Not related to baseball, but related to shared love here for Web 2.0 advances: Check out web2logo.com, which I just found via GigaOM. Thought you might enjoy it, and prepare to carve out some free time and change some views.

Related to baseball: We just lowered Gameday Audio to $7.95 for the rest of the season, so you can listen live to any Major League game (choosing either team’s broadcasters) from here on out for less than the cost of a movie. It even includes a three-month subscription to SI.

OK, since no one is blogging about the hottest team in baseball, we here at MLBlogosphere thought we’d represent for the Fish. Hence the first time ever that MLBlogosphere has deviated from the generic MLB template. If the concept wears on us, we might just change the template here to match whatever team we are blogging about each time.

Here is what you need to know about the Florida Marlins, since yours truly just got the game notes in his inbox a moment ago. Some of this stuff just makes you shake your head because it makes no sense whatsoever in professional sports. But here goes.

• The Marlins were a season-low 20 games under .500 at 11-31 through May 21. Since then, they have gone 53-35 to improve to 64-66. No Major League team since 1900 has gone from 20 games below .500 to .500 within the same season. Ever. Joe Girardi already must be considered a leading candidate for NL Manager of the Year; in fact, it’s hard to imagine he won’t be a mortal lock unless they plummet back to 20 games under .500.
• Dan Uggla. Dan Uggla. Dan Uggla. Here is what you need to know about the man with the Uggla Stick. He is the fourth player in the past 50 years to record 20 (21) HR and 75 (79) RBIs in the season of his Major League debut. The others were Albert Pujols, Orlando Cepeda and Frank Robinson. And don’t forget that Uggla’s home park includes a death valley for sluggers.
• If the Marlins beat the Cardinals again tonight, then they leave Colorado as the only active franchise never to win at least 10 games in a row at some point.
• Florida is the first team since the 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers to have three rookie pitchers with at least 10 victories apiece. Scott Olsen, Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco have that distinction, joining Joe Black, Billy Loes and Ben Wade from the ’52 team. The only other time this happened in the 1900s was on Connie Mack’s 1934 Philadelphia A’s.
• I haven’t watched the Marlins closely enough this season — like most other people. When I saw a Marlin leading the Majors in ERA this morning on MLB.com, I had to get more info on Johnson. I’m as guilty as many people about not knowing enough about them.
• Miguel Cabrera is finishing a monster month in which he has set the club record for RBIs. Only one player, Ryan Howard, has more RBIs this month than Cabrera.

I could go on. If you don’t usually check out our Press Pass notes at MLB.com, then by all means do so because those are the game notes that all baseball writers receive when they get to the press box each night. Just take a close look at the Marlins’ notes for tonight. It’s unbelievable. Take a close look at the Marlins on MLB.TV tonight live from Busch. It’s unbelievable.

Big Nate Chew is back on the hill right now for the Tigers in the Bronx. Be sure to check out Nate’s latest MLBlog post and especially that awesome guestmap. You can see how Tiger fans are proudly coming out of the woodwork. And deservedly so when you consider what they probably went through in recent years. Fun to see their entries on that map. . . .

Great to have Shaun Dean back in the bloghouse! Longtime MLBloggers will recall that he caught both the Berkman AND Burke home run balls during the historica 18-inning thriller that gave Houston the last NLDS title over the Braves…and then blogged about the entire experience. Catch up on his blog with what happened last fall…

Interesting to see that Sept. 12 will mark the 1,000th game in Jacobs Field history. Seems like just yesterday I was waiting two hours to get on the elevator there because Clinton was also in attendance at the inaugural game. Still very much No. 1 on my list of favorite ballparks when it’s lit up at night with those vertical light towers. . . .

John Brazer, the Phillies’ Director of Fun & Games (not a shabby title), just blogged that Wrigley is the best ballpark in the Majors. Certainly a good argument can be made for that…but I always think of the Yosemite hike I have to take to get up to the press box. What’s your favorite ballpark in the Majors and why? . . .

BEST RECORDS IN MLB
Since Aug. 9

1. Cleveland (15-5)
2. New York Mets (14-5)
2. Oakland (14-5)
4. Florida (13-6)

For what it’s worth. Does no one want to blog about the Marlins? All they do is shock the world. I think I can dig up a post from their housecleaning last winter that told people to expect exactly what they are doing…it’s what the Marlins live for. Imagine if they snuck into the Wild Card and then won it all that way again for a third time — probably would be the Most Titles Per Capita in any sport, such a short lifespan as a club.

