Opinion

My favorite sport has been disparaged, criticized and unjustly hated on ever since the 1994 strike initiated the decline of baseball into an exclusively older man's game—the new fly fishing, if you will.

The sport lacked the caché of football, lacked the flair of basketball and more recently, lacks the recurring Renaissance that soccer experiences when Americans are patriotically aroused by the notion that we're actually pretty decent at soccer—a sport typically associated with Europe and Latin America.

With Brett Anderson being on the injured list for most of the season, the Oakland A's needed someone to step up to become the ace of the staff while Anderson recovered from his injury. 

All signs pointed to Dallas Braden as being the new ace of the staff.

The highlight of Braden's success came on Mothers Day when he pitched a perfect game. Since then, Braden has struggled. 

Part of the problem has been the lack of run support for the perfect pitcher.

Over 21 years ago a young slugger with incredible defensive skills made his debut for the Seattle Mariners.

In Ken Griffey Jr.'s first at-bat in Seattle he hit a home run.

With it, the Seattle fans saw a glimpse of the 20-year-old kid's beautiful swing that would dominate the sport's future. It was 1989 and for the next decade baseball would live and die by the popularity of the home run.

If you haven’t looked out the window recently. then you might not know that tonight’s Mets game has been canceled due to rain.

New York native John Franco had a dream come true when his son was drafted by the team he played on.

J.J. Franco was drafted in the late rounds of today's MLB draft. Franco enjoyed a stellar career at Poly Prep as a four-year contributor to the standout baseball program. Last year he went 8-0 on the mound and batted .472 in the leadoff spot, leading the Blue Devils to a third consecutive Ivy League regular season crown.

In the midst of a clearly dismal season for the Cleveland Indians, a complete overhaul of the organization is well underway.

After trading key players like CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, and Victor Martinez last season, the Indians entered the 2010 season with a sense of optimism and many new faces filling out the roster. Those good feelings from opening day seem like years ago for many fans who have watched the Tribe fall to a disappointing 21-36 on the year.

The New York Yankees are playing great right now, thanks to their stellar pitching and slugging offense.

Yet they are still two games out of first, behind the Rays who own the best record in the Majors heading into tonight, and appear to be the real deal.

Now there is no reason for concern right now with the majority of the season yet to be played and the Yankees leading the Wild Card standings.

But problems could be on the horizon for the Yanks very soon.

With one out away from the third perfect game in a month, a blown call by first base umpire Jim Joyce robbed Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga of his shot at immortality. If recent history is any indication, however, not having that one game may prove beneficial for both Galarraga and the Tigers in the long run.

He has been hyped since he was a top draft pick for the National League East team that selected him. Sound familiar?

After dominating the Minor Leagues, he made his major League debut on June 8, 2010. Sound familiar?

He performed very well in his first game. Sound familiar?

However, his game was not shown on the MLB Network, but I still switched back and forth between four games last night. Being in the Southern New Jersey area, I get the New York Yankees, New York Mets, and Philadelphia Phillies local cable stations.

For the Houston Astros, the third day of Major League Baseball’s 2010 First-Year Player Draft began around noon ET on Wednesday, June 9 (with a plethora of picks from rounds 31-50), before finally concluding around 5 p.m. ET.

So how did Houston score in the last day of the draft?

Overall, I’d give them an A for day three.