Sometimes things in a baseball season sneak up on you. Take the Baltimore Orioles for example. Two of their everyday outfielders are hitting .349 and .346 (Matos and Mora respectively). Their other outfielder has 64 RBI (Gibbons) and they have two infielders with over 60 RBI (Conine and Bautista). Those are some pretty numbers!

And the Orioles have some pretty good pitching talent. Sidney Ponson is 12-5 with a good ERA and four complete games. Jason Johnson is 7-4 (3.82). Rick Helling pitched well tonight and Rodrigo Lopez pitched great his last time out and has regained last year's form. Closer Jorge Julio has twenty saves and has been set up well by Kerry Lightenberg.

The Orioles are now only seven games below .500 and only seem a few players short of being a very good team. And they are fun to watch as Matos and Mora not only hit but take turns showing up on highlight shows for their fielding.


The news for Junior Griffey was terrible. His ankle is shredded and he had season ending surgery today. I hope he doesn't give up because he sure was one of the most talented players ever. On a similar note, Rick Ankiel had Tommy John surgery and will be out eighteen months.


The Yankees have just gone ahead of the Indians 6-4 giving Clemens a passable chance to win number 302 tonight. Giambi and Matsui are again leading the way.

Meanwhile, Toronto defeated the Red Sox again, this time 4-1. The Blue Jays are such a flighty team. You can never tell which Blue Jay team will show up. I think Kielty will help a lot with his enthusiasm.


And one final note: An AP writer reported today that Yankee manager, Joe Torre, spoke to Alfonso Soriano today for spending too much time admiring his homers. This is just one more anecdote that shows how good a manager Joe Torre is. His rule is absolute but he is so respected and has absolutely the right perspective on almost every occasion. Soriano, to his credit, agreed to his manager and apologized for the grandstanding.

A day after the Blue Jays and Twins traded outfielders (Shannon Stewart to the Twins and Bobby Kielty to the Blue Jays), both teams seem to have benefitted from the deal. Kielty went three for four for the Blue Jays as they beat the Red Sox and the Twins are winning for the first time in quite a while (though Stewart is hitless so far).

Ichiro Suzuki is two for three so far for the Mariners, though they are losing to the amazing Royals. Ichiro is having an amazing run is now up to .355. For the third year in a row he is well on his way to 200 hits and has a chance for 250 hits two years after hitting 240. Sometimes it is hard to acknowledge that a foreign player is among the best there is in the game. The NBA is now going through the same quandry as so many of its new stars are from eastern Europe, China and other countries. But it's time for the Fan to give it up and simply say that Ichiro is amazing and one of the most exciting players in MLB.

Ichiro turns a ground ball into an exciting play. He is the best right fielder in baseball and there is nothing he can't do with the bat. I can't remember what expert said that Ichiro and Hideki Matsui (I believe the conversation was about Matsui at the time and was made by Joe Torre) are situational hitters and that is now rare in MLB. The comment was made that most hitters now take the same approach when hitting now matter what the situation. Suzuki and Matsui change their approach each at bat and that's why they succeed. Ichiro is simply terrific.

Ken Griffey Jr. hurt his leg again tonight in a very sad development. Reds fans booed him as he was leaving the field. Talk about a class act that doesn't deserve that kind of treatment. The Fan sincerely hopes that Junior has at least one more great season before the toll of his injuries take him out of the game.

Barry Bonds tried to soften his comments about Babe Ruth today as his mouth has created another controversy. His latest alleged quote is: "Babe Ruth is symbolic of baseball,'' Bonds said. ``If there is a record you want to go after, it's Babe Ruth. Because Babe Ruth is Mr. Baseball, right? ... He's considered the greatest baseball player, and if you want to compare yourself, you want to compare yourself to the greatest player.'' Nice try, Barry. For the full story see: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-giants-bonds-ruth&prov=ap&type=lgns

And finally, the widow of Oriole pitcher, Steve Bechler, is suing the makers of Xenadrine RFA-1 for $600 million dollars. Bechler died of heat exhaustion and an autopsy revealed large amounts of the supplement in his system. The money won't bring the pitcher back but perhaps if this supplement is allegedly unsafe, then a settlement should help to take it off the market. It will be interesting to see where this case goes. I would imagine an out of court settlement is in the future for Ms. Bechler.

There were two big trades today in the Major Leagues as the contenders try to jockey for position. For once, both trade seemed to benefit all the teams involved.

The Yankees, who never feel they have enough, traded Jason Anderson and two other prospects for Armando Benitez. Benitez will setup for Rivera and gives them their first power setup man since Rivera filled that role for the team.

I saw Jason Anderson pitch twice and was quite impressed with him and his future. But as long as the Yankees are contending, they don't have time or the ability to look at the future and used the future to buy today. The Mets should be able to give Anderson the chance he needs. Watch Anderson in the future as I think he will be a star.

The Toronto Blue Jays needed to get rid of some salary and still attempt to stay in the race. In what I think is a brilliant move for both teams involved, the Blue Jays traded Shannon Stewart to the Minnesota Twins for Bobby Kielty. Stewart makes $6.2 million while Kielty costs $325,000. Stewart has a proven track record and a lifetime batting average of .301 and can hopefully pull the Twins out of their coma. Kielty was felt by many to have the potential to be the Twins best hitter but couldn't find a position.

I think all four teams helped themselves and accomplished what they set out to do.

And that's all from the Fan tonight as blogger is acting funky and only showing me one half line of edit space and I can't even see what I'm typing! At least this is the last day of the AllStar Break and we can get some baseball tomorrow.

Okay...The Fan is grudgingly happy. I boycotted most of the AllStar game and didn't watch the first six innings and only sporadically after that. But as I was playing on my computer and passing back and forth by Yahoo, I kept following the score. Then I watched the last three outs.

I am grudgingly happy because Clemens pitched and pitched well. I am grudgingly happy because Giambi hit a homer and then one of my favorite boxscore players, Hank Blalock won the game with a two run homer.

But I am only grudgingly happy because the National League should not lose home field advantage in the World Series because of an exhibition game. And I'm only grudgingly happy because fans didn't get to see Melvin Mora hit (for example) because the emphasis was on winning.

And I'm only grudgingly happy because the American League manager only pitched one pitcher for two innings, a pitcher from his rival Oakland A's. And I'm only grudgingly happy because that same manager played his two Angel players nearly the whole game. Granted, one ended up as the game MVP and had three hits. But if that was the Yankee manager playing his Yankee players the whole game, there would be blood in the columns of baseball writers everywhere.

Well...it's over and this post will mark the end of my grumbling about the game. And that grumbling is blunted somewhat by Hank Blalock telling the Fox broadcaster that he's only seen Eric Gagne on ESPN's "Sports Center." Take that you second rate and second class sports outfit!

There was some strange last minute doings at the AllStar game. Roger Clemens was added to the roster in a move that should have happened in the beginning. But to do so, Barry Zito, who had already traveled to Chicago, was pulled supposedly because he pitched Sunday. Zito seemed visibly upset and rightly so. You don't select a guy to the game and then not let him participate if there isn't an injury involved.

The entire selection process has been a mess and is typical of the Bud Selig era of baseball. The big flap over the tie last year (which is one of the few right decisions Selig has ever made) was a flap from the media and not the fans. We didn't care. We got to see our favorite players play an exhibition game. I don't want the outcome of the World Series decided by the AllStar game!

And if they didn't mess things up enough with changing format of who gets home field advantage, the selection process made far too many mistakes that have been reverberating around baseball since the selections were announced. MLB has been doing damage control ever since the selections were made.

Selig spends too much of his time listening to the media which has their own agenda and not enough time listening to the fans. Bret Boone, redeemed himself a bit in my book (which has mostly black marks around his name) by rightly blasting the commissioner (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-all-star-selig&prov=ap&type=lgns). Oh, by the way, have I already asked you how much Selig and Bill Gates are starting to look alike?


The Home Run Derby was very good this year considering the world's best sluggers weren't there. I still don't like the format where someone like Giambi can hit more total homeruns in the contest and not make the finals. Garrett Anderson hit less homeruns total than Giambi or Pujols and yet wins the final round. There is something screwy there.


Barry Bonds was reported to state that he wanted to wipe out Ruth since he now had the slugging percentage record that Ruth originally had and now he wants to wipe out the Babe's homer total. His quote in the AP story was:

"And if it does happen, the only number I care about is Babe Ruth's. Because as a left-handed hitter, I wiped him out. That's it. And in the baseball world, Babe Ruth's everything, right? I got his slugging percentage and I'll take his home runs and that's it. Don't talk about him no more.'' (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-all-star-notebook&prov=ap&type=lgns)

No wonder Bonds has never been a fan favorite. You don't diss one of the biggest legends of history. That would be like Clinton stating that he had wiped out George Washington because he (Clinton) was one of the most popular presidents in history. I'm sure there have been better presidents than Washington, but you don't diss the legend. Bonds didn't play on the same playing field. Bonds didn't rescue baseball from the Black Sox Scandal. Bonds didn't play his first few years as a pitcher. Enjoy the records. Enjoy being one of the best players baseball has ever seen...but it would be better if you just kept your mouth shut.


Is the celebrity softball game that comes after the Home Run Derby the lamest event in sports? It has all the entertainment value of a curling event from the early days of ESPN. This is reality television that is just a step above "Beg, Borrow and Steal."

Watching the Cubs/Braves game tonight on ESPN really illustrates the difference between a winning pitcher and a losing one. The Cubs pitcher, Carlos Zambrano, had "filthy" stuff and all he had to do is hit spots and blaze the ball as he is capable. Tonight, after his teammate, Tom Goodwin, had brilliantly stolen a run by stretching an error into two bases and then scoring from second on an infield hit, Zambrano walked the very first batter of the very next half inning and of course two runs scored.

Goodwin's heroics would normally spark a team and good pitchers don't let their teams down by letting the other team answer. What surprised me was that the Sunday Night Baseball announcers never mentioned the role the first batter walk had to do with the inning. Two innings later, Zambrano walked two more batters and before you knew what happened, it was 7-1. When you have first class stuff, all you have to do is throw strikes.

