Alex Avila

Ok, so how does a catcher from Detroit who nobody knows the name of beat out the catchers for the Yankees and the Red Sox to make it to the starting lineup of the All-Star game?
Could it be because the Red Sox catchers are old (Varitek) and in the way (Saltalamacchia)? Could it be the gods of baseball are actually making sure that a guy with a .303 average and 10 home runs who is playing his heart out is there to represent the Motor City in the desert?
Whatever it is, Mr. Nobody Could Recognize Me at the Mall beat out Russell Martin in the final week of voting (showing that just because Jose Reyes can deservedly beat out Troy Tulowitski in the last week of voting with a little help from the Big Apple, then other people can do it, too). But let's be clear - while Martin has 10 home runs, he's batting .219. That pretty much sucks. And because this is a New York friendly game and most catchers in baseball are rather pedestrian in stats, Martin still gets to come.
Nevertheless, if fans can't be trusted to vote with their heads and not their baseball caps (or in the case of a lot of people in Japan - though not this year - their nationality), then let's take the vote away from them. Isn't it bad enough that the Royals, Twins, and Orioles are sending players to the American League squad this year? The same can be said for the Marlins, the DBacks, Nationals, and Carlos Beltran, who pretty much sucks except for the fact that he is considered trade bait in July, so he'll get a new paint job to trick someone used car salesman style (think Sidney Ponson). Then again, the same can be said for closer Heath Bell, who will finally play his way out of San Diego and into someone's debt as they overpay for a reliever (instead of creating one from a little bit of intensity and heart, which can come from their minor league system).
I get that Oakland gets to have a pitcher (Gio Gonzalez) there. It's not their fault that they can't back him up enough with run support. However, if a team can't field a respectable team, they shouldn't get represented. Let their fans revolt when the roster is picked from deserving talents (mind you, their exclusion can't be at the sake of adding CC Sabathia's slug self just to have another frickin' Yankee on the team).
Last year, Avila was a .228 hitter in about half of a season. This year, he's playing to win. He's holding down the catcher spot for a team that just paid Victor Martinez a lot of money (4 years and $50million) to play behind the plate (and first base and designated hitter) to help the team wrap up the division. He's doing the job with that .328 (even though he hasn't YET been invited to Phoenix), but now the Tigers get to ride some offense to go with that Justin Verlander dominance in their quest to reassume first place from those pesky Indians (still in first mind you - even in the midst of a series with the Yankees).
And there is a lot to be said for that first All Star bid... we're feeling a hell of a lot of local pride for Ryan Vogelsong's appearance, and it's great to see Lance Berkman come back from the dead to reappear in the game, too. That said, it's nice to see a new guard in baseball. And it's nice to see Milwaukee represented, but it's sad to not see Albert Pujols. It's depressing as hell to think about Chris Berman trying to make a home run derby with this cast of characters entertaining.
Yeah... it's not 1970, that's for sure.

