Don't mess with Texas

Don't let it be said that Texans don't know how to hold a grudge. While many of the nation's newspapers have moved on from the Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal feeding frenzy, Texas has been vocal throughout the week.

For anyone not using the Sports Overdose Grid for their sport of choice, may God have mercy on your soul, but more to the immediate point, the Rangers team box has four of the top five links headed to stories or columns ripping Rodriguez tonight.

My favorite is the devil's advocate piece filed by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Gil Lebreton. In it, he questions why Rodriguez would be assumed innocent as he paints the Ranger clubhouse as a den of inequity.

More than that, why would he stop using when he was traded to one of MLB's flagship franchises? There are several good points in play here.

For all of his considerable on-field talents, Rodriguez arrived in Texas as not only the richest man in baseball, but perhaps its most insecure. It doesn’t make sense that he would be traded to a storied franchise such as the New York Yankees and suddenly no longer be engulfed by his unremitting need to please.

Nor am I buying A-Roid’s implication that steroids weren’t tempting until he came to the Rangers. What was he trying to say? That Pudge or Palmeiro made him do it?

How do we know that Rodriguez himself isn’t the one who "introduced" steroids to that Rangers clubhouse? That suggestion isn’t any more unfair than the ones that A-Roid was tossing out.

He goes on to point an accusing finger at superagent Scott Boras as a common thread in those who have turned up dirty in steroid investigations.

While people are compiling a Hall of Shame for the Rangers franchise, therefore, let’s go down another list, one that includes Kevin Brown, Rick Ankiel, Scott Schoeneweis, Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield.

All, at one time or another, have been Boras clients. All have been mentioned in connection with the Mitchell Report.

Just a coincidence, probably. But Boras has always prided himself on being a full-service agency, one that takes interest in all of his clients’ needs, including the athletes’ conditioning.

Good points, but what's the over/under on the lawsuit from Boras' office for slander? I say lunch on Thursday.

(Image from: AskMen.com)

Cubs no longer "got wood"

Not quite a year after I wrote this, the Kerry Wood era has ended in Chicago. Well, on the North Side, at least. There's no telling what Kenny Williams will do next after trading last year's big signing. (More on that later.)

This morning, the Cubs made a move for Florida's Kevin Gregg for a minor leaguer and parted ways with Wood just after lunchtime. Presumably, this means Carlos Marmol becomes the closer and that Gregg becomes the setup man who can move to a closer role if Marmol stumbles.

All of this means that Wood will be pitching somewhere else next season.

While my man-love of Wood (wait, that sounds bad...) is well-documented here, he leaves on a high note after returning from his endless trip to the DL, an All-Star selection and finishing fourth in saves for National League pitchers last year.

"We’re just in a situation, as Kerry fully understands, that that length of deal, for the kind of salary he’d command right now, is not our first priority. We certainly have to finish our rotation, we have offensive situations to address, and by having the prominence that (Carlos) Marmol now brings to the table, it certainly doesn’t come before the other needs we have. We felt it was time Kerry goes out and does what’s best for him and his family, and gets a huge multi-year deal if possible."

On the South Side, the White Sox traded away Nick Swisher, the switch-hitting fountain of awesome that GM Kenny Williams had to have last year.

Wait, make that - Had. To. Have. (Last year.)

To the point that he pried him from Oakland for the most promising part of the Chicago farm system. Yeah, that guy? He's gone now.

The Yankees swapped Wilson Betemit and minor league pitchers Jeff Marquez and Jhonny Nunez in exchange for Swisher and minor league pitcher Kanekoa Texeira.

(And what's up with another Jhonny in the majors? I thought Peralta was the only one ever. Now we have two in baseball?)

I think that the Swisher experiment - which according to the sidebar on ESPN says that he had the lowest batting average of any player with a qualifying number of at bats (502... uh why is that the number?) - is the equivalent of losing your shirt while flipping a house.

You bought the house because you could, but never really kept it long enough to turn any sort of profit.

Note: While I don't share the sentiment on Wood's long-term prospects as the answer to the closer problem for the Cubs put forth by Steve Rosenbloom, I do share this view:

I’ll miss the guy. I’ll miss his story. I’ll miss the big sound of Wrigley when he entered a game and the bigger one when he ended it.