On the swing side of that story is pitchers like David Wells who have spectacular winning percentages but don't appear overwhelmingly stunning while doing it. The difference is the ability to stay ahead in the count so that you can keep batters off balance. Shane Reynolds appearance tonight for the Braves showed why he has been a winner. He got behind on some counts and then would throw strikes to allow the Cubs to get hits. But then he would get a ground ball double play or a pop up. Walks kill and they kill regularly.

Pitchers like Wells may give up eleven hits for every nine innings pitched while Zambrano only gives up eight hits per nine innings pitched. But Wells has won 61% of his games in his career while Zambrano has won only 39% of his games. The ability to throw strikes is the difference between winning and losing.

Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa are really putting on a show. Sosa has hit 12 homers in the last three weeks with 23 RBI and Bonds has hit a bunch as well including homers in his last five games.

Sosa's midpoint statistics are enviable for a player who didn't sit out for three weeks on the disabled list and then serve a seven game suspension. With 18 homers and 50 RBI, Sammy is well on the way to another 30+ homer season with over one hundred RBI.

Bonds already has thirty homers and has a shot at sixty again. It didn't take long for Bonds to come from behind to take over the league leadership in that category.

With Bonds and Sosa, we are watching two of the best sluggers who have ever played the game. Sosa's last six seasons are unequaled in the history of the game and Bonds has an excellent chance to surpass his idol, Willie Mays, this year to become third on the all time list.


It's time to look at the Fan's favorite boxscore players and how they did the last seven days:
- Bo Hart. Hart is a new favorite but he "only" hit .333 this week to bring his average "down" to .372. And Hart is always on the highlight shows with his spectacular fielding.

- Rocco Baldelli. Rocco was steady with a .296 batting average to maintain his .308 season average. He had a homer and four RBI. He will struggle though if he doesn't get some patience at the plate as his OBP was lower last week than his batting average! Baldelli has only walked 13 times in 86 games.

- Hank Blalock. Blalock had a quiet week with a week's batting average of .286. His season average is still a healthy .329. Blalock only figured in one run (scored) this week as he had not extra base hits and no RBI.

- Mark Teixeira. Teixeira had two homers this week but scuffled a little at the plate, batting .235 for the week. His season average for his first full year in the majors is now .250. He has nearly caught up to teammate Blalock's RBI total for the year.

- Michael Young. Young batted a torrid .417 last week and is now at .323 for the year. He also had two homers and seven RBI and now has 42 RBI for the year.

- Coco Crisp. Coco was not crisp again this week as he batted only .234 for the week and is now at .224 for the week. The most discouraging stat is that Crisp is a speed, singles hitter who struck out six times in six games this week. Even so, Crisp has scored 20 runs in his 30 games played.

- Pat Burrell. Pat. Pat. Pat. Burrell is still scraping as he only had three hits in his 24 at bats this week for a dismal .125 average. His season average is now at .194. Burrell has struck out 99 times in 83 games this season. To put that in better perspective, Burrell has struck out 32 times in every 100 at bats.

- Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera had a decent week batting .263 as he learns his way around the Major League batter's box. He did have a homer and a double as part of his five hits and continues to have a large percentage of his hits go for extra bases.

- Jose Reyes. Reyes had a tough week as he only had two hits in his eleven at bats. His season average is now at .234. Distressingly, he's only walked once in his 24 game Major League career.

- Sean Burroughs. Burroughs and Young are my stars of the week as Jeff's son hit .360 for the week with a homer, triple and three doubles to account for many of his nine RBI for the week. His season average is now over .300. The nicest stat for Burroughs is that for a young player, he's only struck out 44 times in his 84 games.

Both Chicago teams are tumbling which is unfortunate as there was a lot of promise and hope in that city just a few weeks ago. The Cubbies spent a large part of the first half in first place and the White Sox traded for some promising help as they had become a factor in the AL West. But the Cubs are now a .500 team (46-46) even though Sammy Sosa is now back slammin' those homers (he had two today to give him 17 for the season).

The Cubs will live and die by how well their starting pitching performs and their big two, Prior and Wood, have been good, great and bad. They are just not consistently either good or better. And Chicago's other starters are not fairing much better.

The White Sox on the other hand, have stopped hitting. They were pounding the ball, trade for two AllStars (past) and now can't hit. Paul Konerko is the American League's Pat Burrell (Burrell did hit a homer tonight) and is batting .194 which doesn't help.


The top sluggers in the game are all getting hot at the same time. Sosa has hit eight homers in the last two weeks. Ken Griffey, Jr. has hit a homer in four straight games and Bonds has gone on an unbelievable tear. Too bad these best of the best won't be at the HomeRun Derby.


The big story of the day though is the Florida Marlins who continued their winning ways by coming from behind to beat the Expos today. The Marlins are now only four and a half game out of the wildcard race and declared themselves as a contender by trading young talent for Ugueth (what kind of name is that?) Urbina. What a great pickup as Urbina leads the AL in saves and has 200 lifetime. The Marlins don't plan to close him which I think is a mistake. Having Urbina setup Brandon Looper is like having the opening act of a rock concert finish the show instead of start it. Urbina is the proven pro and should save the games.

The trade, either way, has to please the Marlins' fans as the team is showing a strong desire to win instead of trading away all of their top players in cost cutting measures. I was down there for three weeks and can testify that the Marlins are a fun team to watch right now. Pudge Rodriguez is getting hot. Lowell hit another homer tonight and Lee is hitting well. They will be fun to track from here on out.

The trade was also brilliant in another way. Since they traded for Urbina so early, they can see if he can help them win now. If they don't win and fall back again, it's still early and trading him is still possible. Very smart.

The Detroit Tigers just completed a three game sweep of what was the recently contending Chicago White Sox. Can you imagine what the White Sox fans are thinking right now? The team went out and declared themselves as contenders after a hot streak by obtaining two professional hitters, one a possible Hall of Famer, and they lose six of seven including three in a row to the Tigers. Ugh! The Tigers have won only 24 times which means that one sixth of their wins have come courtesy of the White Sox (these three and one earlier in the year).

Harold Reynolds of ESPN made a telling point that when you chance a lineup like the White Sox have, it takes a while for the batters to get used to the change. He believes the White Sox will come around. The Yankees have proven that theory several times this year as they have had trouble scoring at various times when players were inserted into the lineup that caused a major shift. When Jeter came back and moved Johnson down to ninth in the order when he was batting second and now that Bernie Williams is back, his entrance into the lineup affects the entire middle portion of that lineup.

It's too bad that the Yanks couldn't get some run support for Clemens who pitched another great game tonight...an AllStar caliber game, giving up only two runs in seven innings of work. But he gets a ND as the Yankees only managed two runs themselves. The game is in the ninth inning now with Posada on first with one out.

Last night, the Astros scored six runs in the first inning on their way to pounding the Reds 12-2. Tonight the Astros out-did that effort by scoring nine runs before they had any outs in the first inning. Paul Wilson was the victim or should that be, "villain," as he failed to get anyone out. Griffey hit another homer tonight so that at least is good news. Hey Cincy GM! It's time.

Sean Burroughs had a great night tonight for the Padres, as he was 3 for 5 with a homer and two doubles. His BA is now up to .306. As I mentioned earlier this season, he'll starting hitting more extra base hits once he gets comfortable and confident.

I have featured Hank Blalock and Mark Teixeira in my writings all year but even as impressive so far comparitively to those two young players is their 26 year old teammate, Michael Young. Young is in his third year in MLB and has improved all of his important stats each year. He's having a terrific season batting .318 with 52 runs scored.

The Twins have lost eight of their last ten and are below .500 for the year. Fortunately for them and for Chicago, the leader, Kansas City, is still not too far ahead. I can't believe the Royals are still leading the division in July! Even more amazing since their best player has been out of the lineup. It's scary that Sweeney has been out this long with a back problem. That's a long time and seems to point at a big problem.

The Red Sox took care of the sinking Toronto Blue Jays. Pitching. They won't win with just Roy Halladay performing well.

The Red Sox really did a terrific job picking up players that are really helping them. David Ortiz is batting .302 with 46 RBI in just 62 games. Bill Mueller is at .337 with an OBP over .400 (he also went 4-4 tonight). Kevin Millar is batting .301 with 14 homers and 61 RBI. He's already had more RBI than all of his last season.

And the Red Sox magic touch continued as newly acquired Gabe Kapler has nine RBI in nine games. Mendoza gave the Sox his second great start in a row against Toronto tonight. The Red Sox as a team are now batting .294 with a team slugging percentage a hair under .600. Amazing.

With a full slate of games, MLB tonight continued to confound us in one of the tipsy topsiest seasons I can ever remember. The Twins and White Sox lost...AGAIN. The Cardinals lost AGAIN as the Dodgers actually scored six runs tonight. Pujols went 0-5 in that game and has dropped thirty points on his average in the last week and a half. Meanwhile, the Cubbies finally won a game as Sammy Sosa hit another homer with three RBI.

To continue the madness, the Blue Jays, who a few weeks ago looked unbeatable, blew another lead. This time they were up 7-3 late in the game and lost 8-7. The Cincinnati Reds, who a few weeks ago looked ready to contend with the other three teams in their division continued a really poor losing streak and were down 6-0 before three outs in the first inning were recorded.

I will resume my call for Bob Boone's job in Cincinnati. I really believe that team could use a spark much like the spark that the Florida Marlins have received with their managerial change. It's time to try something different in Cincy. The only bright spot for Cincy was that Griffey hit a homer.


Well, the Fan is back from Florida after an eighteen day vacation. I miss the palm trees and the Atlantic Ocean, but I don't miss the constant smell of exhaust fumes and the moisture in the air. We arrived back in Maine today and it was a breezy 73 degrees with no humidity and fresh clean air. It's good to be home. I did a fair job of keeping the blog going while I was gone though I did miss about three days. Things will be more stable now.


I was very glad to see Geoff Jenkins get voted into the AllStar game. He really deserves it after working hard from a very ugly injury to play the way he is playing.

I saw an amazing stat tonight stating that Ichiro has had seven consecutive multi-hit games. That's a hot hitter! I was watching the highlight show and saw him jack a leadoff pitch for a very long homerun. He is so quick that he could probably do that forty times a year if he wanted to. His only weakness is a 95 MPH fastball up and in. But then again, he has plenty of company there.

