Arizona Sports

Trouble at the Top?

Spring training is spring training.  A time for fans to slather on the sun screen, throw a towel down on the outfield lawn, and try to suck down a cold beverage before it becomes a lukewarm cup of swill.

This week, the Seattle Mariners rebuffed fan demands and shunned fan favorite Bobby Valentine in favor of former Cleveland manager Eric Wedge.    

Chances are that if you were around, you remember the 1986 baseball season.

A season capped by an exciting World Series that was best known for being the launching pad for several successful major league careers, including those of Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux, Mark McGwire, Fred McGriff, Barry Larkin, David Cone, Bo Jackson, Jamie Moyer, Steve Finley, Will Clark, and Rafael Palmeiro.

"And that's the rest of the story" was, of course, the famous phrase uttered countless times by the late, great, Paul Harvey.

For those readers too young or too sheltered to remember the immortal radio legend, Harvey gave listeners the endings to stories that were newsworthy one day and faded away from our memories the next. Harvey would present to listeners the happy or ironic outcome of a story long since forgotten.

I'm going to level here, I really don't like ranking all the teams. It just seems overdone and hack. Also, one mistake can ruin it for the team, so right now I am going to start with the top ten pitchers for the past week.

1) Zack Greinke: Duh. How can this guy not be at the top of the list? Everyone was expecting big things from him and he has delivered. First, in his first four starts he doesn't allow one run and wins all the decisions (4-0).

The Colorado Rockies have made a habit of struggling early.

For the third straight year, the club has stumbled out of the gate and looked like a team that was nowhere near finding their stride.

There is a new ballpark from which balls are flying out at a record pace. Home runs are jumping off the bats of both the home team and its opponents, much more so than in the team's road games, begging the question of whether this new park is going to play like Coors Field. Or at least, like Coors Field used to play.

I'm talking, of course, about Chase Field in Arizona.