Baseball

The Yankees are reportedly planning on letting Brett Gardner be the regular center fielder this year, at least until he demonstrates that he can't handle the load. In my mind, his four seasons of fairly lackluster performances in the minor leagues have already demonstrated that.

I miss Bill Veeck...from Larry Doby, to Satchel Paige, to Max Patkin, the shorts, exploding scoreboards, adding the surnames to jerseys, to having Harry Caray sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", to "Disco Demolition Night"...MLB stole his ideas...but lost sight of the fun that was supposed to accompany it.

My 2009 predictions based on the 2008 season article unleashed a plethora of insults (some community....).

Basically, 2008 was a wild season because of the Rays going from the worst record in baseball in 2007 to the World Series in 2008.

And because the Washington Nationals had the worst record in 2008, the system had them going to the World Series in 2009.

Going into Spring Training, only three pitchers were guaranteed spots in the rotation: Roy Halladay, Jesse Litsch, and David Purcey.

Many candidates were brought into camp to complete for the last two spots, including Matt Clement, Mike Maroth, Casey Janssen, Brad Mills, Brett Cecil, Ricky Romero, and Canadian Scott Richmond.

Now with just a week left to go until the season begins, just three players remain in the battle for the last two spots.

Cleveland Indians

Baseball Musings Team Offense
Baseball America Top 10 Prospects

Lineup
Grady Sizemore CF
Mark DeRosa 3B
Travis Hafner DH
Victor Martinez C

The New York Yankees beat the Pittsburgh Pirates by a score of 9-8. Most of the runs scored against the Yankees were against one pitcher. That was the bad. First the good.

A+: Mariano Rivera

To say he is ready to start the season is an understatement. He struck out three batters in one inning.

A+: Johnny Damon

He had three hits today. I'm wondering if those three hits would of been better out of the lead-off spot.

A+: Nick Swisher

Here lies "The House That Ruth Built" (1923-2008)

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Slezak wrote an article in Sunday's newspaper titled Bad-neighbor Policy at Work. Her main premise is that the Chicago Cubs "disregard responsibility to the community (by hosting) concerts (and wanting) more night games."

Well I say tough baseballs, Ms. Slezak. If you want the benefits of living around Wrigley Field, you have to accept the good with the bad.

For me, 2008 was almost as disappointing as 2003 in terms of how the Red Sox did.

My favorite player, Manny Ramirez, turned out to be the guy who screwed over the Sox down the stretch, faking knee injuries, forgetting which knee he had "hurt," and orchestrating other such shenanigans to sit out games.

The bullpen, one of the most key factors to the 2007 championship, failed to come through again in '08, thanks largely to having to rely too much on guys like Mike Timlin and David Aardsma.