Speaking of a fastball, I had a rare chance to watch Eric Gagne tonight and he is amazing. He dispatched of the hot Jim Edmonds and a dangerous, but slumping Albert Pujols. There are only a few relievers who can dominate the way he can: Rivera and Smoltz. That's it. Those three are in a class by themselves. You might think Billy Wagner belongs in there but he is a step down from the top three because his mighty fastball is pretty much straight without a lot of movement and he can be beat.

The Chicago Cubs and MLB suffered a major blow with the injury to Corey Patterson. Patterson tore up his ACL in his knee on a close play at first base yesterday. His injury will end his season.

Patterson blossomed into one of the brightest young stars in the league under Dusty Baker (who we'll discuss a bit later). Such blossomings are what makes baseball such a fun game to follow. Patterson was batting .298 at the time with 13 homer, 55 RBI with 16 stolen bases and was playing great defense. The Fan wishes the best for Corey and hopes that the injury can be overcome with hard work.

It's hard not to think of Jermaine Dye at a time like this. Dye just came into his own when he was traded to Oakland during the race a few years back. Dye helped the A's get to the playoffs and then in those playoffs horribly broke his leg. Dye has never been the same player since and now has a severely separated shoulder after a collision at the plate. Sad.

This has been a year marred by injuries to exciting players. Ken Griffey was poised after years of injuries to have a big year. He hit ten homers during Spring Training. A few games into the season and he separates his shoulder. He has struggled since and is currently batting .238. Sad.

Speaking of sad and the Cubs, it hasn't been a good month for the club with the Patterson injury topping the list. First you have Sammy Sosa's unfortunate problem with his bat. Next, you have all those blown saves with terrible relief pitching. Then you have Dusty Baker opening his mouth and inserting his foot. Basically, what Dusty said was that latino and black players are better suited to hot summer baseball than their white counterparts.

I remember that it wasn't too long ago that Al Campanis lost his baseball executive job after a wonderful career because he stated that blacks run better and are stronger than whites. While I'm not a fan of the politically correct, Baker's statements will result in a slap on the wrist because Dusty is African-American while Campanis was white. There is something wrong with that.

I don't have a problem with Baker having that opinion but in his position, he should have kept that opinion to himself. His statements are embarrassing to baseball in a time when baseball is in a position to aid in the end to blind and ignorant racism in America.

And one more Cubs sad comment before we call it a night (and I like the Cubs and want them to win). They have stated their disappointment in not being able to trade for Mike Lowell because they need a bat at third base. It seems to me that they had one Bill Mueller and let him go. He's only hitting .330 for the Red Sox this season.

I wish that when the commissioner's office determines what is best for the fans, that he would ask us. I have been against the new format of the AllStar Game from the beginning and the voting today and the quotes from at least the AL Manager show that what is best for the fans is not what is going to happen.

The Flagrant Fan is a typical fan. True baseball fans love baseball and its great players past and present. True baseball fans could care less who wins the AllStar Game. What true fans want is to see the year's best players and a representation by the best active career players who are still performing well. To not have a chance to see Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa is terrible.

Let's first look at the obvious gaffes. Vernon Wells should be starting over the Yankee's Matsui. Matsui should be on the squad, but Wells is having the superior year. Nomar Garciaparra should definitely start over Alex Rodriguez. Don't get me wrong, Rodriguez is the best player in baseball, but Nomar is having a better year.

Kerry Woods should not be on the squad (barely over .500) and Dontrelle Willis should be. Jorge Posada is having a good power year but should not be starting over the Twins catcher or the Red Sox catcher. And the biggest gaffe of them all? Carl Everett should NOT be on the squad. He had a great start but has cooled off and is hitting only .270+ for the season. He should not get the nod over his own teammates, Frank Thomas and Maglio Ordonez nevermind the ten other players in the league who are having better years.

I also have a big problem with the amount of relief pitchers chosen over starting pitchers. Starting pitchers have a harder job, plain and simple. The top of the year's group should be on the squad along with two closers and maybe the best setup man.

The other gripe will be pressure for the teams' manager NOT to play everyone over trying to win the game. We're the fans. We want to see as many players as possible. We don't want to see the same players the whole game. That's not an AllStar game. The whole thing smells and maybe this fan will protest by not watching at all. Take that, Mr. Commissioner.

By the way, does anyone else but me see how much Bill Gates has come to resemble Bud Selig?


The Yankees did manage to win the third game of their Series with Boston. The Red Sox could have really made a statement with a sweep but were not able to do so. There are some positive signs for the Yankees. Soriano had a bit of a slump but is now back up to .300. Jeter was hitting in the .260's but is now back up to .297 and unbelievably, Hidecki Matsui is batting .311! Karim Garcia was a good pickup but I'm not sure of why they would want Curtis Pride, a .256 lifetime journeyman outfielder. That doesn't make sense. But Pride was called up from Columbus and will be a moot point when Bernie Williams comes back.


Now it's time to look at the Fan's favorite boxscore players and how they fared for the week:
- Rocco Baldelli. Rocco is still struggling and was only 5 for 21 (.238) last week with only one extra base hit and one RBI. His average for the year is down to .309. The upside is that he has over a hundred hits halfway through the season.
- Coco Crisp. Coco puffed up a bit this week as he batted .294 for the week with nine runs scored! He has raised his season average up to .225.
- Hank Blalock. Blalock keeps chugging along as he batted .308 for the week with two homers. His season average is still over .330. Go Hank go!
- Mark Teixeira. Teixeira batted .222 for the week and is still below .250 for the year. He did hit a homer this week though.
- Pat Burrell. No good things to report here. Poor Burrell still hasn't turned it around yet and only had 2 hits in 16 at bats this past week. Yeesh. He's hitting beneath the dreaded Mendoza line now.
- Miguel Cabrera. The young rookie had a great week batting .333 with eight hits, six of them for extra bases including three doubles and three homers, five RBI and six runs scored. Ten of his season's 14 hits are for extra bases. The kid looks good!
- Jose Reyes. The Mets phenom had a solid week as he played three games and had three RBI, batting .273. He is only batting .218 for the year but he has 18 RBI in 21 games.
- Bo Hart. Hart became human this week and only hit .250 but he did have four RBI and scored five runs. His season average "fell" to .390.
- Sean Burroughs. Burroughs had a great week batting .381 to raise his season average to an even .300. He also scored six runs. His On Base Average was .480 for the week!

The Red Sox again destroyed the Yankees today defeating Clemens 10-2. The two straight laughers brought the Red Sox to within two games of the leader. Trot Nixon always wails on Clemens and hit another homer off him today. The Yankees will need to win tomorrow's game to keep the Red Sox from making a big statement at this point of the year. Those Red Sox sure can hit and it was really important for Mendoza to have a good outing today for the Sox.

Roberto Alomar has started strong for the White Sox hitting .364 in his first few games. The White Sox lost a big game last night though when the Devil Rays' Crawford hit a walk off three-run homer. Crawford only has two homers this year and both of them were of the walk off variety. At last look, the Sox were down to the same Devil Rays 1-0 in the fifth inning. Amazingly, the Royals are still leading that division by two games.

The hottest team in the last ten games in the Phillies but they had a big loss last night. Pat Burrell is now below the Mendoza Line. Ack!

Sammy Sosa is getting hot now for the Cubs as they defeated the Cardinals today. He has thirteen homers now and over forty RBI which is amazing considering how many games he has missed. The race in the NL Central is fantastic as three teams keep taking turns at the top. It's going to be a fun summer in the midwest!

The amazing thing about the NL West is that no team in that division has a record over .500 in the last ten games. None of the teams can really make a statement and pull ahead.

In the NL West, the Giants have answered the Diamondbacks and both have identical 7-3 records in the last ten games. Bonds is starting to pile up the homers again and remains the most amazing hitter in the world. The Dodgers finally snapped their losing streak today but if they don't get some hitting soon, it will be a two team race.

Four more days in sunny Florida and the Fan will have to go home to Maine. (sigh) I'll miss paradise...

Now that we are heading into the AllStar break last week, let's look at the current contenders and see what they need to do to be successful in the second half and beyond.

American League East:
- Yankees: The Yankees are in great shape and have done much to improve themselves. They need to stay healthy, continue to get good performances for the revamped bullpen and have their old starting pitchers hold up along the way. In the meantime, Bernie Williams will be back and hopefully Norm Johnson as well. Johnson was a big loss as his defense and OBP meant that the bases were always clogged up.

- Red Sox: The Red Sox addressed their biggest need with Kim becoming the closer. That makes the rest of their bullpen better (despite today's meltdown against the Devil Rays). They certainly have the best hitting in the league. The starting staff has to perform well down the stretch.

- The Blue Jays need pitching, pitching, pitching. They can hit with the best, but besides Halliday, they don't have the guns they need to stay in the race.


American League Central:
- Twins: The Twins are really in trouble. They look bad lately and they need to start pitching and they need to start hitting. They have the players. Those players just need to perform. I think they will fall out of it.

- Royals: The Royals helped themselves with Leskanic but need one more starter and they need Mike Sweeney back. Sweeney is their heart and their big bat. He has a back injury which is a very scarey prospect if you remember what happened to Don Mattingly.

- White Sox: The White Sox really made a statement and their concern now remains in their relief pitching. Their bullpen has been suspect so far.


American League West:
- Mariners: The Mariners seem to be in charge and with Boone (argh!) and Ichiro leading the way will score often. Their major concern is closing as Nelson just isn't a closer. Suzuki won't be much help the rest of the way.

- Oakland: The A's defense is hurting them as their offense. We all know about their pitching, but they need a big bat.

- Angels: The Angels are over and out. They will not be a factor.


National League East:
- Braves: The Braves don't seem to have any holes except for starting pitching (who ever thought we'd ever say that!). The Braves offense is also inconsistent although it shouldn't be.

- Phillies: The Phillies look great and all they need is for Pat Burrell to become the force he is supposed to be in the middle of that lineup. I still say that Burrell should bat third and Thome fourth. Then Burrell will get his pitches and start mashing.

- Expos: The Expos need a home and they need Vlad back. They also need one more bat. I don't think they will be able to do much to help themselves to contend.