(Image taken for Siberian Baseball)

Last night for Yankee Stadium

The Yankees just tied the Orioles in the last game at Yankee Stadium - it's finally safe to say that the Bronx Bombers won't be hosting any games in October - and ESPN is trotting out the old guard to try and wrap things up in a neat little bow.

While there will certainly be a flood of short stories, poems and nostalgia pieces in the nation's magazines about what the stadium meant to everyone involved that may never end, it's hard to chalk it all up as hyperbole. After all, it is Yankee Stadium.

Other notes:

* This is a big chance for the New York media to try and bully the rest of the country into admitting that Yankee Stadium is the best stadium ever and that no others will ever come close. I'm going on record now to say that to dismiss Wrigley and Fenway out of hand like that is just plain stupid.

* I'm taking a degree of pleasure in noticing that two of the key pieces to the 2004 Red Sox championship team are having an impact on this game - Johnny Damon to give the lead to the Yankees and Kevin Millar to score the tying run - and that most of the stories I've read take time to warn fans that anyone trying to steal souvenirs will be beaten and have their birthdays taken away.

* I may be cynical, but I bet MLB's cut gets smaller if the market is flooded with memorabilia fans took themselves.

* ESPN is still trying to figure out the whole Internet thing tonight, where they don't even have the good sense that God gave lowly bloggers when it comes to live posting. Every few lines on the virtual guestbook reads "Text deleted," which I can only assume is from people jumping on to trash the Yankees or the stadium.

That means some poor intern is tasked with manually deleting such poetry as, "My favorite memory was last year in the locker room when Derek Jeter dropped the soap and A-Rod plugged his anus (with his I LOVE ESPN if you didn't know). I heard Derek now uses liquid soap because it's harder to pick up. That was the only scoring they did that year. Go Yankees."

Thank you, bw71864. Stay classy.

*As a Red Sox fan, I feel like I'm in that scene in Forrest Gump when Forrest bought the home she grew up in and knocked it to the ground. So many wonderful memories to choose from.

* So, did MLB choose the Orioles instead of the Red Sox for the last game the same way that high schools pick the crappiest teams they can find for homecoming games?

* For what it's worth - and this is where things border on sour grapes - the evening is shaping up to be the archetypical Yankee experience for all those who aren't Yankee fans. It boils down to the Yankees and their beat writers telling everyone else why every other franchise and ballpark pale in comparison to the empire that is New York. It's pretty tiresome.

Yes, the Yankees have a long history. Yes, it's been a very successful history. Yes, great players have played at Yankee Stadium, many of them in pinstripes.

They also have a solid head start on most franchises in terms of pure mileage. Give the Twins or Rangers another 50 years and I'm sure they can fill a park full of monuments as well.

It's one thing to show pride in your team. It's quite another to consistently do that by constantly pointing out how other teams fail to measure up to the Yankee standard.

* I think one of the things I'll miss most about Yankee Stadium is that it represents an era where baseball was the only game in town before the NFL assumed its position as alpha dog. I read books on the days of the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees all competing for attention in New York and the stadium was a big part of that.

It's hard not to have the images of Yankee Stadium come to mind when someone mentions baseball in the 1920s and 30s.

Some fans might not like it - a friend just e-mailed to ask if we can keep the stadium and blow up the team - but Yankee Stadium is a hallmark of our shared history, both baseball and otherwise.

Give me five years - I just might miss it.

(Image from: REUTERS)

Pudge to fill in for injured Posada

It's the big story at the trading deadline outside of the Manny Ramirez "will he, won't he" saga, but Ivan Rodriguez has been traded for Kyle Farnsworth.

Straight up one for one deal. The same kind of deal that would be questioned if it happened in my fantasy league (/Simmons). Commissioner Frankie is quick on the draw for those types of shenanigans.

From MLB.com:

Farnsworth, 32, was having his best season of his three with the Yankees, pitching to a 3.65 ERA in 45 appearances. He struggled in a setup role his first two seasons after joining the Yankees as a free agent before the 2006 season.

Farnsworth pitched for Detroit in '05, registering six saves before being traded to Atlanta at the July 31 Trade Deadline. He was emotional as he discussed the deal, briefly breaking down in tears as he spoke to reporters.

"Nothing surprises me in this game, but it's one of those things you can't really put your finger on," Farnsworth said, his lower lip trembling.

Girardi said that saying goodbye to Farnsworth -- a former batterymate and a pitcher for who he had lobbied all season long -- was especially difficult.

