Hank Aaron

I get it.
There's always a sense of exhaustion when so much happens in so little time, and we just want our time off to be away from it and not think about things that are going on and have happened. In most of what passes for life, it's all good, and it's the way it should be...
Unless the fans are voting for you to be an All Star, and they expect to see you giving your all amongst the other great players from your generation.
Which brings us to Derek Jeter.
He's been doing it since 1996, which might seem old hat, but consider that he plays in the Big Apple. He plays for the Yankees. He's a "bi-racial angel" (at least according to the movie The Other Guys). He just got to 3,000 hits (in a 5-5 game against the Tampa Bay Rays' David Price in which hit 3,000 was a home run - oh, and he had the game winning hit). He does have a super hot gal pal (Minka Kelly) who he most likely wants some time with to get a little bit of lovin', but he is one of the pre-eminent baseball players of his generation and his fans invited him to the game (to start no less!), so shouldn't he be there?
He was 6 for 9 in his last 2 game with a double, home run, 2 RBIs, and a stolen base. He had the game-winning hit when he came through big on Saturday. That's what he does. That's why the fans love him. And even a certified Yankee hater like myself who self hatingly has to admit that he doesn't hate Jeter anymore but somehow feels a degree of respect for him is now forced to think back on the days of old and sum up that old A-Rod style hate for Jeter (and we all know what the chances of sending a get well soon card to A-Rod is going to be for his surgery).
This whole All Star sit out thing has me upset to the point that I now have to wonder about Jeter's situation (so convenient because it allowed for him to get the hit at home instead of on the road). And I'm not here to make conspiracy theory seem real because that isn't what this is about, but it is about a man who should be giving the game a chance to celebrate it's past, present, and future, but instead, he thinks that he's above the fans. Hopefully, they'll leave him off the ballots in his final 2 years. We'll see if the Yankees feel obligated to him beyond the contract he's in now.
Hank Aaron said it best:
“There is a commitment I think that players have. At least it ought to seem like it’s a commitment. It is a game that belongs [to the fan]. I was privileged to play in 23 [All-Star Games] in the first one as much as I was the 23rd one. So I feel like these players should deem it’s a privilege. It’s their game; it belongs to them. And it’s a privilege when you can go out there when you can stand next to stars that you performed against and with. … Sometimes I think that some of the players take for granted that these things are going to go on forever.”

In response to stepping up to speak to the players about their attitudes towards today's game:
“I would be willing to speak and tell them the importance of this game … sure I would. It matters to me that baseball keeps going in the direction that it’s going in and I think that the All-Star Game is one part of baseball that we need to keep improving on. … The only way you’re going to improve upon them is if these guys are going to take out of their busy schedules and come here in play in these games.”

In response to making pitchers who were picked show up at the game:
“I don’t know so much about that. … But I do know one thing, if he pitched in the game on Sunday but was nominated to come to the game, he would come here just to show his face. … The fans appreciated when his name was called and he walked or ran out on the field.”

Once again, baseball's most outspoken former player (Willie Mays also has a lot to say, so it's not like Aaron is the only one) puts it exactly as it needs to be. If Jeter listens, he'll understand. It's all straight forward. This may be a high-paid profession, but at the end of the day, it's a kids' games that adults get the right to play and be idolized for. If he'd rather sleep with Russian models that run, hit, catch, and throw, then so be it, but then he needs to retire and do that 24/7 instead of this. There are tons of players that would love to take his place.