Jair Jurrjens

So we may as well say that we're at the halfway point of the season right now. During this time, we've celebrated some people that are excelling and some that were excelling. We've looked at the strikeouts of all of those free swingers that just keep thinking that they can win if only they swing for the fences (a concept that works better against alien invaders that come out of a Pennsylvania cornfield than it does in reality).
However, today, let's look at pretenders and winners on the win / loss circuit of pitchers.
In the last 10 games, Cole  Hamels has let up 4 runs once. In that stretch, he has let up 0, 1, or 2 runs 7 times to include his last 6 starts. In those game, he has lost 2 times and his team blew the game a third time. For that reason, his record is 9-4. However, his WHIP is 0.96 and his ERA is 2.49.
This definitely sounds a lot better than the vast majority of 10 game winners not named Justin Verlander (124 strikeouts, 0.84 WHIP and 2.38 ERA because nobody can touch him right now), who is my Cy Young pick for the season (at the halfway point). It's definitely better than CC Sabathia's 3.25 ERA and 1.22 WHIP (very pedestrian) to get to that 10-4 record (definitely a benefit of playing in the Bronx, I might add).
Roy Halladay is truly becoming Mr. Consistency in that beautiful way that numbers like 2.40, 1.03 and 123 add up to (and 5 complete games now, too).
But what about the forgotten people? We've remembered Justin Masterson, Dan Haren, and Kyle Lohse, but where is Jair Jurrjens who is now 10 and 3 with a WHIP of 1.14 and an ERA of 2.07? We see these numbers now, and we say "shit god damn" (ot at least we listen to the Eagles of Death Metal singing them).
This is becoming an every non-injured year thing for Jurrjens.
However, what sets him apart from the other guys on the list is 3 fewer starts. He's just winning, and he's winning for Atlanta... a team that isn't exactly scaring the hell out of other pitching staffs. The strikeouts may not be there (55), but the walks aren't really that numerous either (22). He's just quietly good on a team that's always been known for its pitching. Is he the Tom Glavine to the flashier Greg Maddux-esque characters listed above? I hope not since I never thought much of Glavine (he always reminded me of a David Cone type player - you know, a Yankee who wins because he's on a team that wins a lot and he's above average).
In 3 years in the bigs (we'll forget the short season in 2007 and the injured campaign in 2010), he's doing some good things (13-10 and 14-10 - getting a little better in ERA year 3 as he dropped to a 2.60 from a 3.68).
And while he's not doing it with a winning team, he's still doing it and doing it strong as he shores up his options at getting to Phoenix in the next 2 weeks.
Hopefully, the abundance of teams that aren't worthy of having anyone go, but still, they send someone because Bud Selig hasn't ammended that rule (not necessarily a bad things because nobody wants to watch the Yankees / Red Sox combined team take on the Phillies (other than a few players who will be there on talent and fan vote alone, you know that it's true) won't affect Jurrjens deserved spot on the NL All Star roster.

David Ortiz

One has to wonder about all the hype and the hooplah associated with David Ortiz's first plunk from the Yankees in 1 full season worth of games (162) between the 2 teams. Sure, the Red Sox do tend to hit a lot of Yankees, but is this hatred, crowding the plate, bad pitching or what? And sure, it is the unwritten code of baseball as exacted by great men like Bob Gibson that a certain 17" of plate is mine and that a certain amount of respect is mine. All good pitchers ever knew this. That's why Pedro was so dominant (you gotta love that Gerald Williams hit - it sure did scare Tampa Bay, that's for sure). All good hitters knew this. That's why Barry Bonds wore tank armour on his arm.
Who cares who takes offense to a flipped bat? For years, the Yankees made people put up with their fecal material (as if it didn't stink) because they were winning and they were on top. Now, they are starting to suck. They're starting to get old.
If the best thing that the Yankees can do to trump up to justify CC taking a shot at the sluggi one is that Joe Girardi was worried about the feelings of poor little Hector Noesi (and since the Yankees pitching staff is injured, thin, and brittle in mind and body, they've got a lot of protecting to do), then so be it because it's New York and they'll do what they can to stay in the forefront of everyone's mind - even when they're on the decline.
"Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax," Columnist Mike Royko once said.
We agree. That said, if you haven't seen the following video of Big Sluggi getting nailed by CC Sabathia on  MLBTV's Intentional Talk, then you're really missing out.
In the end, if Sluggi is having a great year and rebounding from the usual early season crappiness and post steroids drought that he has been forcing Boston fans to put up with, then bring on the retaliation towards him - we haven't thought anything about him since Obama ran for president, but hey, if he's 2004 David Ortiz, we'll take that he's going to be a target. For us, Papi can be in it to win it and make the Yankees hate him all that he wants. They still owe him a foot on that game one shot he almost put out of the stadium in the 2004 ALCS (game 1) when the Red Sox started to rally back after Mussina had left them in a stagnant morass. The time has come to pile on the misery to make the Yankee fans remember the 1980s and early 1990s for what they were - a complete joy to all non New Yorkers!
So let Girardi and crew cry. They'll be making us put up with their Jeter 3000 lovefest soon enough, which frankly put, is enough to make us vomit (even if we're doing better with getting over that whole Jeter sucks thing - besides, it's all about hating on A-Rod).