National League Central:
- Cardinals: This is a three team race and none of the three wants to take control. The Cards need to find enough starting pitching and if so, will pull off a streak and win this thing.

- Cubs: The Cubs need the pitchers behind Prior and Wood to step up. They also need Sosa to become a force again and they need to take the ball away from Alfonseca at the end of the game. The Cubs are the one team that can use Benitez from the Mets.

- Astros: The Astros need to get Biggio out of centerfield and to get their starters healthy. Their relief pitching is great but their arms are going to fall off the way they are going.

- Reds: If the other three teams keep messing around, the Reds could sneak in a winning streak. They hit well enough. Their pitching is their question mark.


National League West:
- Giants: The Giants look fine but I still am suspect of their lineup around Bonds. They could use one more big bat I think.

- Dodgers: Hitting, hitting, hitting. Shawn Green needs to get going and they need two more good hitters. Their pitching is fine.

- Diamondbacks: They need their young players to continue to perform as surprisingly well as they are. That's a tough task to ask. I think they will cool off soon.

The Chicago White Sox announced themselves as players yesterday by picking up Roberto Alomar and Carl Everett. The move can help them very much not only on offense but on defense. One of the big questions the White Sox had for contending was their team defense. Alomar is obviously one of the best ever and Everett, though he's now too slow for centerfield, can still be a good defender in left or right.

Everett has been a good citizen in Texas unlike the rest of his career and it will be interesting to see if the same holds true in Chicago. Manager Jerry Manual seems like the kind of manager that would be easy to play for, so we'll see.

Alomar's fall from superstardom while with the Mets is still puzzling. Alomar had been consistently great in his career until two years ago. I suspect Shea Stadium had something to do with it. I still remember Bobby Murcer going from superstar to warning track slugger when the Yankees moved to Shea during Yankee Stadium's remodeling in the 70's. Roberto's defense suffered as well with the horrible Shea infield surface and the lack of a good first baseman. I suspect that with the chance to play with his brother, Sandy, and having a fresh start, Roberto will be a force in the AL Central race.


The Fan missed last night's post as my wife and I met a friend for dinner and drinks. The Fan isn't a big drinker, but four beers later and there was no way a post was going to get written. Oh well. My apologies to those of you who checked.


Dontrelle Willis hooked up with a young Braves pitcher for a great pitching duel as the Marlins and Braves are tied going into the seventh inning 1 to 1. Willis is probably wishing the Marlins saved some of those 20 runs for him today.

Speaking of the Marlins, their front office announced that Mike Lowell was not going to be traded. That's wonderful news and a good reward for those Marlins fans who have stayed loyal to the team. Lowell was greatly relieved himself. Tonight, he's accounted for the Marlins only run with his 26th homer and 72nd RBI. Amazing.


I was reading Ken Kaiser's book, comically titled, "Planet of the Umps" and although the book is mildly entertaining, I find his statements and attitude appalling. An MLB umpire for more than twenty years before he got caught up in the umpire strike that broke the umpire union and lost his job. He admits, without any apology, to "palming" the real Gaylord Perry ball from Perry's 300th win. Kaiser gave Perry the wrong ball. How atrocious is that? What he doesn't say is what he did with the ball. Did he sell it? If so, that criminal.

Kaiser also mentions that he bluffed when he didn't know the call and that he knew he made mistakes but never lost sleep on it. His beliefs about the umpire's role in baseball and in baseball games only proves that there is something wrong with the way umpires function in MLB. They look for confrontation and they do not have the correct attitude towards the game. I'm appalled with what I'm reading and I'm glad he's out of baseball.


In one last postscript (pun intended), Dontrelle Willis will not get a decision tonight as the Braves and Marlins are still tied in the ninth inning. Willis pitched eight full innings giving up only one run allowing only seven baserunners and brought his season ERA down to 2.13. What a great story!

Mr. Jim Thome is carrying his Phillies on a run that has the Phillies in the top spot for the NL wildcard and only five and a half games behind the first place Braves. Thome has hit homer after homer lately and is now over 20 for the year. His homerun tonight won the game for the Phillies. Thome is such a fun guy to watch play. He seems to have a sense of wonder and plays like he's having fun which is the way it should be.

Yesterday I erroneously listed the Astros as the division leader in the NL Central. The Cardinals were actually on top. But the Fan can claim a mulligan as the teams in that division have been leap-frogging each other for quite a while. The Cards are getting beat tonight and the Phillies' opponent, the Cubbies, had a great chance to gain a game but Thome took care of that with one of his typical opposite field drives.

The Phillies look really good and if Pat Burrell can get going, they can streak the rest of the season. Burrell has shown signs of life lately but his efforts have been for not. In the typical if-something-can-go-wrong-it-will scenerio, just about every Web Gem on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" show Burrell getting robbed: a home run robbed by Torii Hunter, a single robbed by the Cubs third baseman. Sooner or later, those will start to find holes.

The only thing that can hold back the Phillies is their manager, Larry Bowa. I just believe the guy is a loose wire and can hinder as well as help his team. I watched him in the dugout and if I was playing for him, he would drive me crazy. After all, Scott Rolen is one of the best third basemen in baseball and Bowa ran him out of town.

The Phillies chase of the Braves was helped tonight as Greg Maddux again pitched poorly and was beat by Florida. Maddux is going into the AllStar break with a losing record and he just doesn't appear to be the pitcher he was. Of course, that doesn't hurt the Fan's feelings very much. I still think the man is one of the most arrogant players to ever play the game. I do have to admit that all I have to go by on those feelings is my perceptions of his body language when he pitches. The body language seemed to me to be pretty obvious.

But then again, arrogance has been a problem for the Braves for quite a while. I'll never forget the Braves/Yankees World Series when the Braves were up and thought that they had the Series won. I forget what source I read at the time but I remember reading that the Braves were full of themselves and never believed the Yankees could beat them. The sign of greatness is KNOWING that any team can beat you. I will say that Bobby Cox has never gotten the credit he deserves as one of the best managers of all time.

Bobby Valentine had a great observation concerning Maddux insisting on using his "personal catcher" when he pitches. Apparently, there is bad history between him and Javy Lopez. Valentine's comments were that the Braves lose one of their best hitters because of the pitcher's silliness. I thought it was a great observation.

Interleague play has mercifully ended (I know, the fans like it) and the weekend pretty much marks the mid-point of the season. If the second half went exactly the same as the first half that just ended:

- The Yankees, Twins, Mariners, Braves, Astros and Giants would win their divisions and the slammin' Red Sox and (gasp!) Philidelphia Phillies would be the wildcard winners.

- Carlos Delgado would end up with 52 homers and 178 RBI! He would easily win the MVP. His teammate, Vernon Wells would finish with 150 RBI!

- Barry Bonds would finish with 46 homers which would give him 660 for his career. We all know what that number means!

- Albert Pujols would finish with 148 runs scored, a 144 RBI, 46 homers, 58 doubles, 234 hits and easily win the NL MVP.

- 13 pitchers would have 20 wins with the most being 22.

- Kerry Wood (286) and Mark Prior (254) would end up 1-2 in the majors in strikeouts. Not quite Johnson/Schilling but good numbers.

- 41 year old Roger Clemens would end up 16-8 with 238 strikeouts good for fourth in the majors. He would finish his career with 309 wins.

- John Smoltz and Eric Gagne would finish with 58 saves each and finish two of the greatest seasons by relief pitchers ever.

- Dodger pitchers Nomo and Ishii will end up with 220 walks between them. That's a lot of free passes to overcome.

- Nomar Garciaparra would end up with 46 doubles, 24 triples (!) and 24 homers.

Speaking of the Red Sox, besides Urbina, have they made a bad roster move all year? In a little thought of transaction blip, the Red Sox signed Kapler to a minor league contract. Less than a week later, they added him to their team. All he's done in two games is go 7 for 9 with five of those seven hits going for extra bases. He also has seven RBI in those two games. Incredible. Welcome back to the majors, Gabe and you just became one of the Fan's boxscore favorites.

I'm not sure what to make of Lou Piniella's outburst about poor Ben Grieve. My first reaction is that it was a pretty classless act and that Lou should have taken that outburst privately to his office. I don't believe in berating players to the public. How is his player supposed to react? If I was Grieve, I'd be embarrassed and hurt. Then again, Grieve makes a lot of money and for a million or so, I'd be willing to take public abuse.

Grieve has been a puzzle since he's come into the league. He's never developed into the kind of player he was expected to become. He is one of those quiet guys who just don't seem to care. But I'm sure he must and I'm sure this is the first time in his life that it isn't coming easy to him. Some players adjust and some don't and it appears that Grieve won't or can't. Perhaps a move would help him but that is how he came to Tampa in the first place. Tampa scored nine runs today (last I checked and Grieve was one of the few on the team not to contribute. The poor guy will probably be released or traded soon. He even said in an interview yesterday that when he showed up at the ballpark, he wasn't sure if he still had a job. Poor guy.

The Yankees are having a big day against the defenseless Mets. Clemens won his 301st and Matsui--who has been on fire lately--hit his second grand slam of the season. Clemens pitched eight innings of six hit ball and is now 8-5. Put him on the AllStars!

In the second game, Soriano and Jeter started the Yankees off with back to back homers off of Tom Glavine of all people. The poor Mets always get the good players on their way downhill.

Speaking of downhill, the Cubbies have lost several heartbreakers lately with six-fingered Alfonseka (I know I'm not spelling his name correctly) blowing the save for the second night in a row. That has to be demoralizing. On the flip side, the doers of the damage, the White Sox, are now on fire and back from the dead. What a strange season. The teams I keep giving up for dead keep reviving. First the Reds, then the Blue Jays, then Arizona and now the White Sox. Maybe I'm a reverse jinx for teams going bad?