It strikes me as a little strange that MLB is saying that the Tigers are the ones who initiated this trade. For Farnsworth.

This leaves Brandon Inge as the only one on the Tigers' depth chart as a catcher - and he's listed as a 3B on his bio page, but has 24 games this season under his belt after starting his career behind the plate - which should change tomorrow morning, right?

The bigger question has to be whether or not this is a white flag for the Tigers.

(Image from: Flickr User BostonWolverine - hey I dig that kind of juxtaposition!)

It's not like they're the Steel Curtain

There's an old story about the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s that says in their heyday there were so many players on the defensive team on the Pro Bowl roster that they began calling their own plays on the field and confusing the handful of guys from the other teams.

It was just easier - and probably made for a better story - to call out the plays from the Pittsburgh playbook and let the non-Steelers fend for themselves instead of trying to play off of the same shortened page in the Pro Bowl.

I'm seeing elements of this as the All-Star balloting comes to a close shortly and players from the teams with huge fanbases are in the top three of each position, regardless of ability or this season's performance.

Primarily, I'm looking at the Cubs and how many are primed for a trip to New York. This shouldn't surprise me much anymore, because aside from being shocked that my e-mail client's spam filters let a message through imploring me that, "Kosuke needs your help!" without immediately dumping it to protect me from Japanese pornography, the rest of the experience is a carbon copy of what is becoming a yearly rant.

When the ESPN broadcast ran the graphic with current vote leaders on Sunday night, it was a little disappointing to see the screen awash in Cubbie blue, Red Sox red and the pinstripes of the Yankees.

Not that players who are having great seasons shouldn't be included, but once again, it seems that muscle memory and fan amnesia are helping to steer the ship.

In the National League, the Cubs are churning out votes with three players scheduled to start - Geovany Soto, Alfonso Soriano and Fukudome - if the voting ended today. This is despite Soriano's injuries which have kept him out of the Cubs lineup for long stretches this season.

Mark DeRosa and Aramis Ramirez are second in the voting, despite DeRosa not having a set position on the team, while Derek Lee and Ryan Theriot are in third place in their races.

For those scoring at home, every position has a Cubs player in the top three vote-getters. They're a good team through the first half of the season - last weekend at The Cell not withstanding - but they're not that good.

The American League is even worse. With the exception of Joe Mauer who just overtook Jason Varitek in the race to backstop the AL All-Stars, every leading vote-getter is a member of the Yankees or Red Sox (in most cases the top two are the New York/Boston connection).

Want proof that fans are voting a straight ticket for their team? There's no way that over 600,000 people truly believe Julio Lugo is the best shortstop in the AL.

The biggest oversight to fix is the omission of Carlos Quentin, who isn't among the top 15 in AL outfielders - despite the inclusion of Johnny Damon, Coco Crisp and Bobby Abreu - even though he's been the sparkplug for the White Sox in the first half.

While it's generally accepted that the whole exercise is just a way to make the fans feel involved and is nothing more than a popularity contest, it was nice to see Josh Hamilton make the cut after his hot start. Still, I think MLB could streamline the whole process by assigning votes like the government does in assigning members of the House of Representatives.

Teams with the largest fan bases as determined by merchandise sales and home attendance would receive the most votes for their players, while teams with small pockets of fans would receive the least.

Just think of all the time and energy we'd save not counting votes that would give us identical results.

(Image from: MLB.com)

A true subway series

In addition to the regional rivalries gearing up again this weekend - including Cubs/Sox on the heels of a sweep at Wrigley last weekend - New York will see a relative rarity today between the Mets and Yankees.

After playing the afternoon game at Yankee Stadium, the teams will head to Shea for the nightcap.

This marks the third time in Major League history that the teams will do this, providing a scheduling quirk for fans of both teams to enjoy. Aside from Chicago and the Bay Area, this is a tough schedule to swing in a single day.

If nothing else, this serves as the warning prior to tomorrow morning's SportsCenter - those tired of New York coverage on the national baseball beat might want to sleep in Saturday.

A-Rod ready if Jeter stays hurt

With Derek Jeter out of the lineup with a quad injury, the Yankees aren't opposed to sliding Alex Rodriguez over to fill the gap and dropping a backup in at third.

I'm positive that there are numbers available to quantify having talent at third versus short, but is it so great that the Yanks have no choice but to move Rodriguez, throw him out of whack and possibly provoke Jeter?