Be glad your computer doesn’t look like this.

Any further issues with being unable to post long comments? Six Apart ops has continued to look into the matter, and let me know if you see the spam block filter.

This is the time of year when people are talking about the Mets’ magic number. Here is an MLBlogger who has been talking about it since Opening Day. Bandwagon jumpers!

Updated 6:25 pm ET Monday…

According to our Six Apart blog host provider, someone last week wrote a malicious code through an MLBlog comment and brought the MLBlogs server to its knees, essentially sending thousands of comments to the server through a script. Subsequently, a comment anti-spam block capability was turned on, which is why probably most people have experienced a spam block whenever trying to leave a somewhat lengthy comment on any MLBlog.

That comment spam block has now been turned off, but Six Apart will closely monitor the load in coming days. If it happens again, we probably will just eliminate long comments (write too much in a comment and you should just be blogging anyway). Hopefully it won’t be an issue from here on it, but if you ever see the comment spam blocker again, you’ll know why.

Updated 5:07 pm ET Tuesday:

Problem has not entirely gone away according to two MLBloggers who received comment spam block when trying to post comments on their own blogs. Have been unable to replicate this today, let me know here if any further issues. 6A is talking to ops to see if anything has changed there since I last blogged here…sorry for any ongoing inconvenience.

Most people around here in the ‘Sphere will relate to this. If you really want to know the heart and soul of an MLBlogger, just read this. We’re all so different but so alike. And some of us like to have a good time, hehe.

A lot of us were worried about our friend Arielle of Red Sox Teen Nation during the onset of Israel-Lebanon hostilities, and just saw that she posted this photo album from the front there.

How does Tiger Woods win four consecutive golf tournaments?

I can’t even think of a baseball equivalent. Walk-off homer in 16 straight games? He even hit a shot onto a roof of a course-side building during the Firestone, mere bogey. As much as I love baseball, I definitely think we have the privilege of watching the greatest athlete in history.

Back to ball. Our friend Cyn at Red Sox Chick offers up some cool video of Josh Papelbon. How low can you go? This guy’s entire body is almost flat against the ground as he delivers submarine. That was amazing to see and who cares if it’s not a network camera operator.

OK, we asked you all to blog about your bobbleheads, and our friend Joe over at Dugout Diary came through in the clutch. There are a couple of posts there about ‘em.

Everyone have a great week blogging…

Updated 1:01 am ET: While Hinske strikes out three times (looking in the ninth) and misses a catch, leading Boston to a 4-3 loss at Seattle, the Twins are the story. Who in the MLBlogosphere thinks Detroit can hold them off now that the AL Central lead is down to four games? Is it possible that Ron Gardenhire’s team, unexpected to do anything last spring, getting by without Liriano, is the best team in baseball and on its way to a third world championship? You never know in this game, which makes it great. It’s going to be a wild final month — as usual. . . . Cool post by our friend Gabriel at DA BRONX BOMBERS — you have to see the Baseball Barn. How does that just happen?

Saturday Night Fever: This is weird and I should be watching baseball, but after living and breathing it at the offices all week I rented "Saturday Night Fever" and watched it again this evening. The DVD includes the VH1 "Behind the Scenes" about Travolta, which I hadn’t seen before. Feel free to flame me in the comments. I’m mentioning this because I saw that Willy Taveras just stretched his hitting streak to a club-record 29 games. Close spelling to the above Tavares band above that played in that musical. I think they’re pronounced differently as well. The band has an "r" syllable and the player an "err" syllable. I think. ‘Stros Bro and Space Race, take it away.

Sorry I haven’t been able to keep up with who’s liveblogging each night, but just noticed that our friend Kellia is liveblogging at Life, Baseball & Eric Byrnes so feel free to keep her company.

Has anyone else experienced this issue with an "anti-spam blocker" when trying to comment on an MLBlog? I saw this comment thread on Inside the Dodgers and am following up. Not something I’m aware and can consult with our Six Apart partners. I do know there’s an annoying troll on any Giants blogs who we’ve had to waste time on, and that’s always a candidate to be a Dodger fan. But it looks like multiple people on Josh’s fine club blog experienced this.

Update on "Invincible": You didn’t want it to end. Moves into my top five all-time sports movies along with "Hoosiers" and "Bull Durham," and might be No. 1, although time and perspective are needed for that kind of placement. Tiff at Party Like It’s 1982 might want to revise her list.

