Category: MLB General

There is only one position player in baseball right now whose statistics are good enough to get him into the Hall of Fame, no questions asked. I won’t even mention his name, but we all know who I am talking about and we all know that his off-field endeavors might eventually cost him his admittance slip, just like it cost Pete Rose. That is an argument for another day, another time, and certainly, another writer.

But for the other 99.9% of baseball there is the potential for some argument one way or the other. With that said, here is the definitive list: Who’s In and Who’s Out amongst the top 9 candidates, according to Garrett Rudolph.

Lot of movement this week. White Sox get dethroned by the streaking Mets. Athletics and Astros take jumps forward. On the other hand, all of a sudden, the Braves and Diamondbacks look like double-A teams.

The All-Star Game is just around the corner, and after that, the trade deadline, which means teams have to start making important personnel decisions.

My last boyfriend didn’t know what a bunt was. He thought it was some kind of pastry sold at Yankee Stadium. I would dangle baseball-relationship metaphors above his head, and he would just roll his eyes and return his attention back to playing Halo 2. Which is probably why warning him the trade deadline was coming up on his heels didn’t sound any foreboding bells.  So when the logistics of dating a man who defined a grand slam as “a homerun, sort of, but better?” became more frustrating than watching A-Rod bat, I readjusted my Fantasy Team, moving my now ex from my starting rotation to waiver wires.

This week’s focus is on the injuries across the league. Pujols injury proves he’s human. In New York, Sheffield joins his buddy Godzilla on the DL, while out in California both Gagne and Harden return, only to get cold feet and jump right back to being injured. And finally, after months and months of suspense and waiting… Rocco Baldelli has finally returned, just in time for the Devil Rays’ playoff push.

Most baseball stars get more publicity than they need. How many times do you hear about Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Pedro Martinez, or David Ortiz and wish that you could be reading about other players? The MLB has a whole new breed of All Star caliber players; it’s just that few know anything about them. So let’s give credit where credit is overdue. Here are the top up-and-coming or simply underrated players in the majors.

Major League Baseball must be held accountable, regardless of myriad cultural reasons attributed to children’s lack of interest in baseball, predominantly in the inner city neighborhoods, for its lack of investment in them.

Barry Bonds has done it.  He has beaten the one man who we truly can say was “bigger than the game”.  Bonds has hit 715 homers as of today, one more than Babe Ruth’s career total of 714.  This is something that has only been achieved once in baseball history, but with steroid allegations looming, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for this milestone outside of the Bay Area.  

We fans can feel cheated all we want.  We can feel that we were deceived and that we wasted money to see Victor Conte’s chemistry project bash baseballs into McCovey’s Cove.  However, we are not the victims here.  The game of baseball is not the victim here, because it is the fans who decide what the game truly is.  If we keep paying our money to see games and celebrating the game and its athletes, baseball will be fine.  The real victim here is the big-headed one himself, Barry Bonds.

By C. Eric Lincoln

As a New Yorker, born and raised, I’ve decided to see what it is that makes Red Sox Nation such a unique cultural attraction. Join the Fenway faithful, share a smile and some baseball chatter. So far? As soon as the locals discover that you were raised in the land of Mantle, Mays and Snider, smiles fade and handshakes disappear. These people genuinely seem resentful that your life has been filled with such baseball gems, such good memories. You’ve got to feel sorry for people who believe in a Curse and were subject to the whims of owner Tom Yawkey, a cheap man who never cared about any rivalry.

It was 2:14 p.m. on a cool Sunday in May when Byung-Hyun Kim threw a 90-mph fastball to Barry Bonds. With the count full and a runner on base, Bonds took a swing at the ball and made a connection. This wasn’t Bonds’ swing of the past, the one where he got a perfect rotation from his hips, kept his bat under perfect control, got his legs into the swing, and drove the ball for what seemed to be miles and miles. No, this was Bonds’ new swing, his swing of the past few months. This was the swing where Barry barely moves his legs, doesn’t even get his right foot up to generate more power, and just flails around hopefully, trying to make some contact with the ball, and praying that he can hit it over the wall on pure upper body strength alone.

The Rocket is back, but will he be enough to catch up with Pujols and the Redbirds? Will the Braves playoff streak finally come to an end? Will the AL East again come down to the greatest rivalry in sports. And will Bud Selig mercifully intervene and allow two AL wild cards in place of an AL West champion?

The short answer to all these questions is, I don’t know, but we’re a third of the way into the season and the postseason layout is slowly coming into focus on the horizon.