It's all well and good to come up with a solid contingency plan, but was it the best decision to admit to entertaining that idea? Worse yet, why would you disclose that to the media?

With the waves finally settling out between the two stars, it's probably best to treat them like two older dogs at feeding time - keep them at a respectful distance and pray you don't start a turf war over something stupid.

(Image from: nytimes.com)

This warms my heart

First, they signed Kyle Farnsworth.

Now, they go out and do this.

I swear the Yankees are trying to win me over. And they're getting very, very close to achieving that goal.

There was something very satisfying about seeing Farnsworth enter a game at the Metrodome and being able to turn to the other fans and say confidently, "Oh man, watch this."

Twenty minutes later, the carnage was cleared off the field and I looked like a complete genius.

It made for a good night.

(Image from MLB.com)

Holding patterns

The big news in actual baseball this week - that would be dealings that take place outside of the courtroom - seemingly all came out of New York.

* Alex Rodriguez will likely stay a Yankee. For the next decade.

* Mariano Rivera is also opting to keep his pinstripes. For a significantly shorter period of time.

* Paul Lo Duca was never given an offer from the Mets. He's deeply hurt on a personal level because of this.

* Yorvit Torrealba won't need to apply for Empire State license plates just yet.

It really makes you buy into the whole East Coast bias conspiracy theory, doesn't it?

Despite all of the NYCentric developments, the impact felt by the moves and non-moves made by the ripples are being felt in the Windy City, especially on the city's South Side.

Case in point are the rumors that have died to a whisper of a possible Johnny Damon to the White Sox deal that would get Joe Crede out of the way for Josh Fields at third. With Rodriguez now apparently set to spend the next 10 years in the Bronx, the White Sox need to find other possible suitors for Crede, who returns from back problems.

Cribbing heavily from Bugs & Cranks, the top two teams in the mix should be the Red Sox and the Phillies. With the possibility of Mike Lowell letting the Red Sox off the hook and excusing himself from a contract in Boston, that would leave room at Fenway for Crede, while the Red Sox have enough young talent to keep Chicago interested.

No word on whether or not Coco Crisp would be a throw-in to balance the karma of Lowell's addition with the Josh Beckett trade. The White Sox would be rolling to their second World Series next year before you know it.

I'd also be interested in knowing what Florida is thinking here, with rumors that Miguel Cabrera is on the move - cash concerns not withstanding. That team seems to fit the same bill for cheap, young talent and a hole at third.

The wait to see what the Yankees and Mets will do seems strange as noise on the free agent front has been limited to the Cubs trading for Omar Infante and shipping Jacque Jones to Detroit and Craig Monroe to Minnesota for a player to be named later.

Seems they're making amends for the outfielder-friendly spree they engaged in this summer.

The Cubs, too, are seemingly locked up waiting to see who keeps and who trades in their Yankee pinstripes, as they were players in the Rivera sweepstakes in lieu of their closer-by-committee for 2008.

Wake the rest of us up when you're done New York - we'll fight over the leftovers here in flyover country.

(Image from Brooks.MLBlogs.com)

Peter Gammons will not receive a Christmas card from A-Rod

Tell us how you really feel, Pete.

In the middle of coverage last night - and possibly this morning, I'm still checking back on this morning's broadcast - Peter Gammons was brought in to answer a few questions about Alex Rodriguez and where he'd end up next season.

After a few seconds that boiled down to "we'll have to wait and see," Gammons ripped Rodriguez for the rest of the segment.

Said Gammons:

What's unfortunate here is the total disrespect for the game of baseball. This is the World Series, Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester are doing something Alex has never done - play in a World Series game - and to want the attention on this day is kind of a sad commentary and might be a little bit of a buyer beware because, again, he's never played in a World Series game. Maybe there's a reason.

I'm guessing that Gammons would be less than impressed with A-Rod in a Sox uniform.

Update:

Here's the video courtesy of ESPN.com which I found via The Buried Lead on a Ballhype.com board. Wow, that was a long path for 30 seconds of video.


(Image from: MSN.com)

It's a bad night in the Bronx

I can just sit here and shake my head as the Red Sox lead 4-1 (now 4-3 by the time I'm ready to post) in the bottom of the eighth inning as it appears that Fox is trying its best to start a riot in New York City tonight.

If broadcasting the World Series with Boston up 3-0 heading into the fourth game wasn't bad enough, they've taken a little too much pleasure in announcing the apparent departure of Alex Rodriguez as well as rattling off the list of players who are free agents this year.

