Nate Silver

Nate Silver has been everywhere lately so aficionados probably already know who he is. But anyway, he's the dude who invented PECOTA, and as such, loomed large in dorky sabremetrics circles. Now he's turned his formidable intellect towards politics and runs fivethirtyeight, and is dropping bombs like Medzhitov. By way of introductions, here's a nice piece in New York magazine about him.

Sean Casey

The Bosox just signed Sean Casey, a decent 1B who could probably start on a couple teams but will likely be a role / bench player for the defending world champs. He is known around the league as "the Mayor," and considered the nicest guy in the majors by an un-fucking-believable margin.

Manny

I am pretty sure Manny Ramirez is my favorite baseball player of all time:

He shouts, "Ohayo Gozaimasu" - Japanese for "good morning" - above the hip-hop music blaring in the Athletes' Performance weight room. He runs sprints and agility drills on the Arizona State football field and signals touchdowns. He fetches bottles of water for his workout mates, Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis and Minnesota Twins third baseman Nick Punto. He then does a lefty weight resistance exercise and announces he's going to bat lefthanded this year.

and a bit later:

Ramírez's uncle Rico accompanies him to every workout, and serves as an extra assistant. He's the only guy who knows how to stuff Manny's dreads back into his kerchief.

link

Manny

Waiting for Manny is in this week's issue of the New Yorker. Here's a choice excerpt:
He is perhaps the closest thing in contemporary professional sports to a folk hero, an unpredictable public figure about whom relatively little is actually known but whose exploits, on and off the field, are recounted endlessly, with each addition punctuated by a shrug and the observation that it's just "Manny being Manny." When I asked his teammate David Ortiz, himself a borderline folk hero, how he would describe Ramirez, he replied, "As a crazy motherfucker." Then he pointed at my notebook and said, "You can write it down just like that: 'David Ortiz says Manny is a crazy motherfucker.'