Rickie Weeks

Last night, pitching excellence was on display in Anaheim as Justin Verlander let up 1 run in 7 innings... but he lost as Dan Haren just devastated the Tigers in every single way with a complete game 2 hitter where he walked NOBODY. In the end, it was representative of what the game of baseball has become - all pitching and very little hitting (save Jeter's 4 hits that he still has to get before Sunday night and Albert Pujols returning from the sick ward to kick the hell out of the National League Central pretenders).
Yet instead of embracing it, we pretend that the home run derby still matters in 2011.
The same could be said about Pittsburgh and Cleveland's rejuvination, but as they're on the other side of the PA Turnpike's 4 tunnels, so nobody seems to care what goes on out in the Alleghenies and Lake Erie. It's all about the longball - even if we have to utilize the aging, the one hit wonders, and the contact hitters of baseball to get it. People still aren't turning on ROOT and listening to the sound of joy come from a city better known for its football team.
Nope... it's all about post steroids era sluggers  of which Ryan Howard wasn't even invited to be a part of it.
And with that, it seems that Big Sluggi is starting some kind of a trend that is about 13 years too late - picking his own home run derby team. In a day and age when the bashers aren't really coming to play (they're too afraid to hurt their swings) and the All Star Game is filled with sub par types (is Chipper Jones there because he's actually that good or is it because he's actually healthy at this point in the season), can anyone out there really feel that it's time to dig into the wallet and watch Chris Berman come up with new ways to cheer on a home run when it's Rickie Weeks doing the swinging? OK, so it's not like Prince Fielder had many good choices to go with for his team (someone equally pudgy had to counter Big Sluggi's actions after all), but certainly there had to be someone worth choosing... (Lance Berkman, maybe).
So the excitement of excitement is Prince Fielder, Jose Bautista (my pick to win it), David Ortiz, Weeks, Matt Holliday, Adrian Gonzalez, Robinson Cano, and Matt Kemp. I won't be wasting time watching too much of it (besides, I teach during the first part of it), but all in all, were I to wait for the replay in the morning, I wouldn't really feel too glued to the TV for those guys.
What I would watch wtih slobbering affection is Justin Verlander going toe to toe against Dan Haren, Tim Lincecum, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Felix Herndandez, James Shields, and David Price in a contest of seeing how many times that they can strike out Mark Reynolds, Drew Stubbs, Ryan Howard, Austin Jackson, Kelly Johnson, Adam Dunn, Mike Stanton, and Ryan Raburn. Today's crop of free swinging losers need to be shown up for what they are - overpaid and forgettable players.
There would be something beautiful in watching Howard get tripped up with a nasty pitch thrown high and inside or seeing Reynolds looking absolutely glazed over as he goes down again (and again and again) with a  nasty curve ball. Adam Dunn's utter futility this year would be on display as he would surely chase many a slider that exploded in the dirt. And if that's because the pitchers are better, so be it. Let's see their nasty prowess, and let's see how they make players as worthless at the plate as an Eric Chavez type that just gives up to cower in fear from the bench.
And that's the point. It's the Year of the Pitcher 2. If Drew Stubbs wants to feel big and potent (like Rickie Weeks who is somehow in the derby), let him face some real pitching. If he can  hit for power, let him take on the best of the best for pitching power. Hell, I'd even pay to see Randy Johnson take time off from his gig at making old guys not feel gray to come back and devastate the lineup that is going into the derby. Ten pitches each... who can hit this guy? Johnson would still be the Big Ugly, I'm sure.
So in this era of the guy on the mound, let's not pretend that any of these batters are worth a hill of beans.

Cal Ripken Jr.

Staring at the MLB website for the all star teams, I see this:

The visiting AL roster will look like this:
• Catcher: Alex Avila (Tigers)
• First base: Adrian Gonzalez (Red Sox)
• Second base: Robinson Cano (Yankees)
• Third base: Alex Rodriguez (Yankees)
• Shortstop: Derek Jeter (Yankees)
• Outfield: Jose Bautista (Blue Jays), Curtis Granderson (Yankees) and Josh Hamilton (Rangers)
• DH: David Ortiz (Red Sox)


The AL pitching staff: starters Josh Beckett (Red Sox), Gio Gonzalez (Athletics), Felix Hernandez (Mariners), David Price (Rays), James Shields (Rays), Justin Verlander (Tigers), Jered Weaver (Angels) and C.J. Wilson (Rangers); and relievers Aaron Crow (Royals), Brandon League (Mariners), Chris Perez (Indians), Mariano Rivera (Yankees) and Jose Valverde (Tigers).


And the backup position players are: catchers Russell Martin (Yankees) and Matt Wieters (Orioles); infielders Adrian Beltre (Rangers), Asdrubal Cabrera (Indians), Miguel Cabrera (Tigers) and Howard Kendrick (Angels); outfielders Michael Cuddyer (Twins), Jacoby Ellsbury (Red Sox), Matt Joyce (Rays) and Carlos Quentin (White Sox); and DH Michael Young (Rangers).