Sports Illustrated is reporting:

The Angels, Dodgers, Giants, Cubs, Red Sox and Mets would appear to be the most logical pursuers of A-Rod. Although, the Mets would have to move at least one star player to accommodate A-Rod, who wanted to go there back in 2000 before Texas blew him away with their bid.

Can we add another iron into the fire by making sure everyone remembers that Rodriguez was originally a shortstop?

Also of note is the New York Daily News reporting that Joe Girardi is the frontrunner for the vacant position in the Yankee dugout, just days after stories that he was a goner for the manager's job.

All of this is just a little added flavor for Red Sox Nation which is taking this year's trip through the playoffs more calmly than the 2004 campaign. It's amazing what two trips to the World Series can do for a fan base, no?

I'll have to admit that this time around isn't quite as much fun as 2004 and I can't quite place why. I'd be lying if I didn't think that there's a greed factor involved - I've already let thoughts of a Series win in Fenway creep into my assessment of tonight's back and forth game.

I'm still contemplating something that Danny said last weekend - essentially that the Red Sox are the new Yankees. He's right and I think I first heard the sentiment for Red Sox blogs, but that doesn't make it any easier to process.

It's been hard to ignore the fact that Boston isn't the underdog this year and that there are thousands of young Rockies fans who are cursing the Red Sox and everything they stand for now, forging a hatred that will cause conflicts for years to come.

The biggest upside to the whole situation is that watching Fox try to pimp this series and Colorado's Cinderella season has provided quite a bit of entertainment for me this week. I'm pretty sure Joe Buck is about to start crying any minute from the stress.

(Image from: NYDailyNews.com)

Canada shows A-Rod the love

Fresh off the Ballhype wires is a story from Toronto, where the team was apologizing to the Yankees for a ballpark stunt gone digitally awry.

Between innings, the team plays video of a video game played between two random fans, where they were throwing at Alex Rodriguez's head, eventually beaning the Yankee star.

Joe Torre wasn't amused and the Jays have promised to police the game a bit better in the future.

Call me crazy, but if this is what gets Blue Jay fans through the end of a tough season, just let them be. For that kind of money, he can take a virtual beanball every now and again.

Besides, the worst slam of the evening reportedly came from a sign posted by fans over the out of town scoreboard that said simply, "A-Rod: We hate you."

And they're Canadian - they like everybody. They're the Mikey of international politics.

(Image from the Associated Press)

That Vinnie Delpino, what a foulmouthed scamp

I'd know that voice anywhere.

"Ball on ham," it said, further damning Mickey Rivers for placing his junk on the post game deli spread in The Bronx is Burning.

While Thurmon Munson brought Rivers up on charges in kangaroo court for allegations that his private parts touched the ham, Max Casella as Dick Howser offered what might be a great name for a fantasy baseball team next year.

Ball. On. Ham.

And since I can't give you video of this - well, right now until TiVo gets hip to Vista - I'll share this instead. I agree wholeheartedly.

I think there should be some new twists. Like the part where Joe DiMaggio comes back. Or, where it turns out that Munson was a ghost... all... along...

What a twist!

( I've updated with a new screen capture of Vinnie, all grown up.)

Good point

In the mix with the trade deadline chatter is this piece by Bugs & Cranks, a fan favorite here at Siberian Baseball.

It poses the intriguing question, "Will the Yankees and Red Sox ever trade players again?"

I tend to agree with their analysis which boils down to, "Sure, just as soon as my dog re-grows his balls."

According to the post:

Before the Mike Stanley trade in 1997, the Red Sox and Yankees last traded in 1986, when Boston acquired Don Baylor for Mike Easler - a swap of DHs. Before that, the two teams had gone 14 years without trading - the infamous Sparky Lyle for Danny Cater trade in 1972. So, in the last 35 years, the two teams have made 3 trades, or roughly one every 12 years. Even the United States and Cuba trade more frequently than that.

So, while crosstown rivals like the Cubs and White Sox will continue to offer and accept bizarre trades and swap players back and forth, the Yanks and Sox will most likely take the same road as other intra-division rivals and just let each other go to voice mail.

I'm fighting a case of the giggles right now, with images of Brian Cashman at a dinner party, when his phone rings, a friend asks if he needs to take the call and he shakes his head and puts his phone back in his pocket and says simply, "No, it's just Epstein again... You were saying?"