Jason Kubel

Sometimes, the difference is one moment - or in the case of the game between the Twins and White Sox last night, Jason Kubel hitting a solo home run in the 4th inning off of Edwin Jackson. Jackson had a really good game... 6 hits, 1 walk, and 2 strikeouts. Francisco Liriano had a better game. He also had 2 strikeouts, but he went 9 straight zeroes on runs and hits. While he let up a base on balls for every hit that Edwin Jackson had, he still gets the no no and the win while Jackson takes the loss.
In the end, it's the first of the year, and so we continue the decade of the pitcher (even if the Angels dynamic duo just got beaten up on by the Red Sox - the only team that they can tame; well, really, they own the Angels).
And on this rainy Wednesday morning, Liriano is now 2-4 with a 6.61 ERA. His ERA prior to this game was 9.13. His ERA hasn't been better than 7.40 ALL SEASON! In fact, he was so bad, I got rid of him from my fantasy team after 2 games. Sure, last year, he was great again (I turned down a trade to ship him out), something we talked about on this site already, but last year is last year.
At one point, the Yankees drooled over him and thought about getting him. As Phil Hughes turned into mystery arm problem man (0-1, 13.94, and 3Ks in 3 games), things looked really problematic in da Bronx. Then, Bartolo Colon came along and made everything better (2-1, 3.00, and 38 whiffs), which means that he is having a year that made fans remember his Cy Young year (2005). So whether or not the Yankees want him with CC putting 14 batters on base in 7 innings and blowing the game last night to the Tigers remains to be seen, but as long as Ivan Nova isn't great, it's a possibility - unless Freddy Garcia continues to think it's the first half of the decade as well.
Nevertheless, when a player has one good game in a year (albeit a great game), it tends to make all the things that haven't gone well (or at least close to expected) better and leave a permanent highlight as it will be forever immortalized in Cooperstown. That said, it might not be enough to keep a career going (see Len Barker), but yeah... there is upside to being traded or signed to a team that is investing in long since dead players (see Mark Prior) AND that means that said players can end up in the playoffs deep into October (as opposed to getting bounced in the first round because your reliever (uh, former closer) sucks to begin with (and more so after the injury).
So here's to the moment of greatness. Now, let's carry it through to resurrect the rest of the Twins season.

Clay Bucholz

Winning 2 games in a weekend series against the Yankees is cause for celebration UNLESS you come out of the weekend 2and7. Then, you still need to assess the failings and contemplate the future without some of the dead spots in the lineup. Sure, the first week of the season isn't reason to hit the panic button, but you can lose a season in April even if you can't win one before the final stretch run winds to a complete standstill and playoff tickets are truly punched (ask the 2010 San Diego Padres). So what do the Red Sox and their anemic pitching staff do: They give Clay Bucholz a mega contract. (according to ESPN) The contract calls for Buchholz to be paid $3.5 million in 2012, $5.5 million in 2013, $7.7 million in 2014, and $12 million in 2015, according to the source. With a modest signing bonus and buyout language, the contract guarantees him $29,945,000, a major league source said. Both option years call for a salary of $13 million, although there is an escalator clause that could push the second option year to $13.5 million. So let's see what exactly he's being rewarded for - 4 runs in 3.2 innings (Nolan Ryan would not be proud) and a 7.20 ERA for the season. Sure, the first game was close, but this game... not so much as the Yankees won a laugher 9-4. Then again, let's look at the Boston Red Sox great sewer of waste that makes the US budget debate that sees America wondering if our governmnet will be shut down AGAIN seem tame by comparison. After crapping the bed at the beginning of last year, Josh Beckett got 4 years and $68 million. Of course, this is because the rapidly imploding John Lackey stol $82.5 million over 5 years. Jon Lester is signed through 2013 with an option for $13 million in 2014 with $30 million over 5 years. The great waste of a green card that is Daisuke Matsuzaka convinced the Red Sox to shell out $52 million for 6 years. This doesn't include the $51,111,111 negotiating fee that Theo Epstein and crew paid to negotiate with his agents to bring his ink to the contract. But it's all about the cause for celebration at the moment... and last night, the Red Sox got 16 base runners in a 4-0 win against the Yankees on a great game by Josh Beckett. Never mind that they teed off on CC Sabathia's lard ass (9 hits, 4 walks over 5.2 innings) in a way that managed to scare more fans than Matsuzaka ever could, but yeah... a win is a win, even if the game was still 1-0 at the end of the 6th and required opening a can of whoop ass on Joba the Hutt's rapidly waiver ready self. Fortunately, the Red Sox come out of their weekend of rescuing their worst season since Harry Truman was in the White House with a series with the Tampa Bay Rays, who are now 1-8 and in no position to do much with Evan Longoria out and the promise of Manny Ramirez up in smoke (or PEDs). With any luck, that might help them move up the list as they chase after a hot Baltimore team (even if they did lose 2 of 3 to the RED HOT Rangers who are 8-1 and looking to avenge their failing to win the World Series last year). And so continues week 2 of the season.