It's time to look at the last seven days for my favorite boxscore players:
- Hank Blalock. Blalock had another good week batting .348 with a homer, double and three RBI. He is still batting .335 for the year.
- Mark Teixeira. Teixeira batted .261 for the week with a homer, triple and a double accounting for four RBI. He is now batting .247 for the year.
- Pat Burrell. Oh man. Burrell is still scuffling big time. He only batted .107 last week and his average for the year is at .201. He came up 28 times and only had three hits. Hard to figure...real hard.
- Coco Crisp. How can you not keep checking a guy with that kind of name? Well...I may not have to keep checking much longer as he only hit .250 last week and is now batting .206 for the year. Not a good start for the fast man.
- Sean Burroughs. Jeff's son had a rough week and only batted .186 for the week. He sits now at .289 but he has a pulled groin muscle.
- Miguel Cabrera. The pride of Marakay has started his big league career (seven games so far) with a .214 average but of his six hits, four have been extra bases and he has six RBI in those seven games. He's going to be great.
- Jose Reyes. The twenty year old hope of the Mets had a good week batting .316 to raise his season average to .222. The Mets have said recently that they have changed their mind and Reyes will stay at short for the rest of the year. That's great news!
- Albert Pujols. The .400 and triple crown watch is on. Pujols only batted .533 last week and is up to .387 for the season. He also has 21 homers and 69 RBI. 50 of his 113 hits have been for extra bases. This man has driven in 326 runs in his first 2.5 seasons. Amazing.

A day after Dontrelle Willis, the great Florida rookie pitcher, won his seventh straight start against the Mets, the same Marlins gave up fourteen runs in the first inning to the Red Sox! Fourteen! For only the second time in 12 decades of MLB, a batter (Johnny Damon) had three hits in the same inning! Three! The score is now up to 18 to 1 as the auto-refresher on Yahoo keeps updating the score like some crazy jackpot night in a Las Vegas slot machine. Nomar is one of the few Boston batters that hasn't had an RBI. The timing looks ripe for a non-pitcher to pitch for the Marlins tonight. I told you Florida baseball is entertaining!

We started the second stage of our Florida trip yesterday as we moved from North Palm Beach to Ft. Lauderdale. It sure is a chore to have to be in paradise. The move was the reason for the lack of a post yesterday though the Fan usually takes Thursdays off anyway.

So far neither Bo Hart or Albert Pujols has a hit in the Cardinals/Kansas City game. The Cards still lead in the game 2 to 1 as Edmonds has hit his 22nd homer and Rolens has hit his 14th. Even Tino Martinez is hot for the Cardinals. I wouldn't want my team to be facing them right now. If Pujols keeps up his pace, there will be a .400 watch soon in the same path as the George Brett/Jon Olerud/Tony Gwynn efforts of the past.

The Boston/Florida score is now 19 to 5. Man, those umpires in that game are going to get tired.

Continuing my vacation reading, I'm currently reading the fascinating "October Men" by Roger Kahn. The book discusses the 1978 Yankee team and the history leading up to it. I remember that team and those times so clearly. I had just been married a year and as such became a New Hampshire resident after growing up in New Jersey. Thanks to Boston's Channel 38 (pre-cable days), we got to watch most of the Red Sox games. I was torn that year and for that playoff game. I was a lifelong Yankee fanatic but watching the Red Sox that whole year, I became the dreaded convert. I still loved the Yankees best, but I couldn't hate the Red Sox anymore.

As happy as I was for the Yankees to win the game and head to the playoffs, I was sad for the Red Sox. I was not, however, sad to have Yaz pop up to lose the final Red Sox chance. The book recounts all that history as well as the demise of Billy Martin and a lot of the underpinnings of that Yankee team. It's a great read and highly recommended.

I really can't understand all the moralizing I hear going on about Juan Gonzalez exercising his no-trade clause and not wishing to go to the Expos. To the Fan's point of view, why would Texas agree to a no-trade clause in the first place? Basically, you're asking a guy not to take advantage of a negotiated perk in his contract. That isn't Juan Gone's moral problem but the team that signed that contract in the first place.

The same sort of moralizing happened two years ago when the Cubs traded for the Marlins' Fred McGriff. McGriff was made to look like the bad guy when he really wanted to keep his family in South Florida. Who knows how much of the pressure was put on him to accept the deal as it turned out he did. A year later, he is in Los Angeles. Gonzalez feels the most comfortable in Texas. His contract allows him to turn down a trade so that he can stay there. Too bad. Tough luck. It isn't like he hasn't produced for the Rangers because he has.


So the two guys who battled in the courts for Bonds 73rd homer only (!) got $450,000 in the auction. I wonder if that covered the court costs?


Albert Pujols looks unbelievable. He is now batting in the high .380's and has a great shot at .400 and the triple crown. His new teammate, Bo Hart, had three more hits tonight and is up to .500 for the start of his MLB career.

Speaking of hot hitters, there aren't too many hotter than Geoff Jenkins of the Brewers. He had four more RBI tonight as the Brewers whomped the Cubbies 12-6. Jenkins is now batting .290 with 18 homers and 57 RBI.

I remember a few years ago (maybe it was two years ago) when Jenkins was off to a really fast start and was on his way to a breakout year when he got hurt and couldn't get it back when he returned to playing. It looks like he is going to put a great year together this year.


Just when you think a team is dead, they run off a streak. The Diamondbacks, with everybody on the disabled list, have won nine in a row to climb back into the NL West. I'm VERY surprised by this turn of events. Another team back from the dead is the White Sox as they close in on the Twins and the first place Royals (another team back from the dead).


In one of the great stories of the year, the Brewers have a player who pitches and hits. No, I don't mean that he gets to hit when he pitches. I mean that he was hired to hit and to pitch. Tonight he hit a pinch hit homer (his third) and is batting .367. This two in one player is Brooks Kieschnick and he will be fun to follow.

After another day of fun in the Florida sun, I turned on the Marlins/Mets game and I hear a familiar smarmy voice. "I know that voice," I said to myself. Then I had to know so I performed a Yahoo search for the Marlins announcers and sure enough, I see the name: Tommy Hutton. Oh my gosh, it's Tommy Hutton!

Hutton was the Blue Jays announcer I listened to all those years where I could only watch a bunch of their games from the Canadian stations. Through the Blue Jays championship seasons, Hutton's homish, gushing way of doing color for the Blue Jay telecasts would make me want to puke.

And here he is, announcing Marlins games the same way. I like the Marlins. They are fun to watch and I've been coming to South Florida for six years now and have been to several of their games. So my gagging at the TV is not because Hutton is announcing FOR the Marlins. I had often wondered if my reaction to him before was because I've always hated the Blue Jays. But today's broadcast tells me that it's Hutton and Hutton only. He makes my skin shrivel with his drivel.


Nomar Garciaparra went five for five tonight. That spectacular game comes two days after he went six for six. Nomar's average is now up to .344 and he is having the best season of any shortstop this season. He is also a strong candidate for MVP although if the vote was held today, the award would have to go to Carlos Delgado who is now up to 80 RBI!


Randy Johnson of the Diamondbacks was moved from the 15 day disabled list to the 60 day. That is much more time than was expected which is a big blow to Arizona's season and Johnson's career.


The transaction wire today listed that the Mets signed their second round draft choice, Beau Vaughan. I wonder if that name made the team's fans shudder.


Speaking of Beau...or Bo...Bo Hart has started really his MLB career with a bang as he is batting .450 in his first few games for the Cardinals. That must be exciting for their fans. Hart made a spectacular play against Griffey tonight too!

Speaking of rookies, the Mets/Marlins game featured Cabrera for the Marlins and Jose Reyas for the Mets. Reyas had a tough game but Cabrera went two for five and just missed a homer to left as it curved foul at the pole.

One thing is clear from my first few days in Florida: The state has two entertaining baseball teams.

The Marlins have Lowell and Willis and now they have Miguel Cabrera to go along with some good young pitchers. The Marlins will frustrate quite a few contenders for the rest of the season.

The Devil Rays first of all have Lou Piniella managing and add Baldelli and Huff and this pitcher who is pitching tonight: Zombrano. A Devil Ray named Roll (Samari?) has hit two homers against Clemens and Zombrano has outpitched Roger.

But then again, the Yankees look flat tonight which seems understandable since the won a long and emotional extra inning game last night and then had to travel to Tampa. You can tell a team is flat when several of its players swing at 57 foot sliders.

I think Torre is asleep too as a situation happened that cost the Yankees a run. The Yankees had aman on first and third and Matsui was up. At the time, the Yanks were two runs down. Matsui smashes a double to centerfield and it hopped over the fence for a ground rule double. One run scored and usually, the umpires make the runner from first stop at third. But there was a catch this time as the Yankees had the runner on first in motion when the ball was pitched. That being the case, the run should have counted. Torre didn't even question it and apparently, even his braintrust didn't wake him up about it.

I hate the kind of rules that are considered discretionary and the umpires take the lazy, easy way out and always make the call the same way. The rule is discretionary because if a ground rule double is hit and it appears the runner would have scored, then by gum, the runner should score!

I'm pretty fed up with umpires in MLB anyway. The Devil Rays broadcast mentioned that Tampa is one of the cities that is using the system to test umpires. The announcer mentioned that Dale Hirschbeck (sp?) was angered that the system showed that 30+ of his ball and strike calls were wrong. He discredited the system as being flawed. A real man would take the report seriously and look for patterns that can be improved upon. The real truth is that the strike zone is seriously flawed in MLB.

Another beef is umpires that look for confrontation instead of backing away from it. The best umpires I've ever seen will just ignore a player or manager who complains and usually the person making the complaint will back off if his arguments aren't getting anywhere. When will today's umpires learn that a great called game means that no one noticed the umpires at all.

I'm starting to worry about Buck Showalter down there in Texas as the Rangers have lost a ton of games the past thirty days. I don't think they've won five of their last thirty games. They have the batting but just not the pitching where it needs to be. I sure hope that Showalter won't be the scapegoat.

The Blue Jays scored over eleven runs again today. They are unbelievable lately. It will be interesting to see if the Jays can stay in the race all summer. With the mashers that team has, I find it hard to believe they will have much of a slump as a team.


I'd like to thank Steve W. and his family today for their hospitality after I had some lunch over there today. I showed Steve's great kids all about blogging and I think they were excited enough to want to start something themselves. I hope they have as much fun as I'm having.

It's a typical day in paradise. We had a sunny morning and I alternated with swimming in the pool to reading the Florida papers about the Marlins' latest five inning win.

The rain shortened win is another example of the trouble with Florida baseball. To really make MLB viable down here, you will need to have a domed stadium. You can't ask the fans to shoot dice to determine if they will get wet watching the game or whether they will get to watch a game at all.

