Baseball

This is a subject that is very close to my heart.

When the Toronto Blue Jays traded Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen, I had to be talked down off the ledge of the .500 level.

Troy Glaus was my favourite player. He was just a guy you would watch step to the plate with a mouthful of Skoal and take hacks that could turn baseballs to dust—and who would give me cause to learn lip reading when he would pop out.

I loved it. Losing Glaus meant losing the best part of the Jays for me, I thought we'd rue the day.

Well, I was wrong.

Alright Mitchell: Eat this.

Steroids are everywhere. Their presence in sports, especially football and baseball, are unstoppable. Punish as many athletes as you want, try to make examples of childhood heroes, but you're not going to stop anything.

Athletes will always strive to enhance their game. And steroids will continue to be harder and harder to detect. That's just how science works. Just like athletes they will always evolve into something greater.

So what's the solution?

Late in the game between the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals on Thursday evening, Nationals outfielder Austin Kearns hit a ball high and far into center field.

Yankee outfielder Brett Gardner went back on the ball, caught it about two feet from the wall, and then slammed into the pad hitting his head on the plexiglass in front of the bullpens.

Replays showed that his head snapped back violently before striking the glass.

Gardner managed to hang onto the ball for an out and somehow flipped it toward left fielder Johnny Damon could retrieve it.

In part two of my series of struggling franchises trying to find their way back to the top, I will look into the Kansas City Royals.

Unlike Baltimore, the Royals have had a .500 season (83-79 in 2003) within the last decade. The drawback, though, are the four seasons of 100+ losses (2002, 2004-2006).  Fortunately for Royals fans, Kansas City did not have a fourth-straight 100+ loss season in 2007. 

Kansas City entered the 2009 season with high hopes.

Rhode Island area news stations and the Providence Journal have recently reported that with the advent of Rhode Island state license plates with Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots logos imprinted on them, a state representative has asked for state license plates featuring the New York Yankees logo.

The Boston Red Sox are almost always considered to be one of the best teams in the major leagues. Especially since they came back from trailing the New York Yankees three games to none in the ALCS in 2004 to winning that series and then beating the Cardinals in the the world series by sweeping them. Then in 2007 they came back three games to none against the Cleveland Indians and wont that ALCS series and then winding up beating the hot Rockies to win the world series.

It has been three months since the end of the WBC in which a record number (16) of Mets participated.

Since then, it seems that the players involved have had their share of problems. I'm not implying that they would not have suffered these injuries or encountered these problems without participation, but you do have to wonder about the results.

1)  Jose Reyes - Played for the Dominican Republic

Reyes has been out of action on the DL for close to a month, and even before that, did not play to the level that was expected.

The name of the fantasy player in front of the statistics.

It is the most misleading thing in all of fantasy sports.

Everyone, even myself, is completely guilty of doing this exact same thing time and time again. We turn a blind eye to the stats in front of us, and only focus on the name of the player that is involved in the trade.

If the trade is of a mediocre value, possibly an Adam Jones and Tim Wakefield for an Adam Lind type deal, then the names really go away and we focus on what is important. Will that player help you win?

Mother Nature was unleashed in Boston last night and the Red Sox and their fans quickly retorted.

After an afternoon full of rain and a start delayed by five minutes, the Boston Red Sox failed to solve the enigma that is Ricky Nolasco and his 7+ ERA last night.  Five innings of baseball ended up being played; a Kevin Youkilis home run, and a David Ortiz crawl to first base on the ever-typical Marlins' error later, the rain came back with a vengeance and sent the game into and two hour and twenty minute delay before being called in favor of the visiting Florida Marlins.