evidence besides Griffey’s – gasp! – declining numbers when he got older). Hayes was then a guest on 950 KJR in Seattle today and, apparently, was completely blindsided by the host. Some real Sandra Bullock shit:

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Guess that didn’t go well.

But yeah, the host just apologized to his listeners for Marcus Hayes’ existence. And yes, I am trying to get that audio.

In addition, Hayes is not backing down from his strange argument that Gold Gloves and batting average are the best metrics by which to judge players. Here’s his extraordinarily flawed logic on why the Gold Glove – an award chosen by managers and coaches and one that was once once given to Bobby Abreu – is so much better than SABR stats:

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No. I can assure you, Marcus, that the panel of “””””experts””””” who came up with the UZR metric to measure defensive efficiency are not the interns who cobble together the SportsCenter Top 10 highlights. Do you realize how silly you sound?

Now, I’m as skeptical of advanced defensive metrics as the next guy. But. But someone should tell Marcus that a panel of “experts” (which, in that context, is actually just a community of smart people with calculators who came up with a standardized system of measurement) also decides the coveted, and sponsored(!), Rawlings Gold Glove Award. Marcus didn’t have a comeback for that one:

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You can side with the progressive (SABR) viewpoint or the old guy yelling at nerds viewpoint– it doesn’t matter. The point is that a longtime and somewhat well-known (gah) sports columnist not only recklessly accused Ken Griffey Jr. of taking steroids, and not only said it was a “white and black” issue why people like Chase Utley more than Jimmy Rolllins, but he can also be argued into a corner and tricked into danger by the most basic, you-should-be-able-to-see-that-coming logic in the world. It’s like playing chess with Roomba– His movements may be unpredictable, but he has no idea where he’s going next! Look out, dog!

Meanwhile, responding to charges that he irrationally dislikes Utley because Utley is white, Hayes, who is both white and black (his words), offered the following in a Twitter conversation… just as soon as he figured out how to work that damn thing:

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I can read. These were Hayes’ words in a Philly.com chat on October 26, 2010:

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Did I read that right?