Category: MLB General

Welcome to the first of this season’s official SC Power Rankings. Power Rankings will be published every Friday throughout the season. Comments, questions, gripes are all welcome.

By Rob LaBrie

Although we are only a little over two weeks into a very long baseball season, I feel compelled to write about what has happened so far just because there’s been so much going on.  We’ve seen an established superstar hit 9 jacks in 13 games and a guy with 19 career homers before this year hit 9 of his own through 13 games.  We’ve seen a guy come close to breaking Joe DiMaggio’s timeless hitting streak record.  We’ve seen a 40-year-old, “washed up” Mad Dog win his first three games in dominating fashion.  We’ve also seen a pair of Sox, one young and one old, win their first three games.  Oh yeah, we’ve also seen perjury charges and a homer-less 10 games for the guy with the biggest head in the game, literally.  What better way to sum up the season than with the first annual TWIS Awards?  

10.    I’m sorry, but what you’ve heard is true. Chicks dig the long ball. Despite all the controversy that modern home run statistics are becoming irrelevant because of the live ball era, steroids, the lowered pitcher’s mound, maple bats, body armor for the hitters, diluted pitching talent, shrinking strike zone, global warming, outfield fences steadily marching inward, and the blasphemy above all- baseball being played in the thin air of Colorado- the home run is still revered above all plays in baseball. Do you remember anything about the playoffs last year besides bad umpiring? Yes, of course you do. You remember Albert Pujols tattooing a Brad Lidge fastball into the ozone layer. Just in the same way you remember crippled Kirk Gibson taking Eckersly deep to win game one of the series in `88, and Carlton Fisk’s body language that kept his deep fly fair to win the series game in `75. Almost every sports fan could recite verbatim the home run call when Aaron passed Ruth, yet would struggle on the first line of the Pledge of Allegiance. An old Nike commercial said it best: “Face it fellas, a low ERA just isn’t that sexy.”

With the Barry Bonds witch hunt in full force, baseball shouldn’t forget the other key players.

I used to be a Bill James guy. Not anymore.

Working in the front office for my beloved Red Sox, James, who is obsessed with signing guys with high on-base percentages, is a contributing factor to why, on April 10, the Red Sox led baseball in walks.

But James’s most famous contribution to baseball is his “sabermetrical” analysis, which has popularized the use of new statistics like such as OPS(on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) to determine player value.

By Billy Fellin

    This title of a popular Linkin Park song is exactly where baseball and Barry Bonds are. A few years ago, all anyone could talk about is how the games would go down between the Yankees and Red Sox. Now steroids rule the cooler talk of the sports channels of the world, and I believe that it is ruining the sport. In case anyone has been missing that.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter–Martin Luther King Jr.

Bobby Baseball is not a real person. He is made up of media accounts, water cooler conversations and  privy moments of underlying sheer hatred. There are many other questions that I would pose to any journalist regarding the treatment of Barry Bonds. Why is he so hated? What did he do to merit said hatred? Will the person who has seen the grand jury testimony, please stand up? The two books that were written about Barry’s steroid use have not one stitch of proof. How come there aren’t more Jose Cansecos? What I want America to understand is this is not about steroids, it’s about the witch hunt. Blacks have had heroes dragged, stabbed, assassinated, hung, ridiculed, ostracized, falsely accused and nullified. These are some of the reasons why some Blacks come to the defense of Bonds. The way he and other athletes are treated in the media conjures images Blacks are sick of seeing and feeling. Lyle Alzado, Bill Romanowski, Ken Caminiti, Jason Giambi (Comeback Player of the Year? What?). These are some of the few athletes who weren’t branded with as hot a tool as the one Barry gets stuck on his muscular chest every single time he is interviewed. Could you deal with the scrutiny? Could you deal with the judgemental scolding saliva of drunk fans and their misled children alike?

“Hope springs eternal” is the most commonly-used cliché applied to the start of every baseball season. But I don’t like it, mostly because I don’t think it applies. Hope doesn’t spring eternal for the Royals for more than six weeks, and then they’re 14 games back and scouting the next draft. For them it’s more like hope springs for a month and a half.

So for my lead, I’m going to dive back into the bag of tricks and grab, “everything old is new again.” It’s the perfect way to describe that return of the Grand Old Game, and it applies this year more than ever.

by Trevor Freeman

Is it just me or was anybody else out there not prepared for Opening Day?  I’m not sure if it was because I was afflicted with a huge dose of “GeorgeMasonitis” or if it was because hearing the word “steroids” come out of Linda Cohn’s mouth every thirty seconds made me want to gag.  

Welcome to Opening Day. I know the White Sox and Indians played on Sunday night, but to me that’s the equivalent of the play-in game. Today’s when baseball really starts. The season only gets officially underway when the President throws out the first pitch. It’s not quite that first Thursday-Friday of the NCAA tournament, but it’s up there.