Plus a bonus Thanksgiving Whopper

 "St. Louis is closer to Minneapolis than Milwaukee is."

—Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, arguing that the Milwaukee Brewers, in whom Selig maintains a financial interest currently placed in a trust, would not benefit financially from Major League Baseball's contemplated elimination of the Minnesota Twins. Quoted by Don Walker in the Nov. 14 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"Distance between Saint Louis, Missouri, United States and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, as the crow flies: 464 miles."

—Worldwide " distance calculator" from Bali and Indonesia on the Net.

"Distance between Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, as the crow flies: 295 miles."

—Ibid.

Note: Derek Zumsteg's Nov. 19  "The Week in Quotes" column in BaseballProspectus.com, from which this item is derived, puts the distance between St. Louis and Minneapolis at "a little more than 600 miles" and the distance between Milwaukee and Minneapolis at "a little more than 300 miles." Chatterbox assumes Zumsteg calculated by road mileage.

Special Thanksgiving Weekend Bonus Whopper: Peter Bart

"Over several months he will volunteer that he has never once dated a Jewish girl, never attended a seder, and has been inside a synagogue only once, for the bar mitzvah of then-agent Michael Ovitz's son. ('I wanted to see what one was like.')"

—Amy Wallace's profile of Variety Editor in Chief Peter Bart in the September Los Angeles Magazine. Wallace's article was also the basis of this earlier Whopper.