Blog Posts For Tag: Yankees

Everybody knew that the intensity of the MLB after the All Star game would quickly separate the real contenders from the handful of clubs that were going to receive participation trophies at best. It was what happened that has been such a surprise to those of us who do not make a living sitting down, reading all the stats, studying every box score, and enabling a Google alert for every MLB transaction.

After Mark Buerhle became just the 18th player to throw a perfect game I began to wonder if that feat would make him a lock for the Hall of Fame. After setting the record for consecutive outs on Tuesday at 45 I asked myself the same thing. Now I am wondering who else among his peers is going to be considered in the Hall of Fame debate.

His peers do not include guys like Randy Johnson, but pitchers around the age of 30, let’s say between the ages of 28 and 32. These guys have had enough experience to dismiss any fluke seasons and have come up in the age of the 100-pitch limit, as noted by ESPN columnist Tim Kurkjian. These are the guys that are going to be competing for votes on the same Hall of Fame ballots in a decade or so.

This team has the third best batting average in the league. This team has the second best on base percentage and slugging percentage in the league. This team has scored the most runs and has stolen the most bases in the league. This team averages more than a run more than their opponents. This team is leading the division with an absurd win-loss record, right? Wrong. This team is hovering around .500 and is in fourth place in the American League East. This is team is the Tampa Bay Rays.

A third of the MLB season has passed and the early season surprises have subsided. The Toronto Blue Jays unceremoniously fell from first place in the AL East after losing nine straight in the final two weeks of May. The Pittsburgh Pirates pitching staff, other than Zack Duke, fell apart and the general manager quickly disappointed fans by trading Nate McLouth, firmly reestablishing the keen sense of doubt and depression at PNC Park. Plenty more inflated individual stats on every team deflated as the law of averages finally won again. Still, some surprises have remained, lingering, threatening to go from an early season trend to one of the dominant storylines of the year.

A few months ago if you asked me who was the best third baseman in New York I would have to begrudgingly give A-Rod the honor. He was an offensive force that successfully made the transition from shortstop to the corner.

Monday morning Chicago sports fan went that extra mile to prove that the fair city deserved the first local ESPN page, ESPN Chicago. According to the Chicago Tribune, disturbingly motivated fans placed a severed goat head outside of Wrigley Field in what can safely be hypothesized to be an attempt to end the Curse of the Billy Goat.

Baseball is a wonderful sport for a few reasons. The first is that the game is played at a leisurely pace. Many people may hate this, but how many people would like to run several miles a day in 90 degree weather that is oftentimes humid in constricting cotton uniforms with optimal body coverage. My simple sense of humanitarianism would make feel guilty while I tried to enjoy my gloriously cold beer in the bleachers while watching a man literally kill himself on the field below me. The second is that it is a game nerds and geeks love for the simple fact that it is a game where the law of averages reigns supreme. These laws lead to certain results that cannot be denied. So, the question is: what certainties do we have to look forward to this season?

Sometimes it seems like every aspect of our culture rewards greedy brats. I think that trying to teach children to be respectful adults might actually be a detriment to their adult lives. We bail out a banking industry with billions after that cost millions their retirement portfolio. We offer reality shows to rich kids who do absolutely nothing and put them on covers of magazines. We even reward players who act ridiculously with multi-millionaire contracts.

Last weekend my spirit died a little bit as I caved and took my girlfriend to see He’s Just Not That Into You. Here’s the plot summary. The first two acts tell girls that they trick themselves into believing that every man they meet likes them, and then the third act betrays the first two as every female character becomes the exception to the rule.

Gaggles of teenage girls and desperate women were squealing toward the end and I had the urge to jab my plastic straw through my ocular cavity to damage enough of my brain to forget the gruesome two hours I had just witnessed. The only thing I could do was to try and apply the rules from the first two acts of the movie to the sports universe.

It is times like these when the average person is thrust into a life of hardship and they are wading waist deep in corruption that Americans try and return to the simple things in life. Baseball used to be one of those things, but the league is trying America’s patience.

Alex Rodriguez started as the young superstar A-Rod, signed a huge contract with the New York Yankees and became A-Fraud, and now a Sports Illustrated article has painted him as A-Roid. Suddenly the best option to return some sort of honor to the home run record is guilty of using Primobolon and testosterone. Well, I say that we still root for Choke-Rod to come through and hit the 210 home runs needed to surpass Bonds’ 762.

Manny Ramirez needs a reality check. He is going to be 37 years old this next season. The economy is killing everyone, including professional sports team. He is going to be 37 years old. He is simply not going to get a four-year deal for $100 million. He is going to be 37 years old. I do not know what Scott Boras is telling him, but not even the big-spending New York Yankees are going to make that kind of an offer.

I knew things were going to be bad. I knew the faltering economy was reverberating throughout every facet of American life, but I did not expect to see the MLB offseason to begin with such a whimper. It picked up around Christmas (more proof that having a budget around the holidays is simply futile) and now while the entire baseball world starts looking towards the World Baseball Classic (has anybody seen the roster for the Canadian team, with the utmost sincerity, wow), I am going to take time and reflect on the top ten free signings of this offseason.

The sports world may be in bowl mold- the Super Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, The Orange Bowl, the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl-, but the MLB season is coming up much quicker than most fans realize. There are already grumblings of pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training. There is even a glorious global exhibition with the World Baseball Classic (WBC). Half of the top free agents are gone and teams are starting to scurry to pick up the role players that will make the difference between 80 and 90 wins with just a few more hits.

The rather amicable divorce of Madonna and Guy Ritchie apparently ends her time as a de-facto citizen of England, accent and all is over. She quickly established herself as an American again by doing her best to force a divorce between Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez and his eventual ex-wife Cynthia Rodriguez.