A few weeks ago, Psych opened off the episode "Shawn Gets The Yips" with psychic-enough Detective Spencer unable to throw from second base to first without having the baseball launch clear over the baseman's head. He alluded to Chuck Knoblauch overthrowing first base and hitting Keith Olbermann's mother in the stands as a parallel. Weeks after the episode aired, the real Knoblauch was arrested for beating up his wife. Are the two events unrelated? Well, everything is interconnected.

I give major points to USA Network for hiring writers who alluded to the Knoblauch-Olbermann connection. It's one of the purest hilarious moments in baseball, right up there with Dusty Baker's child almost getting run over by a baserunner and Jeff Francoeur's defensive range.

Then on Burn Notice, Psych's sister show on USA, the buddy drama's main buddy, Sam Axe, routinely goes undercover with the alias Charles Finley, or "Chuck" for short. If this doesn't remind you of former Angels and Indians lefty Chuck Finley, then you're probably not the target demographic for this article.

Let's continue on with Monk. This is where we begin to stretch our imagination and pretend spelling is irrelevant. The grizzled police captain, Leland Stottlemeyer, spells his name different than former Blue Jays pitcher Todd Stottlemyre. But the titanium tie that binds them is their penchant to get equally annoyed at nosy reporters and anal retentive investigative consultants.

Stottlemyre. Knoblauch. Finley. We all know what's going on here. USA Network is subliminally trying to honor the best players from the American League in the 1990s and keep them relevant.

Maybe on the second season of Royal Pains, HankMed will try to save Kevin Appier's career. Will he become a Cy Young pitcher again? Or will the doctor suggest he stop eating the hot dogs at Kauffman Stadium?

Article Author: Matthew T. Sussman

Sussman is the sports editor of BC Magazine and the executive editor of Technorati. He also writes for Deadspin and Toledo Free Press. He and Tuffy can be heard hosting the Treehouse Fort, Sundays at 7 p.m. ET. Plus, he Twitters. …

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