Fan News

When the Washington Nationals selected Chris Marrero with the overall 15^th pick in the 2006 amateur draft, the team hoped they were drafting a high school slugger who was polished enough to make it to the majors quickly, possibly by 2011.

Were they right? At this point, it sure seems like it.

It's the middle October, which means fans of the Chicago Cubs have followed their annual calendar and started investing their time in football and hockey about three weeks ago. But this year, there's some baseball of interest being played.

In Arizona.

The Arizona Fall League is under way, and Cubs fans should at least check in to see how the "future" of the franchise is doing. Third base prospect Josh Vitters, regarded by many as the jewel of the Cubs' system, is playing for the Mesa Solar Sox.

It is no secret among these parts of my love affair with Pedro Martinez. I can qualify that statement by the countless number of articles I have devoted to him in the past year on these very pages. I have been enormously critical of the Mets organization for their lack of foresight when it comes to this living legend.

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune , who seldom has a lucid baseball thought, has openly lobbied for longtime Texas Rangers hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo to come to town.

The former Rangers beat writer wrote this in a recent article:

David Dombrowski has been President/GM of the Tigers for eight baseball seasons, and just what has the team accomplished?

One playoff appearance.

DD is 1-for-8, and that’s a .125 BA—something that even Gerald Laird would scoff at.

It’s time to take a serious look at how Dombrowski has been minding the store.

It’s one thing to miss the playoffs; it’s quite another to do so consistently in a notoriously weak division. It’s yet another to do it whilst frittering away the owner’s money like it grows on trees.

A little girl's unconditional love for her father is a heartwarming story that I can hear over and over again without tiring of it. More so, I feel absolutely within the boundaries of creative license to share the story on more than one occasion.

The Milwaukee Brewers are in desperate need of starting pitching help. Ben Sheets is in desperate need of a team for the 2010 season. Are the two a perfect fit for a reunion or a couple that would be best served to stay separated?

Ben Sheets has had high expectations his entire career, and when healthy, he has lived up to those expectations quite well.

Sheets was the first round pick of the Brewers in the 1999 draft. It didn't take long before fans were expecting him to be the new "ace" of the Brewers' rotation.

Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera are the last remnants of the Yankee dynasty from the 1990s and 2000. These few players are no strangers to big series, like the American League Championship Series. But tomorrow night, these Yankees are going to have to lead their teammates into unfamiliar territory.

Scott Franzke is the play-by-play voice of the Phillies. His career began as a studio host for the now-defunct Prime Sports Radio Network (now Fox Sports Radio) in 1994, which led him three years later to be the host of the Texas Rangers radio pre- and post-game shows from 1997 to '98 and again from '02 to '05.

In 2006, he came to Philadelphia to take over those same duties when Tom McCarthy was hired away from the Phillies by the New York Mets, their National League East division rivals.

The postseason is the time of year when true fans endure ninth-inning heart palpitations and fair-weather fans pay closer attention and invest in playoff merchandise. More importantly, it’s when MLB teams’ reveal their true grit. It’s the season when the players either flourish or flounder.

Tonight, as the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first game of the NLCS, the Phillies send Cole Hamels to the mound.