Wednesday Morning Links

I read an article at the end of the Clinton era that stuck with me.

Bill Clinton traveled to Bangladesh, the first American president to do so. Bangladesh has not been a fortunate polity over its short existence, being a low lying country frequently in the path of enormous volumes of water and political turmoil, so the visit carried an enormous and possibly disproportionate significance to the Bangladeshis.

One of the places on his itinerary was a town called Joypura, a small town of little distinction whose residents believed the visit would be a transformational event. They built a pristine toilet and padlocked the door, an apt metaphor for third world want in a world of plenty if I've ever heard one.

Clinton didn't end up coming to Joypura.

Said Osman Ghani, "For me, the most memorable event of my life was the day I walked seven miles and almost saw Bill Clinton."

Anthony Andro says that maybe it was a good thing Yu Darvish didn't achieve perfection, due to some argument that doesn't matter because Anthony Andro is wrong.

Jeff Wilson has a game recap, reminding us all how to spell the name of the total nonentity that broke up the perfecto.

Gil Lebreton says that Yu Darvish was worth what we paid and was worth losing C.J. Wilson over, apparently because C.J. is still complaining that the Rangers didn't want him.

Alyson Footer at mlb.com says that A.J. Pierzysnki knows that last night was disappointing "for all the Japanese people."

Richard Justice tells us that Yu Darvish was pitching with confidence last night, because, hey, it was the Astros.

Vince Langford also has a recap, as does T.R. Sullivan.

Over at the DMN, we see Darvish is apparently an emotionless pitching battlemech, as he said he thinks his teammates were more disappointed than he was and that he was "satisfied." There is also some commentary over a Twitter kerfluffle about what is a not-particularly-insulting comment from an Astros announcer and a photo capturing how close Yu came to ending the game.

Here's Eric Nadel's call of the final two outs of the game.

Washington was ready to pull Darvish with the no-hitter intact had he walked Merwin whatever-his-name-is.

A.J. Pierzynski, though he feels bad for all the disappointed Japanese people, still said "some bad words" to Darvish.

According to the stats folks at ESPN, we should be happier with Yu Darvish's performance than with an actual perfect game because there have only been 5 perfect games blown in the final out in the last 25 years.

Richard Durrett has his Rapid Reactions to that gut punch.

According to Jeff Wilson, Elvis Andrus wants to be a Ranger forever but I have no other details to offer because it's behind a paywall.

You know how much Elvis Andrus loves you? He asked his agent to get an extension done.

Ranger LHP prospect Chad Bell, who moved up from Myrtle Beach to Frisco in 2012 will undergo Tommy John surgery, ending his 2013 season. He was 27 on the LSB prospect list, forming the prospecty meat in a Nick Tepesch / Kellin Deglan sandwich.

Thanks to all the LSB peeps that came to the game, it was fun meeting you.