Thanks to Adam Hoge of Sox Pride for being our MLBlogger of the Week last night. You can find the replay of his appearance on MLB Radio‘s "Under the Lights" by clicking the drop-down menu on the MLBlogs.com homepage. We have some folks on deck for future Fridays, and Chris, the show’s producer, is the person who contacts whomever is needed/volunteering. I just pass it along. Got a feeling we might have to go with a Bomber-template blogger next Friday; I was surprised to see that we’ve only had one of them as MLBlogger of the Week (long-lost Dave of Mad Dog Reports) since we started doing it last year, and it’s a given that the Yanks have more MLB Radio listeners than any team…fact of life.

Gotta give credit to Brady over at In the Cards for going above and beyond to promote his own MLBlog. He’s already been a Spheroid in the short time since he started, and now he has figured out how to hack a scroll in the top of his blog and also has a custom T-shirt.

Good luck to the son of our friend Michael over at Some Ballyard, competing Sunday in a race in Virginia where the surf’s up and the view is nice.

A-Rod, A-Rod. Something tells me we’re about to go through all this again. Will the Red Sox capitalize at Seattle?

We’re doing the weekend sampler thing on the MLBlogs homepage this weekend, trying to spread some love around. Sorry if we don’t get everyone included when we swap out links.

Calm down, Ernesto. Just calm down. Take a nap in Jamaica.

Heading over to see Invincible — been waiting for this one all year, am told soundtrack’s unbeatable.

Quick update: Catch Adam Hoge’s appearance as our MLBlogger of the Week on MLB Radio’s "Under the Lights" at 10:15 ET tonight if you’re online. Adam’s a longtime MLBlogger over at Sox Pride. Yet another amazing thing about having an MLBlog. Here you are, a fan of your team, and a front office exec for that team tells people to listen to you on an MLB show. The list of reasons to blog here goes on and on, and you’re linked from MLB.com and every club site. Listen to the show >

Nice nostalgic post by our friend Jules over at Cardinal Girl. Check it out, especially if you’re a Cards fan.

Hearty congrats to our friend John Nemo of The King’s Game and his wife on the arrival of their second child, a future blogger and Twins fan.

Feel free to drop comments here with any updates about your own MLBlog, pointing more people your way! Have a great weekend in the Sphere, everyone.

Mark

Speaking of the Sphere, I wrote this story on the MLB.com homepage about Pluto being sent down. So far I am getting more positive email for that than any story I have written at MLB.com in recent years, the one exception being the guy who said I was a Bill Simmons wannabe. I think people like a little fun perspective mixed in with the winning and losing headlines, don’t you?

Speaking of fun perspective, one of the most entertaining posts on MLBlogs right now was just saved by our friend Edward over at DC Daily. Gotta see his take on Chad Cordero’s flat-brimmed Nationals cap. Had not personally noticed that before, and you always learn something new around MLBlogs by the most observant fans around.

The most amazing thing about the standings to me is how many AL teams would have the best record in the NL if you excluded the Mets. As of this writing, there are EIGHT of them to be exact. That is unbelievable. It includes the Blue Jays and Angels, who have .528 winning percentages, which would be second-best in the NL, matching St. Louis. Yes, Toronto would have the best record in the NL right now other than the Mets. Just astounding. That is more than half of the entire AL, comprised of 14 teams. I can’t think of another year that the NL will go into the postseason as such a clear underdog, although there is no reason to think that the Mets can’t win it all.

The worst part is that four of those eight AL teams are going to be watching the postseason with the rest of us, and knowing full well that they would have matched up well against the NL’s best team, even having the home-field advantage.

Looks like there might be a hurricane brewing in the tropics, and if it becomes Ernesto and nears Cuba, thoughts will be with our MLBlogging groundskeeping guru there. Feel free to drop Murray a comment to keep him company during those preparations.

Really enjoyed our friend Jonathan’s interview with the author of the Curse of Carl Mays book. You never know what you’ll find on an MLBlog.

Was good to see our friend Rob rambling again here after a blogging hiatus. Cubs need him.

Reminder to please email us your responses to the Nine Questions asked of previous Spheroids here if you’d like to get some more promotion for your MLBlog. Just click the Spheroids category on the right here and look through them — they go way back. None on the docket as far as I know.

Recently Updated Photo Albums (post your own!):

• David Wright And Me.
• Baseball People I have met
• Chicago
• John Setzler – Hickory ‘Dads
• Views from the Radio Booth
• Bill Gentry – Indy Indians
• Mets Rockies Aug 18
• p LA vs Giants
• Coopertown 8/06