Jesus Monterro

Like Bill O' Reilly, we're always looking out for you, and like his parent company, Fox News, we try to be fair and balanced, so if we say how A-Rod did something good one day (inviting a hero gal to a Yankees game), it's only fair that we mention that he owns a property company called Newport Property Ventures, and because of his inability to fix up the property has some property owners referring to him as a slumlord. So in the spirit of all things Yankees, let's take a look at the Evil Empire and see where they stack up for the year - other than A-Rod who may end up playing with Ricky Vaughn in the California Penal League. First things first, we should see their catcher who is literally older than the dinosaurs. Yes, Jorge Posada will still be catching because Jesus Monterro just wasn't ready to play in the majors - yet - is 39 years old. Looking at some of his other teammates from the Golden Age of Yankees on Fox as slobbered over by Jack Buck, they're not faring much better. Rivera is 41. Jeter is 36. Bernie, Tino, O' Neil, Pettite, Wells, Cone, Stanton, Knoblauch, Justice, Brosius, Spencer, and Nelson are retired. Jason Grimsley is a felon. Jose Canseco and his minimal time in pinstripes isn't far behind him. And that's it... really. There aren't many guys still playing, and there definitely aren't many guys who made up that team. Let's shore up who still is there... Bartolo Colon, who is conservatively weighing in at 185 (they must have given some of his extra girth in years past to CC, who is listed at 290), is there, but this isn't 2002), represents the Yankees' inability to tell time. Hence, Freddy Garcia, Mark Prior, Eric Chavez, and Andruw Jones are all hanging out on the team for opening day. Hell, other than Robinson Cano, there is NO new lifeblood on this team. For that, I'm thankful because I'd like to see the Yankees fall far out of contention quickly this year. An 11-19 start that is never recovered from would be nice. It's time to see some fair weather fans of da Bronx Bombers suffer endlessly that year. But that might just be me. That said, if Joba the Hutt (he of the midge attraction) can't find whatever made him special enough to get his own set of rules, there might only be Phil Hughes and his non-post season upside to spark a youth movement in New York. Imagine that... they'd have to go out and invest in all free agents to have a chance of winning. A second generation Steinbrenner do that? Whoda thunk it?