The NL shakes out this way:
• Catcher: Brian McCann (Braves)
• First base: Prince Fielder (Brewers)
• Second base: Rickie Weeks (Brewers)
• Third base: Placido Polanco (Phillies)
• Shortstop: Jose Reyes (Mets)
• Outfield: Ryan Braun (Brewers), Matt Kemp (Dodgers) and Lance Berkman (Cardinals)


The NL pitching staff consists of: starters Matt Cain (Giants), Roy Halladay (Phillies), Cole Hamels (Phillies), Jair Jurrjens (Braves), Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers), Cliff Lee (Phillies), Tim Lincecum (Giants) and Ryan Vogelsong (Giants); and relievers Heath Bell (Padres), Tyler Clippard (Nationals), Joel Hanrahan (Pirates), Jonny Venters (Braves) and Brian Wilson (Giants).


The NL's bench will include: catcher Yadier Molina (Cardinals); infielders Starlin Castro (Cubs), Chipper Jones (Braves), Brandon Phillips (Reds), Gaby Sanchez (Marlins), Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies) and Joey Votto (Reds); and outfielders Carlos Beltran (Mets), Jay Bruce (Reds), Matt Holliday (Cardinals), Hunter Pence (Astros) and Justin Upton (D-backs).

So yeah... this is what we're faced with... a midseason yawner - even for a Red Sox fan.
It's the sensation that it's all about the casual fans or the fans of the big 3 (Phillies, Red Sox, Yankees) and getting their players in the game. And this is not to say that their players aren't deserving, but...
It's always the but.
Derek Jeter seems to be the go to figure of hate this year as he gets ready to come off the DL and his time in Trenton to sit 6 hits away from 3,000, and that's a great feeling, but...
There's always a but.
Right now, he's hitting .260 with 2 home runs.
But according to Yankees fans, he's the best player in the game - careerwise - so why not let him play? After all, Cal Ripken got himself slobbered over in 2001 when he didn't deserve to be there either. In that year, he wasn't even at the Mendoza Line until May 6th. At the All Star Game, he was hitting .240. In 128 games, he hit 14 home runs and batted .239. But when the All Star Game was played out, he was the short stop with Alex Rodriguez moving to third base to let Cal have his own position. Foreshadowing of what he would do for the Yankees when he basically played the Red Sox off against the Rangers and Yankees, alienated Manny and Nomar, and proved how despicable he truly was, anyone (and why no Red Sox fan has ever felt, "we should have gotten him.")?
But Ripken went on to hit a game-winning home run and become the summer classic's MVP, which says a lot about what old men can and can't do. Can't say it makes me like him any more or any less. He's just Ripken... a great player that was Baltimore, but Baltimore was never my team and Ripken was just the game's Iron Man when it needed a hero. And he was the hero... in the same way Jeter is the hero, so if we have to put up with Jeter in the game, so be it.
I'm not going to feel giddy and all that he's there, but I understand and I get it. The fans get their votes, and why not let them pick? Why not ensure that there will be good ratings in a few cities at least?

