MLB History

With #600 now in the past, the New York Yankees are ready to take on their rivals, the Boston Red Sox.

Boston has been hit hard with the unfortunate injury bug. Making the six and a half games the Red Sox need to catch the first place Yankees, who are tied with Tampa Bay Rays, not completely out of reach.

You may remember about a month or so ago, former Chicago Cubs pitcher Mark Prior had a workout in front of several major league scouts and general managers. By all accounts, Prior was just "OK" in that throwing session.

On Tuesday Prior showed just how serious he is with his most recent comeback attempt. The former second overall pick in the MLB draft pitched a scoreless sixth inning for the Orange County Flyers of the independent Golden Baseball League. According to the manager of the Flyers, Paul Abbott, Prior will be used as a setup man.

In the year 2010, any baseball fan who hasn't heard the term sabermetrics must be living in a cave, and anybody who doesn't buy into the program has to be a dinosaur.

At least, that's what they want you to think.

Bill James, currently of the Boston Red Sox, is thought of as the godfather of using statistical analysis to change the way the game is played and what should be valued.

Intense. Driven. Competitor. Tough. Gritty. Clutch. Leader. Intelligent. World Champion.

These are all words that immediately come to mind when Angels fans think of Darin Erstad, but seem far removed from the vocabulary one would use to describe the current Angels club.

This young Angels team seems long on talent and short on competitive will.

Are the 2010 Angels less talented than the 2002 roster that won it all, or did Erstad and company simply want it more?

The Milwaukee Brewers obliterated the Chicago Cubs on Monday Night by a score of 18-1. During the course of the game both Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder collected five hits with Corey Hart only getting four, seven players scored two or more runs, and Fielder and Casey McGehee combined for nine RBI.

With one of the most exciting times of the baseball season, the trading deadline, behind us, the contenders should begin to take shape within the next month as we move closer to October baseball.

With so much talk of trades the past several weeks, I decided to look back and name what I feel is the best trade, be it deadline, off-season, or otherwise, in the history of each MLB team.

Some decisions were certainly easier than others, with moves like the Lou Brock and Jeff Bagwell trades a no-brainer. However, for other team's it was much harder to settle on a best trade.

Every now and then the Major League Baseball schedule puts together one of those weeks.

From time to time the schedule aligns in such a way that every game seems important—one of those weeks where the loser goes home and the winner goes on.

This is one of those weeks.

The playoff picture in both the American and National Leagues is, at this point, muddy. In both leagues right now, more than half of the teams are still in the playoff hunt. But this week could see the National League lose four playoff contenders.

As a diehard Cubs fan, I know firsthand how good Albert Pujols is.

Back in 2001, the first "article" I ever wrote about baseball was an amateurish ditty comparing the 2001 rookie class to a great rookie class of a generation ago, the 1986 rookie class.

I am reminded of that article in 2010 as an endless stream of amazingly talented can't-miss prospects spills into Major League Baseball.