Josh Beckett

Winter does strange things to people. In Upper Darby, about an hour and a half from where I live, it seems that a pizza shop owner decided to engage in food terrorism against his competitor when he (Nickolas Galiatsatos) decided that to truly make Nina's Bella Pizzeria stand out against its competitors was to make sure they had mice in their bathroom. While they weren't dead, the little furry rodents could have been a problem, but alas, it was found out RIGHT AWAY, so he was arrested.
Fortunately, baseball has no live rodents today, but it seems that teams are finding ways to sabotage themselves. And so the injuries from a winter of too much rest (for example, the heft of Miguel Cabrera's 240 pound frame as he prepares to dress up as CC Sabathia for Halloween) keep on coming.
Yesterday, Josh Beckett took a shot to the head while attempting to catch a ball in the outfield. As a result, it wasn't even a standard straight off the bat intense straight away hit back. Nevertheless, the Red Sox continue to play it safe with their front of the rotation pitcher.
This only makes sense since Beckett has struggled a lot with injuries. Since 2001, he has had exactly 3 30 game seasons (add 1 29 game season to that if you're feeling generous).
He was dominant in the playoffs in 2003 and 2007, but since then... He's been to one all star game, and he currently makes $68million through 2014.
He does strike out a fair bit of guys, but his ERA is only above average. Nevertheless, his wins come from playing for an offensively stacked team that usually gets it done at the back end of the bullpen (save last year).
OK, so he's a part of the team and he made 2007 happen, and he did set the Yankees down in Yankee Stadium for Game 6 of 2003, but at some point, history is history.
If the Sox are going to win this year, we can't have stupid accidents like this. We can't pay for guys like Mike Cameron, who is never healthy anyway. We need Jacoby Ellsbury in the lineup. We can't have aging stars manning the corners because nobody else will take their contracts. We need guys like Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis to be healthy.
And if news seems bad for the Red Sox, how about the Cardinals losing Chris Carpenter to a hamstring injury?
So my 2 favorite teams that are made up of some seriously fragile individuals seem to find that spring training can really suck for your entire outlook - unless you remember it's a 162-game schedule.

Troy Maxson

February is African American history month, and for that, one has to look at the black experience to see what baseball has been (the segregation of an entire race since Moses Fleetwood Walker), what it had to go through (the discrimination and resistance to Jackie Robinson), what it was possible that it could achieve (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Bob Gibson, to name a few), and to what it is becoming (a shift to the NBA and NFL save some really great young talent like Jason Heyward, CC Sabathia, and Ryan Howard).
We have gone from the days of teams being worried about fielding an all black outfield to teams that can't field African American players (Houston's 2005 World Series team is a perfect example). And while there is color on the skin, it's from darker skinned players that hail from the countries that lie south of the American border. And while Martin Dihigo represents a somewhat similar and somewhat different experience, his Cuban heritage lacks resonance with the African American world of today.
For that, we go to the dramatic works of August Wilson to find Fences, the tale of Troy Maxson, a former Negro Leaguer who hit home runs like nobody other than Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson, but who was unable to play because of his skin color. Where Buck O' Neil felt that he was right on time, Maxson is spiteful for coming along way too early. He has gone so far as to push his son Cody out of a football scholarship so that sports can never do to him what they did to Troy, and for that and many other misguided things that he did, he's a larger than life idiot. He cheats on his wife and knocks up his mistress, who later dies in childbirth, leaving Troy's 2nd wife Rose to care for the baby and live in a loveless marriage. He fights for the right to drive a garbage truck despite not having a license and figures that nothing will ever become of it because it's so easy.
And for this, it's impossible to like him as a person. I felt the same way about Satchel Paige after reading the tales of his womanizing. The man could pitch like a machine, but I don't have to like the man off the field (in fact, his kids came to hate him as well). But alas, such is the biography that Mark Ribowsky wrote and that I came to sluggishly move my way through (Don't Look Back).
But with the August Wilson experience, the pain is all eventually gone and the mother makes the son go to the funeral, thus paying his last respects to his father and hopefully burying him instead of carrying him on his back forever.
And for that, perhaps there is meaning, but I can't say that it moved me the way that I hoped it would save a few lines such as:
She asked me when I met her if I had gotten all that foolishness out of my system. And I told her "Baby, it's you and baseball all what count with me." You hear me, Bono? I meant it too. She say, "Which one comes first?" I told her, "Baby, ain't no doubt it's baseball... but you stick and get old with me and we'll both outlive this baseball."
And with that, I think of my wife and how she "puts up with" my baseball infatuation and how lucky I am to have her, and it makes me realize that there are good things in life and they're more than just a game, but the game is nice.
I think about what it means to be a hero or a role model and I realize that if we don't have the ability to care for other people and treat them well, then we might be a good enterainer, but we're not much else.
It's just a shame that so many people, historically in reality and in fiction, can't do the same. Perhaps, it's time to focus more on the real than on the fake and get in the real game.