Kevin Millar

Back in the day, Kevin Millar coined the term "Manny being Manny." Today, Millar is a host on Intentional Talk on MLBTV (porn without nudity for the guilty pleasure baseball lover of the world), and Manny is sitting on the sidelines, probably based out of his mind (at least without the worry of failing a drug test), waiting for the Dodgers to send him another $8.33 million of deferred money by the end of the month (he'll get another check for the same amount next year - gotta love $20million contracts - you get paid even when you don't play!). If you're Manny, it sure beats sitting out for a second steroids bust, but you have to do what you have to do.
If you're Millar, it means that you've got a job where you're getting paid to act like the class clown / team leader who keeps the team all loosey goosey together and having fun, doing your job, and making life good. MLBTV has been playing a lot of best of montages from the show. It's good stuff.
But when it comes to the money that Manny is owed and the need to get it to him pronto tonto... this is just another blow to the Dodgers who are racing the Mets to the poorhouse in all of the things that you shouldn't do to run a baseball team, but nevertheless, such is the life of a baseball team. Sometimes, you're up. Sometimes, you're down. It's like Minnesota. You can win a World Series or 2. You can get threatened by Bud Selig with being contracted (but not before you give up Chuck Knoblauch to the Yankees). You can win some playoff games. Joe Nathan can phone in reliever duties and send you home without a ring. Joe Mauer can come to your team as the great catcher of the future. Joe Mauer can get injured and return great and get injured again. You can find your team in last place as your former player and Hall of Famer dies of cancer. It's an endless cycle, but if you're the Baseball Project (or just Craig Finn, the lead singer of the Hold Steady who is doing a guess appearance with you), you can sing a really great song about how much you love them all the same (just don't call them Twinkies).
For the Dodgers, all things not Matt Kemp pretty much suck this year. He's 11 for 23 with 4 moonshots and 8 RBIs in the last week. He's .332 for the season (20 home runs, 56 RBIs, and 15 steals - he's killing it fantasy style - especially because they don't include the 62 strikeouts - imagine what this guy could do if  he made contact about 10% more!). He doesn't have Rihanna dragging him down. yeah... life is good except for wondering if his bosses can pay him for working and that whole day to day thing.
But life isn't all bad... It's not all good either. Especially f you're Derek Jeter. You're 6 hits show of 3,000, but you're on the cusp of being out of action for injury. Nevertheless, in this time of need for Jeter's supporters, Ian O' Connor really lays the love on thick for Derek Jeter today, but you know what? It's a great article. Sure, it's a puff piece, but it explains why I can hate the Jeter3000 Love Fest (registered trademark), and still grudingly and in conflict with all I am as a Yankee hater, I still respect the man.
And with that, there are times where you win, and there are times where you lose, but at least you get up and play it again.
What else are you going to do?

Manny Acta

It's the first day of classes, and I always start off telling my students that they can A out of the class (leave when they have an A for the class - even if it's a couple of days early), but no student who has ever tried to "A out" has actually achieved it - at least of thoese students telling me that they're going to do it. Usually, I tell them that they're eligible to make it happen, and then, it happens, but alas...
In real life, Lebron James predicted that they Heat would win 8 championships, but unfortunately, they lost the first one last night to the Mavericks: 105-95. Thus, just like a guy who once missed 9 of the first 11 classes, neither one did what was predicted.
Nobody predicted that the Indians would be in first place as they've been for the early part of this season. It just happened. While they phoned in the past few weeks, a period that ended with a Yankee sweep (after the Yankees had their hats handed to them by the Red Sox the previous 3 games), they have been largely overachieving, and for that, Cleveland shouldn't be throwing themselves into Lake Erie just yet.
My yearly preview of choice (Athalon) expressed their season in terms of good news and bad news. The good was that they "aren't likely to finish in 4th place once again." However, the bad news was that they "appear headed for last place in the American League Central - one spot below the seemingly always rebuilding Royals. The Indians are too young and have too many questions to be considered anything but a doormat."
Despite being 1-9 in their last 10, they are still 34-29 (33-20 was just a crazy start). They're still in first as the Tigers lost yesterday, too. And while they have one more game against the Yankees, this one is against AJ Burnett, who quite frankly has been lousy as of late, so if the Tribe can just jump all over him quickly with an Asdrubal Cabrerra punch, we can see good things.
But that said, doing something like Fausto Carmona plunking Mark Teixera after all of the Red Sox pitchers used the Yankees for target practice (and the Big Papi plunk back) isn't going to reverse the course of this sinking ship. What is going to help is having Shin Soo Choo hit something other than the bottle. The Indians also need Carlos Santana making hits again.
Justin Masterson had aspirations and hopes, and he can still restore them as can Josh Tomlin and Mitch Talbot. And while we believe in Fausto Carmona less than Zach Greinke (the name says it all - who did he sell his soul to in order to move out from under the weight of that Big Papi home run on July 31, 2006?), we have to believe that there is potential for him to be better than the worst of the regular Indians pitchers at this point.
So for Manny Acta to do nothing right now when it comes to defending his team against the Yankees is just wrong. Bill Veeck put it best: "Hating the Yankees isn't part of my act. It is one of those exquisite times when life and art are in perfect conjunction." We agree, and for the fact that they're a halfass mirage of what they used to be (something the Red Sox have been making quite clear in all of their games together this year except one), it's time to stop pretending that this longball and Jeter's quest for 3,000 is making them contenders. The gig is over, and it was nice while it lasted, but now that a way over-performing Bartolo Colon is out, how long can Granderson and Teixera achieve all for the nothing on that roster?
But in the end, it's about wanting to be winners if the option is there. If you're going to contend in September instead of pretend in May, then rise up and want it.
If not, go home. Besides, the Cuyahoga Valley is pretty this time of year.