(Image from MLB.com)

... And Shooter McGavin as the Yankee Clipper

Following a link off of another site today for the upcoming ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning - don't worry, I haven't seen any advertising for it yet either, but I'm willing to bet that ESPN will more than remedy that in the next four days - I stumbled across something wonderful.

In addition to having Oliver Platt playing who I assume to be Steinbrenner from the official site's cover art, I kept scolling down to see who'd be playing the leads as the 1977 Yankees, I kept needing to click to see who was who.

Needless to say, I stopped when I saw Joe DiMaggio being played by Christoper McDonald, the handsome gentleman pictured to the right and best known as Shooter McGavin.

Having played Mel Allen in 61* - and doing a god job there - I can't see why this won't work, especially playing an aging Joe D. I mean, it's not like they need McDonald to play center while the camera rolls or anything.

Still, I'll be sitting and waiting for that turning point in the season when DiMaggio called Billy Martin (as played by John Turturro) to gather the team together before a tough series in July. It was there, gathered under the seats of Yankee Stadium, where he looked every man on the team in the eye and told them, "I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast."

(Image from: MovieVillains.com)

I know you're all sick of Yanks/Sox, bear with me

As much as I hate to admit it, there were better games that could be on ESPN tonight in the place of the Yankees/Red Sox game. For the record, yes I'm getting tired of the Worldwide Leader's decision to air any and all games between the two teams - burning fans out on the teams and their rivalry can't be any good for baseball and it can actually hurt ratings in the fall.

Piling on to the situation is the unending coverage of Alex Rodriguez being stalked by the media in Toronto as he made the rounds with a woman who wasn't his wife - a situation that I think is really out of bounds.

Say what you will about the old media being too chummy with ballplayers, obliterating the lines of journalistic integrity - teams used to foot the bill for reporters to travel on the road with the team and held sway over who each paper chose to cover the games - but there was a strong sense of what happened on the field and the personal lives of players.

I'm reading a Joe DiMaggio biography right now and there have been more than a few references to DiMaggio going in and out of cathouses both in and out of season. I can't imagine the kind of firestorm this would set off today. Whether it was politicians or athletes, there were plenty of things that were seen but not reported and I don't think that's such a bad thing.

Much has been made of social columnists covering the Rodriguez story and not being forced to be around the players and I think that there's a solid point there. While I don't condone what he's being accused of, I don't think it's the media's place to out Rodriguez on the front page.

Maybe I'm a little too old school like that.

* So, how are you enjoying suspension Sunday? Lou Piniella is out until MLB tells him he can come back and play nice after a problem with an ump bump and there were a few other guys getting run as well. None had as much fun as the Mississippi Braves manager did on his way out, though.

That's because it's impossible to have that much fun.

Michael Barrett will not be catching for Carlos Zambrano until those two can settle their differences and will likely be disciplined by the Cubs.

Anyone care to place odds on Gary Sheffield getting a call from Bud Selig's office for his comments to GQ?

* Roger Clemens is running a little late in his return to the Yankees and Barry Bonds is stalling a bit in his chase for Hank Aaron... Awesome, now what will ESPN cover for 35 minutes on SportsCenter? Oh, right... Clemens' injury and Bonds' chase and why neither is going as quickly as planned.

* It's weird to have Milwaukee ahead in the standings - though it happened last year as well - but their recent skid (4-6 in the last 10 games) hasn't done them any damage in the incredibly weak NL Central.

It's a rich get richer situation in most divisions, with the exception of the Diamondbacks who have rattled off a 9-1 streak to catch up for a three-way tie with Los Angeles and San Diego.

Man, the NL West is weird.

In the AL Central, the Indians have cooled a bit and everyone except for the Royals are within 7.5 games of them. More on the Twins mid-week, but they're showing signs of life. Not many, but two signs are technically plural and count as "signs" of life.

* And because he's fine I can say this: Hey Doug, karma sucks. Guess you should have given the ball back after the World Series, huh? Sorry about your sprained cervix.

This is the long, petty way around to pointing out that the Yankees first base problems are only beginning. With the first- and second-string first basemen out for a while, it's been pretty brutal to watch the stiffs New York is trotting out there.

Expect more than a few problems with position play there this week.

(OK, I feel better now - just saw this from With Leather.)
(Image from Boston.com)

Interleague Edition - Does Chipper have a point?

