Is it still navel-gazing if you're gazing at the navels of others? Please let me know. In the mean time, today's links include a bunch of stuff about my fellow bloggers and such … • To commemorate Billy Beane's 47th birthday (this weekend) we present -- well, actually Athletics Nation presents -- a long interview with Mr. Beane: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. • ShysterBall suggests -- here, and then again here -- that franchise values must be dropping more than anyone's bothered to notice before now. • Josh Kalk, who used to do PITCHf/x analysis at The Hardball Times, is retiring from blogging. The scuttlebutt is that he's been hired by a major league club, and the scuttlebutt is supported by the odd fact that all of Kalk's old stuff has been deleted from the site. You can just do that? • Tango compares the BBWAA to Congress (and I can get away with linking to stuff like this because I still haven't seen my membership card, and so I'm beginning to think the whole thing was just a wonderful practical joke). • Meanwhile, MGL kindly offers the big clubs some advice on effective base-stealing tactics. • From Ducksnorts, a collection of valuable Brattain-related links. • Jim Bowden: the gift that just keeps on giving. • Scott Lemieux responds to a question of mine (and yes, it's nice to know that someone out there is actually paying attention). • When my friends collide … King Kaufman interviews Allen Barra about Barra's book about Berra. • Big doings with our friends over at Baseball Prospectus. • I had to read this, so you do, too (and in a similar vein, Darren Rovell goes somewhere I just can't).