The old Yankee Stadium had one unfortunate feature that was rectified by the renovation of the 70's. If you did not carefully look at your tickets and at the map of the stadium found on their yearbook, you could have found yourself behind this huge girder holding up the upper decks. If that was your fate, all you saw was a third of the field. And there was no scoreboard replays in those days.

Last night was a girder night with the Fan's blog site. I tried for hours to get here and could not. I apologize for not making it here if you happened to stop by. And it's been a couple of exciting nights in baseball.

Now that MLB has hit September, the games get more important and more contentious. The Cubs and Cardinals featured beanballs and two managers shouting at each other. In between was a terrific game which Moises Alou used as his catharsis from last night's latest umpire debacle. Last night, Alou and others got thrown out of an important game because another umpire missed an obvious call as replays clearly showed chalk flying on an extra base attempt by Alou called foul by the third base umpire.

Tonight, Alou blasted the umpiring in general (for which I add my vote) before the game and took out his frustration on the Cardinals with five hits, including the game winner. The performance and the game kept the Cubs in the race after almost being counted out.

One area of concern for the Cubs is the persistent .500 record for Kerry Wood. The man has lights out stuff and is nearly impossible to hit. Major League batters are only batting .207 for the season and he has struck out 228 batters in 182 innings. His problem, and the reason for his 3.56 ERA is the base on balls. Wood has walked three batters per start this year and if you follow the statistic I heard recently where 50% of all bases on balls score, that would account for half of Wood's ERA. If he could cut his walks from 4.4 walks per nine innings to 2.4, he would be unstoppable. Mark Prior has walked half as many batters as Wood in nearly as many innings.

The Red Sox also had an exciting game as they blew a one run lead in the eighth as Mike Timlin gave up another homer. But the Sox hung tough and threw another runner out at the plate to extend the game. In the tenth inning, David Ortiz, who is rapidly approaching MVP type credentials, hit his second homerun of the game to win it for the Red Sox.

The Red Sox victory over the White Sox allowed the Twins to tie them for the division lead as the Twins scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth on a terrible play at the plate that cost the Angels the game and Benji Molina a season as he broke his wrist on the play.

The Royals also won to climb to within a game of the two leaders. All three teams have 66 losses in that all important column. The Royals looked like they were going to fold but manager, Tony Pena, is not going to let them quit and they are going to hang around at least a while longer.

The Mets swept the Braves as they are another young team playing good baseball. The Mets, Rangers, Devil Rays, Pirates, Padres and Brewers are all playing good baseball and will not be easy wins down the stretch for the contenders.


And on a final note, the Orioles have been one of the best offensive teams in the game and though they traded Conine away, still should have had enough fire power to win their share of games. But their offense went silent for two weeks and they lost a ton of games along the way.

Tonight the Orioles broke out of it with a 9-0 win tonight over the high flying A's. Is it a coincidence that the O's found their offense as Melvin Mora got back in the lineup after a long injury? The Fan does not believe in coincidences and Mora was a big cog in that offense as he is having a breakout year.

Watch out for this team next year if they get a couple of pitchers and one more good bat. Jay Gibbons is blossoming into a star and already has 91 RBI this season. After a long darkness, the Orioles are another team on the rise.