So, Chipper Jones was thinking out loud at the end of the week, where he complained pretty openly about having to face the Red Sox as the Braves' official interleague "rival."

While other teams gets to face perpetual patsies, the Braves are forced to play Boston, as neither team has a local AL team to square off against. Granted, the Mets draw the Yankees, but I think his point rested more with the Marlins/Devil Rays and Nationals/Orioles games this weekend.

For as much fun as Cubs/White Sox, Giants/A's and Mets/Yankees are, you also have Rockies/Royals, Padres/Mariners and Phillies/Blue Jays which don't have much inherent venom.

Whether it's the scope of the rivalry - or lack thereof - or the talent levels involved, I think Jones has at least a respectable point.

No matter how awful the Cubs are, the Sox aren't guaranteed a victory when the teams meet up, where there can be problems involved even when the Northsiders are in a tailspin. Compare that with a team like the Twins who see the Brewers or other match ups that can be pretty useless on paper.

I think on the whole, most of these matchups meet somewhere in the middle, with the averages working themselves out over the course of five or more seasons, but in the hot years when teams like the Yanks or Red Sox are steamrolling ahead, I can see where the frustration can set in.

Honestly, it seems like most of the perpetual cellar dwellers have more regional rivalries, where the impact isn't as great. Still, it makes things a little trickier for MLB to defend with this set of games, where the competition is unequal and division teams aren't facing the same opponents.

Overal, though, I think interleague is good for baseball as it hangs some real numbers on these games and helps to stoke casual fan interest. Well, unless you're in Colorado or Kansas City.

* The Twins were on pace to sweep the Brewers this afternoon - Milwaukee has since tied the game through the sixth inning - which should help slow the bleeding for Minnesota's fans. It's been strange to hear the talk radio callers demanding trades, asking for rash AAA call-ups and dusting off the "Get Joe Mauer out from behind the plate" bandwagon.

I've been impressed by the front office response on the whole, with GM Terry Ryan owning up to the team's poor performance, allowing that they've had hitting and pitching, just not enough and not when they needed it, but also criticizing bad fielding and poor baserunning decisions.

Through all of it, I seem to be one of the only people who questions why returning Rondell White, Lew Ford and other secondary players is being seen as the cure for the team's ills.

They lack a solid rotation - as they have since the off-season - and have streaky batters, with career years in 2006 from players like Nick Punto being seen as breakthrough seasons and not statistical flukes.

While Twins fans only have to look back as far as last year to see a shaky start that eventually grew into a postseason visit, I doubt such a turn-around is possible two years in a row. Eventually, the Twins might have to pay to field a competitive team.

In the meantime, we'll wait out the calls to trade Johan Santana to try and shore up the team with younger ballplayers.

* Worth watching as the Yankees prepare to shake things up is a rumor that they might try to void Jason Giambi's deal if he comes out and admits he took performance-enhancing substances before he signed with New York.

Despite the drama, Giambi being cut loose would have to earn him some serious attention in the AL.

* ESPN is also reporting that Kerry Wood will test out his arm Monday. Expect news of a season-ending trip to the DL on Wednesday or early Thursday.

The strange thing is that for as much ink as Wood and Mark Prior have picked up, Fox ran stats during the game Saturday that compared the numbers for that duo and for their replacements - Jason marquis and Ted Lily - that showed the new arms aren't that different from the Wonder Twins' 2003 numbers to this point.

Interesting.

(Image from TaipeiTimes.com)

Do you even like baseball, guys?

Last names are tricky.

I had an editor who used to go line by line through every name on the agate we'd crank out on a nightly basis looking for mistakes and jokingly calling himself "The Hawk" when he'd catch one.

"McDougal or MacDuggle?" he'd ask. "There was a MacDuggle a few years ago who played for Southern Door - is this a brother or a sister?" If we really dug in our heels, he'd toss us a phone book and tell us to prove it.

We were wrong more often than not.

We thought he was trying to be a dick. He was really teaching us how to do a better job, make better connections and learn that a solid quarterback from 5 years ago might have an equally talented younger brother or sister in the wings.

I always silently suspected that as a prep athlete, his off-kilter last name (Harty not Hardy) might have played a role in this as well. Nothing sucks like doing a great job, clipping the box score and seeing your name spelled wrong.

Even on the high school level, it became our responsibility to get the names right, and while I will never claim to be perfect here, I do make an effort and will check and re-check names I don't know very well.

