Times are tough in Los Angeles. 

A second consecutive playoff exit at the hands of the Phillies was followed by news of a nasty divorce.  Frank McCourt and his soon to be ex-wife Jamie continue to lob insults at each other making the most personal of matters embarrassingly public. 

Ron Gardenhire has long been considered one of baseball’s best managers.

In 2009, he proved his mettle once again by leading the Minnesota Twins to yet another division title in the American League Central.

The pennant marked his fifth division title in eight seasons as the Twins’ skipper.

Zack Greinke's win of the 2009 Cy Young Award should be considered one of the best accomplishments in recent baseball history.

The Kansas City Royals weren't a bad team in 2009, they were awful. Greinke's dominance on a 97-loss team speaks to his greatness.

The Royals are in the very competitive but winnable AL Central. Any great team needs an "ace" of the pitching staff to always depend on, but the Royals have almost an entire roster full of holes to fill in order to compete with Minnesota, Detroit, and Chicago.

Perhaps there is hope for the writers who vote for the Major League Baseball awards, after all. Then again, it's always one step forward, two steps back with these guys.

One might hope that the preponderance of advanced statistical evidence might educate voters for awards such as Cy Young, MVP, ROY and the Gold Glove.

After all, as younger and (hopefully) more enlightened writers obtain voting rights, the subjective manner of awarding players should improve.

Matt Holliday formerly of the St. Louis Cardinals and Jason Bay formerly of the Boston Red Sox are the prize hitters in the 2009 – 2010 free agent market. They are both looking for someone to “show them the money,” to steal a line from Jerry Maguire.  Holliday, according to his agent, is looking for Mark Teixeira money in the range of $22.5 million per year, and Bay is rumored to be looking for about $20 million a year (good luck to both camps on getting that kind of money).

What are these players worth in today’s market?

You know the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” Well, that’s how I felt about the LA Angels' lineup the last few years.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that they are such perennial contenders, and the victory over the Boston Red Sox in the 2009 playoffs was fantastic. But the way they played against the New York Yankees brought back bitter memories of disappointment, and quite frankly, I’m tired of seeing the Angels look undermanned in the playoffs year after year.

If you had Andrew Bailey and Chris Coghlan in your office's baseball awards pool, congratulations: You are wiser than Nostradamus and the Mayans combined.

On Monday, the American and National Leagues announced their respective winners for Rookie of the Year, and few could have predicted the results.
Tight to the last, each race was considered a neck-and-neck battle, but most pundits backed vastly different contenders.

Throughout the regular and offseasons, names like Elvis Andrus and Rick Porcello were used in place of Rookie of the Year the same way people say Kleenex instead of facial tiss

This is nothing new to Red Sox fans.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

This famous saying serves not only as a motivational tool, but also as a solid offseason philosophy for small-market general managers.

As I chatted with Andy Strasberg about his new baseball related venture called Fantography™,  I couldn't help but hum Rod Stewart's 1971 anthem, "Every Picture Tells a Story."

In actuality, however, my musical recap of Strasberg's photographic venture may be best summarized as Paul Simon's Kodachrome mixed with a few verses of Take Me Out to The Ball Game .