Baseball

I remember my first baseball game as if it were yesterday. At the age of 35 there is nothing more disheartening AND exhilarating than going to your first MLB game.

To most, this is a memory that is usually forged in childhood. The proverbial game with Dad, baseball cap hanging so low you have to look up an extra six inches just to see. The hot dog dripping with ketchup, or mustard, down to your sneakers as you watch your team throw around the ball in preparation of the game.

To the national media, the Royals' trade for Yuniesky Betancourt was a somewhat minor transaction:  partly because of the two cities involved and partly because of the players involved. To those of us who doggedly follow the Royals, however, this trade was a big, big deal, and one that was almost universally disparaged.

Obviously, all A's fans (and many baseball fans) know the story of Brad Ziegler.

He was signed by the A's out of the independent leagues, wasn't very good, was converted from conventional pitching to submarine-style pitching, took off, and ran off the longest scoreless-innings streak to start a career last season--at age 28.

While it looks like Ziegler's 2008 (1.06 ERA) was much better than his 2009 (3.27 ERA), that's actually not the case, as he had a 3.72 FIP last year and sports a 3.07 mark this year.

The American League won yet another All-Star game last night in St. Louis, which stretched their current unbeaten streak to 14 seasons.

They are 13-0-1 over that span, with the only blemish being the absurd 7-7 tie witnessed in the 2002 game. That mockery eventually created the current system in which most fans despise—regardless of what Commissioner Selig would like to believe.

The winning streak of the American League All-Stars made me begin to ponder the greatest streaks in New York Yankees history.

David Wright is starting his sixth year as a Met this week and has made it known that he would prefer to stay with the Mets for the rest of his career.

In this day and age of players only wanting to go where the money is and putting in no trade clauses in their contract, Wright is choosing loyalty to the team that he grew up loving and works hard for them 24/7/365.  The Mets have Wright under contract through 2012 and he has an option for the 2013 season.

I'll be the first to admit it: my perspective on Thurman Munson is much different than the average Thurman Munson fan. For starters, I am not a Yankee fan.

Players to Pickup at the All-Star Break

With the halfway point of the season in our rear-view mirror, it’s now time to buckle down and get ready for a playoff push. Whether you are lacking a pitcher or a slugger, you need to sure up all your loose ends if you are a serious contender.

On Monday, we examined the performance of the Yankees' position players in the first half. Today, we hand out grades to the pitching staff, manager and new Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees are attempting to qualify for the postseason for an unprecedented ninth time in a decade. The Yankees of the 1950s went to the World Series eight times, while the Atlanta Braves qualified for the playoffs eight times in the 90s.

Facing accusations of collusion by new head of the players' union Michael Weiner, commissioner Bud Selig is standing his ground.

"That's fine. They're entitled to their opinion," Selig said Tuesday at a meeting of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Why do we keep awarding Tim Lincecum the Cy Young award? By we, I mean writers across the world, including those at ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and us at Bleacher Report.