I guess that's why I'm frustrated when PA announcers and radio and TV personalities get things wrong so often. The Red Sox broadcast team just referenced Andre "Ether" and not Ethier and catching the post-mortem on the Twins/Tigers series had a walk-off homer from Brandon Inge, which was masacred beyond belief (Inguh? Ingey?).

I'm not asking for much, and the media guides even have phoenetic spellings of the names, but anyone who has in interest in baseball knows those two names of hundreds in the majors. Would it kill guys to watch a few games in their downtime?

* Jonathon Papelbon has blown the save and is struggling to get out of the ninth in Boston tonight. Wow, that's weird.

He's just not locating his pitches well and hung a fastball for a two-run homer to tie the game. I can't imagine the speculation on the Sons of Sam Horn board... no wait, I can.

* Elsewhere in the East, Phil Hughes is no-hitting the Rangers (see a pattern here, anyone?) and will have a huge rush on the fantasy boards starting now and continuing through tomorrow afternoon.

There are worse guys to pick up than Yankee rookies, but I always get frustrated at premature runs made on guys in their first games.

* As much as Frankie likes to joke that the baseball season hasn't really begun until Kerry Wood or Mark Prior have hit the DL or are gone for the year, I argue the season really doesn't warm up until Roger Clemens begins his annual auction.

He's begun his annual auction.

* Watching the Brewers this weekend made me realize that last year it was the Brewers and Tigers off to hot starts and I stupidly called them both out as pretenders. There's something to be said for being half right.

Currently, the Brewers are 16-9 and 7-3 in the past 10 games in the upside-down Central Division (Brewers, Pirates, Reds, Cubs, Astros, Cardinals in order).

They are holding strong in the top third in average, OBP, ERA and earned runs. Not running away with anything, but seeing more pitching than they had before. With the young bats and the emergence of a viable pitching staff, it's been surprising, but justifies the preseason hype the team attracted.

(Photo from MLB.com)

I'll pay you later - the IOU post on the weekly wrap

With Deadspin.com openly pulling for a back-to-back no-hitter situation for Mark Buehrle, I'll go ahead and ask it - is that a preemptive jinx or something?

I mean, if you can talk about one as it's happening, it has to be bad mojo to talk about one before the game even starts, right? Still, if you're a White Sox fan and you're secretly hoping for this to happen, you have to like seeing Kansas City on the schedule, huh?

Buehrle takes the ball Monday night in Kansas City.

* The Red Sox went back-to-back twice against some poor rookie for the Yankees tonight and while the ESPN crew went on and on about the historical significance, it's pretty easy to see why a shell-shocked pitcher is rarely put in a position to equal that dubious feat.

Usually, you let in two homers and you're getting pulled. Four is just cruel. Plus, by adding in the waiting factor as you swap pitchers, etc. it kills the momentum, but hey, it was fun while it lasted. It couldn't have happened to a nicer team.

* The talk radio in the Twin Cities is officially questioning Joe Nathan's spot as closer for the Twins, citing late-inning trouble he's gotten into (and usually out of) since the beginning of the season.

Imagine that - a man with newborn twins at home is having a hard time at work. I can only imagine what the problem might be... Perhaps the coaching staff should allow the poor guy to cat nap in the clubhouse during the games and they can wake him in the seventh inning if the game is close or something.

* Just a quick programming note that I'll be at Twins games Monday and Tuesday night, so I plan to post after those if anything exciting happens. Like a walk off grand slam like in Los Angeles Saturday night. Because that was pretty rad.

Wild Thing

The first thing I thought of when I saw Kyle Farnsworth's new J-Lo glasses was, "What a pretty, pretty princess!"

Well, that was second after the usual, "Farnsworth? Fucking Fransworth!" from several years of residual Cub bitterness.

I was honestly worried that the whole solution to his control problems would come from the addition of vision and we'd all have to listen to Wild Thing Ricky Vaughn references as he tore through the AL this year and took Mo Rivera's job.

Then he got rocked for four runs faster than I can eat four White Castle burgers. When the dust had cleared, Farnsworth pitched a third of an inning, four runs, all four earned, a walk and a strikeout.

I should have known better than to worry.

Side note: This post was echoed almost a year to the day ago, with Farnsworth melting down in Minneapolis and the Yankees losing 5-1 on April 17, 2006. Weird...

(Image from Fox Sports Network)