Rankings/List

Some of them actually look like something you could wear. Some are designed to be more of a trophy than a piece of jewelry.

The World Series ring is a way for the winning team to commemorate a historic season, usually accented with the flair and penache of the team's owner.

These rings have gone up expotentially in value over the last two decades, with each team trying to do outdo the last.

How did each team do with that?

After reading through the article "Inglorious Relievers" by Peter Douglas, one fact is agonizingly clear to me. I think the list is entirely too dependent on the very small sample size of the first month of the 2010 season. 

In order to create a complete list of the top set-up men in baseball, there has to be at least some consideration given to past success and failure.

1.(↑1) New York Yankees (21-8): The “Bronx Bombers” edge out the Rays this week by just three points (249 to 246) for the first place spot. Yankees fans have a lot to cheer about as their team is in the top 10 in every category, with the exception of strikeouts. They're doing this without Curtis Granderson in the lineup and with Javier Vazquez doing everything he can to ruin their ERA. Scary!

Admit it: you've started thinking about next winter's free agent market.

It's nothing to be ashamed about. Baseball's Hot Stove is boiling all year long; it's only natural to be curious about who will sign where.

This week, the Bleacher Report Featured Columnists are here to assure you that you are not alone.

For this survey, I asked each respondent to say how much money and how many years eight big names should get when they hit the open market in six months.

A review of each season's Most Valuable Player voting typically reveals the best players in the game at that particular time. Although each player's team's regular season success is a factor, the vote tally usually has a strong correlation to statistical leader boards.

Those players have almost always earned this recognition through quantifiable performance from RBI, HRs and batting average to wins and saves. Individual team MVP selections often mirror the same approach.

However, determining which players are most indispensable can often entail a much more complex equation.

The intrepid fan racing across the field as the chubby stadium security guy tries vehemently to run him down is an indelible image that nearly every baseball fan can attest too. And while most of these instances are minor and innocent they can, at times, turn ugly as in the recent taser incident at a Philadelphia Phillies game.

But that is for another article.

I tried to find a few memorable moments in MLB history where the fans raced the field in a positive manner, rather than negative. I have excluded postseason celebrations because that is technically a different subject.

There is a certain atmosphere that comes along with attending a MLB game. Sure, you can watch the game on television, and depending on where your seats are you may actually be able to watch the game on TV better than you can in person.

You simply can't experience the feeling of thousands of cheering fans and all the little things that come along with attending a game.

One such little thing, for many teams at least, is the team's theme song.

When you look at it, major league baseball is a game played using statistics to determine who is the best and worst player over the course of a career.

Those who stand at the top of the game when their careers are over are enshrined as baseball's immortal.

Trades are always seen as which teams "won" and which team "lost." Some times, both teams win.

With the terrible starts to both Javier Vazquez of the New York Yankees and Melky Cabrera of the Atlanta Braves, thus far it appears both teams have "lost" in that trade.

We thought it would interesting to go back 10 seasons and see what other trades did not work out for either team.

They could be salary dump trades or the usual trade deadline deals of prospects for established stars, when the star did not help his team over the top and the prospects did not pan out.

Oakland Athletics left-hander Dallas Braden joined the annals of baseball yesterday when he tossed the 19th perfect game in the history of the game. It was completely unexpected given Braden's relative obscurity.

Well Braden is obscure no more now that his feat will go alongside the likes of Don Larsen, Sandy Koufax, Jim Bunning, and others. A pitcher cannot do better than perfect, but for argument's sake, we're going to look at the varying degrees of perfect in this power ranking of the 19 perfectos thrown in baseball history.