In any case, the Marlins won again and so did Willis, the young pitcher from the Fan's post yesterday. He really seems like the real deal and is now 7-1.

After I was done reading the paper and the boxscores, I was able to turn to my other reading. Vacations have always been a time for me to catch up on reading, one of the true pleasures in life. My days at the Jersey shore in the summer were always times to read and I have a fairly ecclectic selection of tastes. Even then I would read anything from Tolkien to Mickey Spillane.

And there was always a sports book thrown in that mix. I liked biographies especially which earlier in my life were of the heroic variety. Books about Connie Mack or Lou Gehrig were typical. Later, the books got grittier and more gossip-like. "Ball Four" of course, was the big breakthrough of that ilk. Bouton's book captured my imagination when I was in junior high and gave me a new appreciation for baseball players.

The funny thing was that he was vilified because it was thought that his honest look at baseball and its players would eat away at the reverence fans had for players. But that wasn't the case for me and Mantle was my idol too. Bouton's book actually made Mantle more appealing and approachable as an idol.

One funny memory of that book was a execration that impressed my juvenile mind as the coolest I'd ever heard. If you've read the book, Bouton had a manager who often said, "horseshit." I remember trying to find the right circumstance to use what I had learned.

The occasion came later at a junior high basketball game I attended and watched with interest. One of the refs in the game made a call I totally disagreed with and I shouted my newly learned swear phrase at the top of my lungs. I was unnerved when all action stopped and the entire population in the gym were staring at me. I quickly learned that the results weren't as cool as I had hoped.

Another great read was the series of books written by Ron Luciano, the clownish umpire. Luciano's books were hilarious and if you can find copies on Ebay or someplace, I recommend them highly.

So far, on this trip, I have read a book by Mike Shannon called "Tales From The BallPark." At first I had thought that Shannon was the same one who played for the Cardinals back in the 60's and 70's. Shannon was one of my favorite Stratomatic players of that time. "Tales" is somewhat entertaining as Shannon gives 225 pages of one page snippets of true things that happened in MLB. I was somewhat disappointed by the books lack of depth but it was an okay read.

Now I am reading a very engaging history of ESPN written by Michael Freeman. A rags to riches story, ESPN is not without its blemishes, particularly sexual harrassment, throughout its fascinating history.

Of course, that kind of thing needs to be examined so that it doesn't repeat itself but the book also fairly represents ESPN's affect on American sports culture. Sports fans never had it so good.

The book mentions Fox Sports as being an able rival and Keith Olbermann as being the best reporter there is (a form ESPN star). That's crap as nearly all of the ESPN achors are more entertaining and more likeable. I'll never switch.

I'll be very interested to read about Chris Berman as he's always been my favorite. I wonder what dirt we'll learn about him! It won't matter of course, which goes back to the point made during my discussion of Bouton's book. He's still great and you know what? I'm not perfect either.

See you down by the pool.

The Flagrant Fan is in sunny Florida. I don't know why I do everything the opposite of everyone else. I go to Florida in the summer and freeze to death in Maine in the winter. Strange. To top it off, I'm at my mom's place for a week and she's 76 with an old Gateway with Windows 95 and a dialup modem. I feel like I've gone back twenty years. It's funny how spoiled we get.

The big news in Florida is the debut of Miguel Cabrera, the Marlins' 20 year old phenom whose first hit was a walk off homerun against the Devil Rays last night. Granted, he was only 1 for 5 on the night, but still, what a way to start your career.

Cabrera is the Marlins' best prospect and was hitting .365 in the minors. He is also a third baseman which leads all the Florida papers down here to speculate that Cabrera will take over for Mike Lowell when Lowell is traded. Cabrera played left field last night and played it flawlessly.

I would hate to see Lowell traded. He is the franchise player and it would be similar to Kansas City trading Mike Sweeney. Both are fan favorites and in cities struggling to recover their fan base, it seems stupid to trade them away.

The Marlins have already done that once when they traded Jeff Conine to Baltimore. Conine was a fixture down here and a big fan favorite. He has proved to be the same in Baltimore. It hurts a franchise beyond repair when such moves are made for the money element. It says to the fans that the owners don't care about the fans and who they like to root for.

Lowell has been an inspirational story from the beginning with his testicular cancer and the battle he won just playing in the major leagues. Now he is a star with 21 homers and 60 RBI. The Marlins should keep him and continue to play Cabrera in Left.

The other big story down here is Dontrelle Willis, their rookie Vida Blue-like pitcher. Willis is now 6-1 with a 2.65 ERA along with 51 strikeouts in 51 plus innings.

The Vida Blue comparison comes from the fact that the throws from the left side and has the same high leg kick that Blue was famous for. In a nice story, Blue, who works for Giants, said he's like to meet Willis and Willis is very excited about that prospect.

Willis seems to be a great kid and also seems to have a great future ahead of him.

That's all from Florida. I have to...umm...go swim in a pool now. What a bummer huh?

Baseball fights are fun. There I said it and I admit it. As much as we admire Star Trek, we haven't yet become as civilized as we'd like to think. We gawk at accidents. We watch hockey hoping the gloves will come off. We shout when a big hit happens in football. And yes, we are very interested when baseball players fight. This time the fight involved two pitchers. Now that is very cool. Don't let the little leaguers hear that, but pitchers fighting is almost as much fun as when Brent Favre starts mixing it up with a 320 pound defensive lineman.

In the Red second fight of the week (putting them high on the uncivilized-yet-fun list), pitcher Paul Wilson was trying to bunt. Kyle Farnsworth, who throws 200 MPH, threw his fastball up around Wilson's chest. Wilson apparently didn't like that because he whirled around and shouted at Farnsworth. Farnsworth, who must not like hearing that his mother wears army boots, actually rushed towards home to take on Wilson. Wilson took up the gauntlet and threw his bat down and met Farnsworth a quarter of the way to the mound. That was his big mistake as Farnsworth piledrived him into the turf with his shoulder. Wilson was seen leaving the field with a busted up nose and blood spatter on his jersey.

Can you say, "Suspension"? The only question is whether the Red players who brawled in two games will all serve their suspensions together.


It's time to look at the Flagrant Fan's favorite boxscore players and their last seven days:
- Hank Blalock. It's not been a good week for Blalock as he hit .227 for the week with only one homer and two RBI. His average has dropped from the .350s down to .333.
- Mark Teixeira. Blalock's teammate hasn't done better as he hit .208 for the week with a homer and three RBI. Teixeira is now batting .234.
- Sean Burroughs. Jeff's son had a good week as he batted .321 with a couple of RBI. Burroughs' average for the year is up to .297 and though the power is not there yet, it will be.
- Rocco Baldelli. Rocco also didn't fare well this week as he only batted .250 with no homers or RBI. He did walk three times which in one week gave him a quarter of his yearly total. That stat makes you wonder if he has started listening to his critics who complain that he is too much of a free swinger. It's funny that no one has every criticized Vladimir Guerrero for that. Guerrero's OBP improved every year and Baldelli's will too. Just have fun, Rocco. It will be cool.
- Pat Burrell. Burrell, who is still down in the .209 range for the year (ugh!) is starting to hit a little. He batted .333 for the week though with no power. Personally, I think Abreu should bat third, Burrell in cleanup and Thome in the five slot. Then Burrell will get more fastballs.
- Turk Wendell. The crazy ex-Met didn't give up any runs this week and so his ERA is down to .076!
- Alfonso Soriano. Soriano has had a poor week, only hitting .194 for the week. But he did bloop the winning hit in the 12 inning, 1-0 win.
- Mike Lowell. Mike only hit .234 for the week for the Marlins. But he did hit three homers to lift is amazing yearly total to 21. He also had six RBI to raise his yearly total to 57.
- Ken Griffey. Junior sat out a game or two with soreness in his right shoulder but apppears to be fine. He did manage to get three hits in twelve at bats with two RBI.
- Adam Dunn is still doing the Dave Kingman thing as he is batted .150 for the week. But two of this three hits were homers so now he has 22 homers to go with his flashy .202 batting average.
- Larry Walker. I've always loved Walker and his personality. He's starting to hit now and batted .333 for the week with a homer and four RBI. He's up to .282 for the year.
- Shane Spencer. Spencer only batted six times but did get three hits to bat .500 for the week.
- Coco Crisp. My new favorite batted .238 for the week but is OBP wasn't too bad at .333. He did score four runs and stole two bases.

Some quick thoughts:
The infield of Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada are batting .249 and .221 respectively for the year and both were under .200 for the past week. There is no way the A's are going to make the playoffs this year unless the Red Sox and Toronto both fold.

Greg Maddux is still only 5-6 with a 4.44 ERA. That doesn't look very good for $14 million dollars.

Speaking of the Braves, in what seems like reality warping, Mike Hampton pitched his second great game in a row and Smoltz blew the save and lost the game!

There are two no-hitters in the works as the Fan writes this. Both Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood have no-hitters into the sixth innings of their respective games. The Yankees haven't scored yet for Clemens but Sammy Sosa has hit his first homer in more than a month to put Wood up by three runs. The last time I wrote that two no-hitters were underway, the Astros no-hit the Yankees. So we'll see what happens.


The National League AllStar Pitchers should be:
- Kevin Brown. A no doubter as he is 10-1 with a 1.97 ERA. The NL is only batting .209 against him and he has only given up 76 hits in 100+ innings.
- Hideo Nomo. His record is only 7-6 but he has a 2.66 ERA and has only given up 74 hits in 109 innings! He has already thrown two shutouts and if it weren't for walks, the guy would be nearly perfect this season.
- Woody Williams. While his teammate, Morris, has been hurt by the homerun, Williams has only given up 5 homers and has a 2.66 ERA along with his 8-2 record.
- Jason Schmidt. Schmidt's record with the Giants is only 5-3 despite his 13 starts. His record and the quick hook they have in San Francisco is the best argument for Clemens being one of the last to win 300 games. Schmidt has struck out 100 in his 91 innings.
- Mark Prior. Prior and Kerry Wood have been dominant at times but Wood just can't seem to get away from that .500 record he always has. Prior on the other hand is 8-2 with a 2.77 ERA. Prior has struck out 106 in 96+ innings.
- Randy Wolf. Wolf has only pitched 90 innings in his 14 starts as Larry Bowa also has a quick hook. But in his 90 innings, Wolf has only given up 64 hits as the competition is only hitting .198 against him (the best for starters in the NL). His ERA is a little high at 3.30, but he is 8-3 and you can't beat success.
- Shawn Chacon. Chacon has an ERA of 4.21, but consider that stat is from pitching in Coors Field in Denver. He is 9-3 and is having a great season.

