Category: MLB

More than two months removed from the World Series, it is safe to say that the power may be shifting quietly in the American League West.  With big names like Alfonzo Soriano, Kenny Rogers, and Octavio Dotel (is he really still a star?) all heading to other teams outside the division, the changing of the guard indeed has begun.  

    On September 4, 1968, Michael Joseph Piazza came into this world via Norristown, Pa.  Ronnie Belliard was born on April 7, 1975 in the Bronx, N.Y.  And, in the great year of 1975, in the even more fantastic month of July, Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez was born in New York City.  All three ballplayers were born in the United States of America.

    As of January 1, 2006, however, Belliard was registered as a player for the Dominican Republic in the upcoming World Baseball Classic.  Piazza?  Italy.  Alex Rodriguez, one of the world’s finest baseball players?  No team.  Is anyone else upset by this trend?

The World Baseball Classic this coming March is an event that many of us baseball fans have penciled into our 2006 calendars.  Slowly the event is creeping into the Sports Media forefront and it should gain even more momentum as the college and NFL seasons wrap up.  With the winter meetings and the majority of the baseball off-season behind us, for baseball fans the WBC is the next thing to look forward to.  Small controversies have already begun with the debates ranging from Mike Piazza’s country of birth to the Yankees ability to withhold catcher Jorge Posada from the event.  While these issues are important to fans of the countries that these players seek to represent, the more pressing problem is the exclusion of Cuba from participating in the WBC.  This is something that has not been discussed with necessary urgency up to this point.   Cuba has a long tradition of baseball greatness and whatever your politics might be the exclusion of a country that has made such a significant impact on baseball throughout the world should be problematic to any baseball fan.  The shortsightedness of George Bush, himself the former owner of the Texas Rangers, to allow a political vendetta to exclude Cuba from participating in a World Baseball Classic is something that fans around the world should be challenging.  If the World Baseball Classic is to be set up as a yearly event, the exclusion of one country, by another for political reasons sets a dangerous precedent.  With many Latin American countries, notably Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina democratically electing presidents with strong anti-United States reputations, it seems likely that by 2009 the pool of eligible countries will have shrunk again, eliminating other countries with long reputations within the sport.  

In a perfect world, the end of a fifteen year stretch as the face of the Chicago White Sox would also mark the end of a remarkable career.

Unfortunately, Frank Thomas is probably going to hook on somewhere as a DH and chase the elusive 500 homerun plateau, making him an over the top sure in for the Hall of Fame.

In my opinion, he already is.  

As another year draws to an end, the holiday season is grasping people from all over.  The rush to give gifts and the wait to receive them is foremost on the mind of many.  The fact that a person may not deserve a gift or there maybe little love between giver and recipient is of little consequence.  If potential giver is likely to be recipient of another giver, then potential giver becomes giver.  Across the country neighbors and co-workers who are very low on gift giving lists will receive gifts anyway.  This passage of presents mixed with a pinch of “love” often smells worse than old eggnog.  It is for this very reason that Johnny Damon’s decision to sign with the New York Yankees instead of the Boston Red Sox represents a simpler spirit of Christmas.