Joba Chamberlain

So if this is the last hurrah of Joba the Hutt, the fist pump, the failed starter, the middle reliever / heir apparent or maybe not to Mariano Rivera, and if this is the point that his Tommy John Surgery keeps him from being the man that he was destined to be... what will we remember?
Will we remember that his real name is Justin? More importantly, will we really care? After all, even as a Yankee hater, we have to say that Joba is far cooler anyway.
We will probably remember the rules that so befuddled Mr. Torre. There was a day off for every inning that the 21 year old (at the time) Joba pitched. He had that time off before and that time off after he came into the game. Can't have too much work on a young arm, which makes sense, but all the same, this is baseball. Are we really coddling young players so much that it takes forever to adjust them to the majors when the time comes? OK, don't answer that question.
For a team that doesn't have that many heatlhy or effective or youthful pitching options, to lose a guy like Chamberlain is scary for what the Yankees will have to do (spend LOTS and LOTS on iffy free agents like CC Sabathia and Josh Beckett, trust in Ivan Nova, Bartolo Colon, + Freddy Garcia, pray for Phil Hughes' arm to rise from the dead and a nearly 14.00 ERA). For a Yankee hater like myself, it means that we can focus on Boston's success and Tampa Bay's emergence. Both of those are happy thoughts, by the way.
The Midges, which many will remember from that fateful game on October 5, 2007... now that's something altogether different. We will remember them bringing Cleveland's hopes and prayers to life again as they brought in a run that effectively devastated the Yankee playoff chances that year and almost allowed the Indians to get to the World Series (losing 3 straight to Boston to keep that from happening).  We will see them swarming Joba on the mound and making the wild pitch possible.
Will we remember the 0.38 ERA that first year? The 19 games with 1 earned run and 2 runs? The utter finality of his appearance in the game until (thank you!) Boston's Mike Lowell put a stake through that vampire's heart with a home run.
There were moments of greatness and promise, and perhaps he can still be great, but will he be the homegrown excellence of Rivera, Jeter, Posada, Pettite, and Williams? Or will he be just another story, another shirt to show the kids to let them know that you were there through the good times (as opposed to a Rickey Henderson Yankees jersey for the ugly years)?
We wish him well at recovery because let's be honest... it's going to be fun to tee off on him in 2013.

Carl Crawford

There is something about the feeling of being in a new ballpark.

Today, I went to Commerica Park in Detroit with a friend of mine from Air Force days (a million years ago or something like that) to see the Tigers play the Red Sox.

It's definitely a brave new world that we're entering into. Since Brian Stow and since becoming an adult, there are a few things that I'm definitely not doing. Number one - I'm not trying to cause a scene in an opposing ballpark. Yep... I'm definitely more mature than I was at age 29 when I went with 2 friends (one who loved baseball - one who wanted to see the game) to see the Orioles and Red Sox square off at Camden Yards. We had kazoos, signs, and attitude, and many people probably weren't happy with us. Nevertheless, we went hoarse as Pedro went for a complete game with 15 strikeouts and only 2 hits. It was a romp, and it became the chapter "Pedro and the Pantheon" in Bill Simmons' Now I Can Die in Peace. To give you an example of how I've changed, when we went, we had an extra ticket, and we sold it to a guy on the street - informing him that we were going to be crazy. I don't think he realized how much, but alas... we were just getting started for preparations for the game that never was (a rainout between the Trenton Thunder and Boston Red Sox that we showed up at way early in hopes of getting autographs while wearing face paint). I have the pictures from sitting around waiting, but alas, the rain that day just made sure the game would never happen.

