The Flagrant Fan is happy and impressed so far with his Yankees. The one fear is that they are peaking early instead of late and that's what happened last year. They started well and then the pitching broke down with drastic results in the Angels series. But this also feels a little like 1998 when they had the dominating year and you kept expecting them to cool off and they never did. Anyway, it's going to be scary at least until Clemens gets his 300th win. Once that happens, I'll settle down and accept whatever happens.


As mentioned before, I've been a MLB fan for 40 years and in 40 years, I've never seen anything like the start by the Detroit Tigers. Can you imagine how depressing it would be if your top hitter was batting .205. Let that sink in: The Detroit Tigers leading hitter after 20+ games is Bobby Higginson with a batting average of .205. The entire team for 2003 is hitting .177. That means that the Tigers get 18 hits for ever 102 at bats. The Tigers on-base percentage is .246. They have more strikeouts as a team than hits. They have hit seven homers in 20 games. And when they finally get on base, they can't stay there as they have tried to steal 11 times and have been caught 8! Their only batter with more than one homerun so far is Eric Munson and he is batting .158.

You have to feel big time for the Detroit Tiger fans. This is the worst nightmare one can imagine. What is especially tough is that the team is being led by a manager and coaching staff that is the cream of the Tigers great years. I have to hope the Tigers turn it around at least to respectability. No one can root for a team to be this bad.

Speaking of bad, why do the Expos have to play in Montreal at all? Hey, if only 5,000 fans are going to show up for a game, why not just bite the bullet and move the team to Puerto Rico. The Expos are a good young team who deserve loyal fans to root for them. The Expos had a hard blow this week though when young pitcher, Tony Armas Jr. went on the disabled list.

I wonder who is going to win the Chuck Finley stakes? Finley had a great second half last season and it's hard to figure out why he is where he is just collecting dust. My guess would be that he will sign with the Cardinals but that he could end up in Boston. He would be a big help to that team.

One thing lost in the Yankee loss last night was the two hit, no run ball pitched by Sterling Hitchcock over the last three innings. Hitchcock could still be a very useful pitcher in the course of the year. The Yankee starters are off to a great start but aren't exactly young. You can never have too many pitching options.