For my setup men and closers, I'm going to break my own rule stated in my post concerning the AL pitching Allstars. Two setup men and two closers are so clearly having overpowering and unbelievable years, all of them deserve to go. The set up men are both from the same team:
- Octavio Dotel. 6-2 with 2 saves, a 1.59 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 39 plus innings show you how dominant he has been.
- Brad Lidge. Right behind Dotel (or right in front!), Astros teammate Lidge is 4-0 with a save and a 1.49 ERA. He has only given up seven earned runs in 42 innings.

The two best closers in baseball are so far in front of everyone else, you have to take both:
- Eric Gagne. Gagne is having the most unbelievable season by a reliever. The season rivals one that Goose Gossage had years ago. Just 15 hits given up in 37 innings, a WHIP of 0.64 and 67 strikeouts in 37 innings are surreal numbers. They look more like stratomatic numbers.
- John Smoltz doesn't strike out as many (though more than one an inning). He is one save behind Gagne and has an ERA of 0.72. That number may not even make sense to you. Let me put it another way: Smoltz has given up only three runs in 37.2 innings. Unbelievable.

If the American League is behind going into the seventh inning, the game is over.


Clemens gave up his first hit in the eigth inning so the no-hit bid is over. The game is still scoreless and it looks like Clemens won't get #301. Wood's no-hit bid in Chicago just ended in the seventh inning. He is still leading the Reds, 4 to 1.

John Olerud notched his 2000th hit tonight. The hit got some play at the baseball sites. It wasn't big news and Olerud's career won't be considered big news either. He had one "career" season in 1993 when he flirted with .400 for a large part of the year and ended up hitting .363 with 54 doubles, 24 homeruns and a .476 OBP. The rest of his career (except for 1998 when he hit .354) has been what people would call, "steady." There would be little mention of him as a potential Hall of Famer.

But Olerud is one of those unsung players. A few stats can't tell the full picture. Sure, he has a lifetime batting average of .299 and a remarkable lifetime OBP of .403. You have to put all of his stats together to get the picture that Olerud has always done one simple thing: He's always made his team better.

One way he's done that is with his fielding. He doesn't make the highlight shows with flashy diving stops (though he'll make a few). What he does is make all of his infielding teammates better. Back in his Toronto days, when they had Tony Fernandez at shortstop, Fernandez was the whiz kid and a sensation. Olerud helped make that happen. I know as I watched nearly all of those games. Fernandez never duplicated those days, though he was a good player.

Olerud then went to the Mets and the last year that he was there, the Mets set a major league record for the fewest errors. Olerud somehow gives his infielders confidence that whatever they throw over there, he'll find a way to catch. The biggest telling factor for those Mets is how badly their infield defense collapsed when Olerud went to Seattle and Zeile took over as Mets first baseman (no knock on Zeile).

Now he is with Seattle and it's not an accident that the Mariners are touted for their first class, high powered defense. What a surprise that the defense is anchored by John Olerud at first base.


I'll give you my National League AllStar pitchers tomorrow. You can already mark down that Kevin Brown is going to be on my list.

I just finished reading Peter Gammans column on ESPN.com. The man just flat out can write baseball. Every time I read his stuff, I wonder why I'm playing around with this. I play and he performs. The funny thing is now that he has been on Baseball Tonight for a few years, when I read his column, I read it in his voice! Peter Gammans reads his column to me personally. Pretty cool stuff.


I have poured over the MLB stats and have come up with my AllStar pitchers. First of all, let me say that I totally disagree with recent year selections where Torre and Cox (or whomever is the National League manager) select four or five closers. Closers pitch an inning. They can throw as hard as they need to because they only throw an inning. The AllStars should be those starters who pitch six to eight innings better than most of their rivals. Then pick one closer (the one with the hottest hand) and one setup man.

Okay, now that I have blown that off, here is my list of American League pitchers (how many can I pick anyway??):

- Estaban Loaiza. What a great start now that he's 9-2 with a 2.24 ERA. Only Mike Mussina has a better WHIP (walks+hits per innings pitched).
- Kyle Lohse. He has the second lowest ERA in the AL and the third best WHIP.
- Jamie Moyer. 40 years old and 10-3 with the league's third best ERA.
- Mike Mussina. He's been a bit streaky, but he is 9-4 and leads all AL starters with a .99 WHIP aided by his lack of walking people. One of only four AL starters with an ERA under 3.00. He leads AL pitchers in strikeouts.
- Barry Zito. Leads AL starters with the AL hitters only batting .198 against him. Only walks keep his ERA and WHIP up a little and that might be more a result of umpires giving up on the curve more than any other reason.
- Tim Hudson. Zito's teammate is right behind him in most pitching stats. Okay...one more starter...
- Gil Meche. Meche would have made it with his 9-3 record but outpitching Greg Maddux and beating the Braves lands him on MY team!

We need a closer...and my winner is?
- Eddie Guardado. Surprise! But he shouldn't be. He leads the AL in saves, has a WHIP of an incredible 0.94 and has only walked four batters in 28 innings! Supurb.

My setup man is:
- Brendan Donnelly. The Anaheim Angel pitcher has been unbelievable and leads all relievers with a WHIP of 0.87. His ERA is 0.24 and he has struck out 41 batters in 34.2 innings! The league is batting a rediculous .153 against him.

And my emotional pick would be Roger Clemens. He isn't far from deserving it. The forty year old has struck out 97 batters in 89 innings. He has only pitched poorly in 2 of his 14 starts and his 3.73 ERA is greatly inflated by relief pitchers bringing in Clemens' inherited baserunners.

That's my American League pitching staff. I'll go through the National League tomorrow.

I've already decided that I made one AllStar vote mistake but I think I've covered my bases (pun intended) pretty well on the rest of my selections.

Starting in the National League, I went with Richie Sexson of the Brewers as my first baseman. There really wasn't anyone else to select. Bagwell has too few RBI. Thome has good power numbers but is batting .248. Helton is having a good year but I can't justify anyone who plays half their year in Colorado. Sexson has 21 homers and 47 RBI. Great numbers.

Second base goes to Jeff Kent. He makes the Astros better and has the most RBI of anyone at his position. The only other contender (and I hope he makes the team) is Aaron Boone (the non-arrogant Boone) who is having a very good year.

My pick at shortstop has been one of the best fielders for many years. Now he knows how to hit too. His name? Edgar Renteria. Renteria is among the NL leaders in batting and leads his position in RBI. Alex Gonzalez of the Marlins and Rafael Furcal of the Braves are both having good years but they come short of Renteria.

Mike Lowell is my easy choice for third base. He is having a tremendous year and gets the nod over Scott Rolen who is has good numbers too.

The NL catcher should be Javey Lopez who is having a career year and seems all the way back from his dark last couple of years. His only competition is Lo Duca of the Dodgers.

The NL outfield seems pretty easy to pick this year as Sheffield of the Braves, Pujols of the Cardinals and Andruw Jones of the Braves stand out against the rest of the league's outfielders. If I could have chosen five outfielders, I would have chosen Bonds--who is coming on fast--and Austin Kearns.

The American League is a little closer at several positions and is where I made my one mistake (No I will not vote twice--even if they let you). My first basement in the AL has to be Carlos Delgado. He already has a bazillion RBI and lifted that team up to great things. He is also the first legit contender for the triple crown baseball has seen for a long time.

Nomar Garciaparra easily surpasses Alex Rodriguez of the Rangers this year. The stats are no comparison. The worth to their respective teams is enormous, but Nomar is having an MVP year. Today alone, Garciaparra hit three doubles and a triple. He then laid down a sacrifice bunt that set up the winning run. I haven't seen him play lately. Is he still trying to pull everything? His average has risen sharply since I wrote that observation weeks ago.

Oh yes, second base. A tough call here. I took Boone over Soriano because he has more RBI and is a better fielder. But Boone is better this year and Soriano had the better year last year. Boone's RBI this year are also helped by him batting third whereas Soriano has batted first all year (except for three games). Boone's a jerk too so that certainly entered my thoughts as I was voting. Well, I gave it to Boone this one last time. Soriano will be there for the rest of his career.

Third base was easy for me and I went with Hank Blalock. He is still among the leaders in batting, has a lot of RBI and it would be exciting to see him at the AllStar game. He is going to be a great player for a long time.

My mistake, I think, was in selecting Jorge Posada at catcher. He leads all catchers in RBI and is having a better defensive season and I believe him to be one of the best clutch hitters in the game. But the Twins A.J. Pierzynski is having a great year and easily beats Posada in average while only being five RBI behind Posada. He is also one of the best defensive catchers in baseball. My bad. I made the wrong choice here.

The outfield was difficult as more of the AL outfielders are bunched up. I ended up going with Manny Ramirez, Garrett Anderson and Vernon Wells. All three are solid picks and all of their stats are right up there with everyone else's.

Edgar Martinez is the easy pick for the DH, though it's weird that the AL gets this pick while the NL does not.

So there you have it: The Flagrant Fan's AllStars. I'll pick my AllStar pitchers tomorrow.

Much to my relief, amazement and joy, Roger Clemens finally won his 300th game (along with obtaining his 4000th strikeout) in grand style by striking out ten hitters against a great hitting team and holding the Cardinals to two runs. The relief pitchers did their job as did the Yankee hitters and it's finally over. Congratulations Roger. I know it was your personal victory and was an accomplishment performed from your hard work over the years. But it was my victory too as I have watched at least two hundred of those victories. You are one of the best ever and I am honored that I was able to watch you.

My prediction is that now that this milestone is finally met, the Yankees will go on a tear and today brought that out as they mauled the Cardinals' best pitcher and exploded for thirteen runs. Giambi is officially hot and is up to 17 homers and 46 RBI. Matsui is hot as well and is up to 44 RBI. Sierra has produced in his few games and Andy Petitte threw well today. Look out American League, the Yanks are past walking the tightrope and will be stridently walking your way soon.