Back then, I was all about my team. It's not that I'm not now, but it's just when one is in a younger frame of mind, one doesn't have to feel so desperately connected to meaning through the actions of another team. Well, that and I'm not Harvey Updyke. I still get venomous at the Yankees, but I don't go so far as to refer to Derek Jeter as a selfish player like Bleacher Report (these guys must be on some serious medication). Then again, their definitions of selfish are mostly just jerk players and players from New York (though I would agree with A-Rod at number 1).

Number 2: Since Brian Stow, I'm conscious about getting my ass kicked for my Pedro Martinez jersey and Red Sox hat. I actually asked my friend (from Michigan) if he would mind sitting next to a guy in a Red Sox jersey and if the fans would react horribly to opposing fans in the stadium. As I'm not a Yankee fan, I was ok, and really, there were other fans who were all really decent about being there, and that's what it's all about. Experience other stadiums, enjoy their heritage (there are some awesome statues of Ty Cobb, Al Kaline, Hal Newhauser, Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer, and Willie Horton. For this, the Tigers do love their past and present (much love is shown to the current team despite only Cabrera and Verlander being all stars), it's just that they don't have much of a current team, and for that...

Number 3: It's not like watching Alfredo Aceves... even for as dominant as he looked, was really a great drawing card. He wasn't flat out nasty, but he did get the job done, which is more than can be said for Max Scherzer, who within 4 batters into an outless third inning was done for the 7 runs that he gave up. Normally, if I was into my team as I used to be, I would have been chanting and screaming with Jacoby Ellsbury's 3-run jack, but I actually felt bad for my friend that he didn't get to see a closer game. I don't want to be an ugly winner, but yeah... the box score really says it all.

And it's not like I get all jazzed on the current Red Sox. Sure, Big Sluggi has redeemed himself this year. Sure, there are bright spots after the horrible start, but they're not the Idiots from 2003 or the 2004 World Series team (or even 2007). They're a stacked team of devastating offense brought together to kill opposing teams.

Now that Carl Crawford is 8 for his last 9 (2 doubles, 2 triples, 1 home run, 5 runs, 5 RBIs, no whiffs), can anything stop Boston? They whooped on Cleveland 2 of 3 games and only lost the first one after Manny Acta got himself ejected (gotta love that Lake Erie love that pushed the Indians to victory).

Technically, we're .003 out of first place as the Rays fall to a game and a half back with the Yankees in first, but there is such a thing as momentum. The Yankees have a West Coast trip. Boston gets Detroit and Oakland and the White Sox. Then, the 2 come together for a meeting where Boston has killed New York in their meetings this year. I'm not saying that a June meetup is the end of the world / do or die, but with the way that the Red Sox are changing their direction, it could be meaningful TV.

If I allow myself to get caught up in it!

Cal Ripken Jr.

