The people have spoken (and other tidbits)

ESPN.com is running a poll that asks the question, "Do you want Brett Favre to come back?" It's been running since at least last night, and there are over 25,000 responses as of now (3 p.m. Eastern on Thursday).

The response is currently 59% "no" and 41% "yes," which is really amazing when you think about it. About 2/5 of all voters want to see the man play again. It's inconceivable that all of those are Packer fans -- given that just under 2,000 of the votes come from Wisconsin -- that means that somewhere around a third of NFL fans who have no particular love for the green-and-gold want to see #4 suit up again. Now, maybe they want him to suit up for their team, which is, I think, at least a mild possibility.

Only 5 of the 51 regions (50 states + international) have a better than 50% "yes" vote, Wisconsin naturally on top with a 68% vote -- though that means that nearly a third of Wisconsinites (and they can't all be displaced Bears, Lions, and Vikings fans, as I was for three years) would rather see Favre stay on the sidelines. Nebraska (54%), Arkansas (52%), West Virginia (51%), and Mississippi (51%) are the other pro-Favre states.

Strangely, Minnesota (34%) isn't the #1 anti-Favre state; that honor goes to Vermont (22%), with an admittedly paltry 27 votes so far (839 for Minnesota). Among states with a significant number of votes, Massachusetts (29%, 680 votes) seems to be the most decidedly anti-Favre state out there. Maybe they don't like anyone sharing the spotlight with their precious Tom Brady?

Finally, California only registers a 36% pro-Favre stance, even though one California resident is probably stuffing the ballot box as fast as his computer will reload the page.

* Poor Chris Snyder. The Arizona Diamondbacks catcher just went on the DL with an injury too horrible for words. He suffered a left ______ fracture in Monday's game against Milwaukee. If you think the blank should be filled with something mundane like "tibia" or "elbow," well, Chris should be so lucky. And I thought Kaz Matsui's anal fissures would be the worst baseball injury of the year.

* It's two weeks old, but ESPN.com posted its fantasy football offensive line rankings back on June 18. Good to see the Vikings at #3, and the list confirms what I came up with using my own system back in February that said Cleveland had a really, really good O-line. The only major difference between my rankings and ESPN's are the Jets (#31 for me, #13 for them), though ESPN admits that the Jets were "awful last year, but to their credit, they were extremely aggressive in upgrading this group." Nice to see some of my wacky statistical research having relevance in the real world, especially after what I did earlier this week.

* How good are the Twins playing this year? Not that well, apparently, if they could make an out on a 4-2 count. Whoops.

* Remember when SI.com's Dr. Z predicted that the Vikings would win the Super Bowl? Seems that a few people disagree with his opinion. One person points out that, considering their deficiencies both with and against the pass, they would be better off playing outdoors. Might be true, but here's one stat to get you thinking about the potential good times ahead:

Jared Allen on grass: 33.0 sacks in 53 games (0.62 per game)

Jared Allen on turf: 10.0 sacks in 7 games (1.43 per game)

I'll stop drooling now.