Rankings/List

Yesterday, once again Nationals outfielder Willie Harris made a bigger impact in Mets infamy in making a game-saving catch on Rod Barajas. With two outs in the ninth inning, Barajas was up at the plate with the bases loaded. The Mets catcher would eventually hit the ball into left field where Harris had just came in the inning before.

Happy Birthday Lynn!

Here’s a look at the unheralded players who played well yesterday.

Miguel Tejada, Baltimore Orioles
Tejada went 3 for 5 with a HR and 4 RBI.

It is never too early in a season to open up the cupboards and take a gander at just how much talent is waiting in the wings. 

For the casual fan, the vast rosters of the minor leagues can be a little overwhelming.  Keeping track of the up-and-coming stars that were acquired in past drafts is often difficult to follow all the way from draft-day selection to final call-up.

So begins the sophomore campaign at New York's Citi Field. While many questions have arisen about the quality of the product on the field, the forum in which the Mets play is nothing less that stellar. During the Mets miserable 2009 campaign, the beauty of Citi Field was perhaps lost, with New Yorkers attention seemingly fixed on the Mets' crosstown rivals in the Bronx. Twelve thoughts and observations on my maiden 2010 voyage to the Mets' home...

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Three games does not a baseball season make.

Yet, there comes a moment where honesty must overtake optimism, and the honest fact that this will be a very long season for the Astros must be accepted.

A listless three-game sweep at the hands of the visiting San Francisco Giants—lowlighted by Wednesday's 10-4 loss—provided at least five notable signs that indicate the 2010 Astros may be headed toward the franchise's worst season in 20 years.

As the team takes Thursday off in preparation for a weekend series against the two-time defending National League champion Philadelphia Philli

The Cubs had high expectations going into 2009, but they were a disappointment coming out of it.

There were antics. There were injuries.

There were really no relief pitchers during the first 40 seasons of Major League Baseball, through the 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1900s. The first relief pitchers really came along in the 1910s.

During those first 40 seasons of MLB, in the rare occasions that the starting pitcher did not finish the game and a relief pitcher was needed, one of the other starting pitchers who had the day off would go in and relieve the starter.

That’s really how it worked during the first 40 seasons of MLB.

Look, when you're a long-suffering Cubs fans like myself, you have to find your success's where you can.

So, when I heard the news that the Cubs passed the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees for the highest non-premium average ticket, I shouted: "We're Number One! We're Number One!"

OK, so this isn't much to get excited about. In fact, it hurts because going to Wrigley Field is just so darn expensive these days that as a family man, I just can't afford it.

President Barack Obama has a predecessor, William Howard Taft, to thank for the spectacle he had to stare down Monday. Taft was the Commander In Chief that started the tradition of throwing out the first pitch 100 years ago at a Washington Senators game on April 14, 1910.

Every leader of the free world has given it a go since except for Jimmy Carter. While others like Taft, Richard Nixon and Franklin D. Roosevelt took the easy way out by throwing the ball from their seat, Obama threw from the rubber -- a precedent established by Bill Clinton.

Obama was following George W.

Opening day produced many thrills for fans Monday with two-homer performances by both Garrett Jones and Albert Pujols, a play of the year from Mark Buehrle, two routs by NL East contenders (Phillies and Braves), an inside-the-park homer, a no-no into the seventh and those were just the headlines.
If this is a preview of what is to come for the 2010 MLB season, it will be a year full of excitement as usual.

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