Opinion

Editor’s Note: A few hours after this article was published, Dallas Braden threw a perfect game, the 19th in Major League Baseball history. You can read the "The Legend of Dallas Braden here here

Give Oakland Athletics pitcher Dallas Braden and his seventeen career MLB wins credit for standing up to Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees.

The New York Yankees' last World Championship was in 2009.

For many Yankees’ fans, the eight years between World Championships seemed like an eternity of defeats, despite the team being in the playoffs seven times.

Some Yankees’ fans, and of course, Mr. George Steinbrenner, consider the only successful season one in which the Yankees win the final game of the World Series.

So far this season has been, shall we say, "uncomfortable" for the Boston Red Sox and their fans.

The pitchers being paid tens of millions of dollars to get people out aren’t getting people out. The hitters making tens of millions of dollars aren’t hitting, and the fielders on this team supposedly built to prevent runs are seemingly providing Boston’s opponents with 30 outs a game.

Simply put, this team has been terrible.

Ernie Harwell passed away this week. Everyone remembered him for his class and his announcing.

Harwell was an announcer who was objective. He credited the opposing player if he hit well or pitched well.

Twins TV play-by-play announcer Dick Bremer mentioned a nice story about Harwell the other day. Harwell expressed his appreciation to Joe Mays for shutting out the Tigers.

“Play ground. By the swings. 3 o’clock. Be there or…”

No matter where you sat on the whole brewhaha involving A’s pitcher Dallas Braden and the man we love to hate, a.k.a. Alex Rodriguez, this is pretty much what one has to hear every time the young hurler opens his mouth.

Which is quite often.

When Barry Zito signed his $126 million deal with the Giants in December of 2006, everyone thought it was too much money. Zito was the third starter of the A's Three Aces, and the only one NOT to be traded away, with Tim Hudson going to the Braves and Mark Mulder to the Cardinals.

The consensus was a gross overpayment on San Francisco's part. When he didn't perform up to expectations, going 11-13 with the highest ERA of his career (4.53), critics deemed him a failure in contract negotiation by Giants brass. 

Friday, May 7 marked the first weather delay in Target Field history, as well as the first time in 30 years a Twins home game was delayed due to the elements.

This gives everyone who was in the retractable roof camp a reason to crow again for the first time since the stadium opened.

There was much hand-wringing when the final plans for the park were announced, and a roof was not part of the equation.

I am mad as hell right now.

After the way Josh Beckett tried to injure three Yankees tonight, I almost hope Mike Cameron sneezes and his fractured ribs puncture his lungs.

Or maybe I'd almost feel better if Joe Girardi gave struggling Javier Vazquez a chance to boost his fortunes with the team's fans and work on his control at the same time. Give him a surprise start to open the next game in this series and let him aim at every Red Sox head he faces until he's tossed, thus sparing the regular starter disciplinary action.

Almost, but not quite.

On Friday night at Alliance Bank Stadium in Syracuse, NY, Stephen Strasburg made his first AAA start on his road to the big leagues. With a sellout crowd in attendance to see his Chiefs debut, Strasburg continued to show why he is rated by Baseball America as the top pitching prospect in baseball.

From the first pitch, it was clear Strasburg was far superior to his competitors. He displayed a healthy mix of velocity and location, hitting 99 mph on the radar gun while only walking one. Strasburg also featured a 90 mph change-up and a curve ball ranging from 80 to 85 mph.