Baseball

Nelson Cruz burst into the mainstream last night with his performance in the Home Run Derby. After a great first round that saw him belt 11 home runs, Cruz muscled his way into the finals against Prince Fielder before falling short.

In all, Cruz finished with 22 home runs, most of which went deep into the St. Louis night. He's known to have "light tower power," and he certainly lived up to that scouting report last night.

So, the reports say that Pedro Martinez has passed his physical and will sign with the Philadelphia Phillies.  Yet, many Phillies fans appear to be having a heart attack thinking that this will be the "big move" for the Phillies.   Relax, Pedro is your fifth starter.

The amazing thing about J.R. Richard was that he could throw a baseball hard, really hard. One of Richard’s pitches was once clocked at 98 miles per hour. Oh, did I fail to mention that this particular pitch was his slider? His fastball was regularly gunned in the triple digits, and on more than one occasion reached 103 mph. 

It's bad for baseball! It interferes with spring training! There's no good time to do it! No one cares!

Valid or not, these are the arguments we've heard during the last two World Baseball Classics, both won by Japan. 

Some players opted out of the March tournament, while others felt the opportunity to represent their country was too great to pass up.

Many MLB fans, however, didn't want their club's players in it. Many worried about injuries or lack of preparation for the 2009 season.  

As we cruise into the All-Star break, 21 teams are in serious contention of their respective divisions or the Wild Card. 

The 15 teams not leading their division are all within 6.5 games of a playoff spot.

Man, I love baseball.

I made some pretty bold, and bad, predictions in my preseason prediction slideshow. I'll own up, and apologize to every AL Central fan, as I completely flunked on the whole division. 

However, I won't go through every prediction I made and analyze it. You'll have to go check out the slideshow yourself.

Last night was Monday July the 13th. We managed to have a night where seven of the

best home run hitters in baseball and Brandon Inge got together in an attempt to put on a power display where batting practice pitchers grooved balls at 70—75 MPH and in turn the likes of Pujols, Fielder, Cruz, and Howard deposited them deep into the St. Louis sky.

The Oakland A’s enter the All-Star break coming off a nightmare first half, one in which nothing has gone as planned. And despite their win-loss record, that’s actually a good thing.

Billy Beane built these A’s with offense in mind, loading up on veteran sluggers who were supposed to take pressure off the team’s young pitchers. However, while Oakland’s hitters have failed to show up so far, their pubescent pitching corps has arrived en masse.

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