MLB
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.
Recent events in Cincinnati have brought back life into a once subjugated Reds baseball team. Dare I say, the Reds are winning – and, no, it isn’t the beginning of the season. The past couple of weeks, everything has gone right for the Reds, even the injury to St. Louis Cardinals phenom Albert Pujols. Below you will find everything that has gone right for the Reds at this point of the season.
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.
It’s a ground ball to second, pathetic, rolling meagerly toward inevitable doom. I watch. The scene appears to be moving in slow motion. A serene calm has invaded my senses, the worst has arrived and will eventually pass, just as the moment would, fleetingly, fatefully. Pokey Reese immaculately scoops the ball from the depths, measuring up the impossible as he aims a throw towards first base. Just as they had done for the last four games, one man didn’t just represent a whole, he elevated above, forming an impossible force, an immovable will, a historical comeback. The throw is perfect. The Red Sox begin to celebrate on a field polluted by ghosts, victorious. The deed is done.
The insecure Met fan is truly a mystifying connoisseur of the Great American pastime, a mixture of fundamentalist fanatical passion and unrelenting insecurity.
In my time, I’ve encountered many Metropolitan fans that take unique pride in their distinctly sane outlook on all things Orange and Blue.
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.