In two of the best matchups in this interleague weekend, the Braves and Mariners have split two games in what is the battle of this year's two best teams. And the Cubs and Blue Jays have split two games as two of the better teams in the majors squared off. Mark Prior won again today and has looked really sharp his last two games.

Carlos Delgado and Adam Dunn both hit their MLB leading 22nd homers tonight. Dunn was involved in a major brawl last night against the Phillies after getting brushed back twice. It seems that the Phillies weren't too happy that Dunn crashed into Philly catcher, Mike Lieberthal with the Reds winning the game at the time 10-0. I understand that to degree, but as Tim McGarver aptly pointed out recently, these days, a 10-0 lead isn't safe and you have to score all the runs you can. Dunn is a football mentality anyway and a big man. I'm sure he was just playing hard. To his credit, Lieberthal didn't think it was a bad play on Dunn's part. I'm sure you will see lots of suspensions from that game.


It was quite ironic last night. I wanted to record my feelings for the Clemens milestone and was looking forward to writing my post. But I changed the hub on my network yesterday and couldn't get the network to recognize the cable from Road Runner. Finally, I went to bed giving up on it for the night. My wife got it working while I was sleeping. How is that for a good woman huh?


The Red Sox just came back to tie the Astros 2-2 in another great interleague matchup. The Red Sox are amazing in that they never give up and their hitters just expect to pull the games out at the end. You don't beat the Red Sox, they just run out of outs. Ramirez and Garciaparra are both up to .325


The Dodgers have won five straight and are now just two and a half games behind the Giants in the NL West. Ashby even won a game for them. They have great pitching and the league's best closer. I had thought for a while that the Giants were going to run away with it, but I no longer believe that.


It's a real shame that the Cubs have lost Sammy Sosa for seven games right after his coming back from injury. June has always been Sosa's get hot month and the season is getting to be a wash for him. His Pepsi commercial buddy, Junior Griffey, continues to pound the ball since his return which makes this fan a very happy guy.


I just filled out my AllStar ballot. I'll fill you in tomorrow!

Joe Torre must have given a good speech last night because the Yankees came from behind and won tonight for the first time all year. In a spectacularly poor statistic, they were 0-20 in games where they were behind after the sixth inning. That doesn't show a lot of fire and vinegar. But tonight was different and the same pitchers who made them look terrible last night in that six pitcher no hitter were spanked for the loss and blown save tonight.

Across town, the Mets fired General Manager Steve Phillips a half a year after they fired Bobby Valentine. It's hard to know how much blame to assign to a GM when a team fails. He just couldn't seem to catch these older players correctly. Robbie Alomar seemed like the best second baseman that ever lived until he became a Met. Now he doesn't seem any better than Horace Clarke. Jeremy Burnitz hit dozens of homers for the lowly Brewers and was one of the league's premier power hitters until he became a Met. Last year, he looked like Rich Gedman after he got all fouled up by the Charlie Lau swing.

It's hard to know which side of the career Tom Glavine was on. Was there a reason why Atlanta let him walk? Did they know something Phillips didn't? The statistics don't show any slippage in Glavine's performance from 2001 to 2002. He was typically great. Who would figure that this year he would be injured so often and so ineffective because of it.

It was easy to see that Piazza was slipping year to year. Every year his stats came down bit by bit. He will rank, if he moves to first or elsewhere, as the best hitting catcher ever. But his best years are gone. That wasn't Phillips fault. Mo Vaughan was his fault. Mo had slowed down by the time he hit Anaheim and then lost a year to injury. It is much easier for pitchers to miss that much time than it is for hitters. Mo was short for Molasses and that's how slow his swing was with the Mets.

The Mets just seemed off the last couple of years and every thing they tried just seemed to fall apart on them. I guess you can blame the GM or the manager before him. But I guess my blame would fall with the players. But I guess you can't fire a whole team.

Two no-hitters are underway tonight. The Yankees have been no-hit through six by four different Astros pitchers. Oswalt started, but had to leave early with a leg injury. A few years ago, the major leagues reconsidered what was a no-hitter and combined and short inning no hitters no longer count. I don't agree with that at all. Whether it's a team that does it or just one pitcher, a no hitter is a no hitter.

In the San Francisco/Chicago White Sox game, terrific rookie pitcher, Jesse Foppert, has no hit the White Sox through four innings while striking out six. Whether the no hitter stands or not, the White Sox are moribund and I believe that the Sox need to make a change at manager. He's had a long tenure there and things are getting worse instead of better. The players don't seem to have any fire and that is the manager's responsibility.

Coco Crisp has had a tough start for the Indians as he's gone 1 for 9 in his first two games. Mets rookie, Jose Reyas, went 2 for 4 in his first MLB game. He's 0 for 1 so far tonight.

Oops. The White Sox got a hit on Foppert, but only one and the Giants are up 8-0. Bonds hit another homer and is starting to catch fire. His is up to 17 homers and 39 RBI. Don't count out another 50 homer season.

Pedro Martinez pitched three innings of shutout ball in his first outing back from his injury. John Burkett has pitched very well in relief and that is a good sign for the Red Sox as they are up big over the Cardinals.

One of my favorite players in all of baseball went on the disabled list today. I've watched Ellis Burks since he broke in with the Red Sox as a hard swinging centerfielder. He could hit, throw, run and has been a solid player for a long time. I always thought his knees would end his career, but his career threatening injury is to his elbow as a pinched nerve is causing the muscles in his hand to atrophy.

Burks has 351 career homers and over 1200 runs scored and RBI during stints in Boston, Colorado, San Francisco and now Cleveland. He always seemed like a class act and his "act" was real as he has been credited with great leadership skills everywhere he has gone. The Fan knows he's been around a long time when players reach the end of their career and the Fan remembers the beginning. Age isn't any fun.

Burks was replaced on the Indian's roster with one of the great names in baseball history: Coco Crisp. Coco is currently 0 for 4 in his first game up. It looks like I have a new player to keep track of in the box scores!

Well...part of me feels vindicated and part of me feels badly tonight. Juan Acevado was released by the Yankees just three days after blowing Clemens bid for 300. The very next day, his throwing error gave the Cubs some extra runs that decided the game in the end. I feel bad because I hoped he would be released and now he is. It's not as bad as wishing someone dead, but it's close. I'm sure he'll end up somewhere and resume his career.

The Mets brought up their next great player (supposedly) tonight in the person of Jose Reyas. He'll play shortstop for two weeks while Ray Sanchez heals. He batted last in the Mets/Rangers game tonight and singled in his first major league at bat. How cool is that! Way to go, Jose, and welcome to MLB!

It's another one of those blah Monday's when virtually all of MLB has the night off. The only game scheduled is a late game between the Phillies and the Angels. The Phillies beat Oakland in two games of their double-header yesterday while the Seattle Mariners won both games of their double-header against the Mets. That's a four game swing in the standings and seems to state rather convincingly that Seattle is going wire to wire in the AL West.

Interleague play is where the Athletics have started their runs in recent years. Their great pitching led them to the best interleague record in the majors. But they are only 5-5 in their last ten interleague games while Seattle has had a 9-1 run. In fact, Seattle is one of only two teams in the entire American League that has a winning record in the last ten games of interleague play. The Angels are the other at 7-3. Oakland is now a half a game behind the Yankees for the wildcard as well.

I don't know if it is a sign of parity or just plain mediocrity, but nobody in the American League East or Central had a better than .500 record. It's like all the teams are just spinning around in some kind of crazy orbit waiting for something to break out.

The top division during interleague play has been the National League Central. Four teams (including Milwaukee!) are above .500 in the last ten games and the Astros are as hot as the Mariners with a 9-1 run. It's funny how the Astros look great and then terrible...then great...then terrible. I guess it's the old cliche' where they will be as good as their pitching takes them. Since they have a potentially great starting staff and arguably the best bullpen, pitching could take them a long way. The NL Central race is going to be a good one to watch all year, especially if Sammy Sosa ever gets going.

Speaking of the NL Central, I don't know if the Yankees are just that bad now, but the Cubs look really tough. Their pitchers aren't afraid of anything and they can bring it game after game after game.

Okay, I've been avoiding this topic, but a true fan has to admit that the Atlanta Braves are one amazing franchise. How in the world do you dismantle the best bullpen in the league from last year, ignore signing Glavine and Millwood and still end up tied for the best record in MLB? Every year us Braves haters wait like buzzards for them to fall as all empires must but they don't and won't. They even won the battle of the cable teams. In the early days of cable, you could watch every Braves game on TBS, every Cubs game on WGN and every Mets game on WOR. The Braves are the only one left. They are an amazing organization and as a fan, you have to give it to them.

It's time for me to look at my favorite players to check on a daily basis:
- Sean Burroughs of the Padres is hitting .409 in his last seven days and is now up to .293 for the season. Not much for power, but that will come in time.
- (sigh) Pat Burrell is still stuck in a terrible slump and only hit .176 for the week which leaves his season average below the Mendoza line at .199. Ugh!
- (more sighs) Shane Spencer has wore out his attempt to start in Cleveland and only played in two games the last seven days and went 1 for 8. His season average is down to .226.
- Ken Griffey hit .308 the last week and has his average up to .277. His Slugging percentage is up over .600 and his OPS is over 1.000! Yeah!
- Adam Dunn is beginning to look a lot like Dave Kingman with 20 homers for the season and a .211 batting average.
- Rocco Baldelli only hit .263 for the week which brought him down to .329 for the year. But he still has 80 hits already!
- The Devil Rays' other phenem, Jason Tyner, hit .500 for the week and is hitting .394 in limited action.
- My man, Hank Blalock chugs along, hitting .360 for the week with 7 more RBI (40 total) and is hitting .353 for the year.
- His young teammate, Mark Teixeira, hit .294 for the week and is up to .244.

Don't ask me why I am so interested in those players above. I don't know other than that some were old favorites and some just captured my imagination along the way.

Ugh! Road Runner went down last night for one of the few times in years of my memory. My apologies as I was unable to post. I'll see you folks tonight.