In light of Jorge Posada playing himself out of New York, and let's be honest... the New York Post said it the best; he's pretty much done like a charbroiled steak, let's talk about aging stars and what to do with people when they're past their prime, but they're still loved.
Take the biggest love fest in history - Cal Ripken Jr... this man is truly slobbered over in Baltimore except when it comes to people wanting to pony up $100 to buy my 1982 Topps Traded Set complete with PSA8.5 Cal Ripken rookie. It's like Harvey Keitel said in Pulp Fiction... only people have already started and there's no stopping...
Ripken's biggest claim to fame is that he played 2,632 consecutive games. This went from May 30, 1982, to September 20, 1998. During this time, he played 8,243 consecutive innings from June 5, 1982 to September 14, 1987. During this time, he also hit roughly .300 and pounded out more than 25 homers a year during a period in time where the average short stop was Ozzie Smith.
However, in 1991, Cal Ripken had his last great line in baseball: .323, 34, 114. After that, everything was above pedestrian, BUT it wasn't super wonderful mega fantastic. SURE... he was playing every game. Yet he was still playing every game for 7 full years. The Orioles may have moved him from short to third, but there was no future contingency, and they came to suffer for it years later.
Nobody thought about that when they were winning (shades of New York, anyone?). In 1983, the Orioles won the World Series. Until 1996, they weren't in the playoffs again. However, thanks to Jeffrey Maier, they lost in 96 and in 97, they lost to a Cleveland team that was one at bat to Edgar Renteria from winning the World Series. For Baltimore, that was it. The Yankees got dominant, and the future was cast in stone. Thank God for the Devil Rays to keep them out of the cellar most years.
When it was all said and done, Ripken went from the man who broke the streak of Lou Gehrig (a streak Gehrig only stopped because of life-ending injury and pride in being complimented for pedestrian accomplishments) in 1995, resurrecting baseball with a happy moment after the strike, and eventually gave it up to just as much tremendous fanfare. Thus, he was forever enshrined as an institution in the Chesapeake Bay (in no small part because he was born there and stayed there to be dominant - that generation's Joe Mauer).
So who knew that the man who had no business being at the 2001 All Star Game (at least until he hit a home run and got to play short stop as Alex Rodriguez stepped aside to make the old man feel at home again with an MVP award) was involved in a vicious rumor that he pummeled the tar out of Kevin Costner for hooking up with his wife? Interestingly enough, now I do, and now many people on the web do. It's a BS rumor dispelled by Costner, Ripken, and Snopes, but yeah... you've gotta love the Internet where EVERYTHING is true.
So for what I've learned, be it Ken Griffey Jr., Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Willie Mays, or a constantly banged up Chipper Jones, there comes a point where a player has to call it a day and know when to say when.
They can go the easy way like Andy Pettite and don't go in a decline. They can be forced out like Griffey. They can change from Big Papi, the hero of the Red Sox dynasty years to Big Sluggi, the steroids mirage who doesn't show up to play until May, or they can just keep hoping that this year will be the year that they turn it around - maybe one last time like a hobbling Kirk Gibson in a World Series moment for the ages.
Sadly, we know which way it's more likely to be.

Jorge Posada

Normally, and by normally, I mean if I wasn't married to my wife or hoping for a relationship (as was the case for Game 6 of the 2003 World Series - the one where Beckett lights out-ed the Yankees - I did see the end of that one with the pile on celebration after the date sucked), I would be spending the entire weekend draped in a Red Sox jersey over my "certified Yankee hater" shirt, wishing death on the Evil Empire.
Several things have changed this:
1) On December 1, 2007, I met my wife. She's awesome and I'd rather go see Brides maids with her than watch a "relatively meaningless" season game. Granted, it counts in the standings and for the total of wins against each other per year (if we end up tied and have to determine post season home advantage), but alas... it's just not the same as it used to be.
2) In those days before my wife, the Red Sox had won one World Series, and until then, things were even worse. Hell, let's be honest. Things were worse because of the win, but the second win...
3) The year the Yankees didn't even make the playoffs (2008)...
4) The fact that it's hard to be attached to this group of players... many who weren't even around for either team's historic runs... and if they are, they're older than velociraptors...
So yeah...
Here we are in da Bronx and the Red Sox are officially victors in the first 2 games of the series. While the first game got close at the end, the 2nd game was a 6-0 laugher, and well, that's really what it is.
The reality here is not in the box score... it's in the aging of the old guard as Jorge Posada asked out of the lineup as his average rises to .165 after being as low as .125 at the end of April. There are 6 home runs, but in 108 at bats, there are only 18 total hits.
He's not the only one.
Derek Jeter is at .267 with 2 home runs.
Mark Teixeira is at .254 with 9 home runs.
Alex Rodriguez is at .252 with 6 home runs.
Curtis Granderson and his .281, 12, 26 line is the star. Even Robinson Cano isn't leading the team yet. Did I jinx the guy by picking him for fantasy (.279, 9, 25)?
In the beginning, the Red Sox and the Rays were 0-6, but both rebounded. Now, the Rays are in first place and they're cold kicking ass on all opponents. While not as good as Philly or Cleveland (and Cleveland is actually the 2nd best team - by default of playing one less game than the Phillies), we can see that there is a new guard in baseball that isn't including the money teams (well, save Philly, which is somehow moving around Ryan Howard's move to #2 in strikeouts to ride his hits and homers to victory).
For a team that played tough against Texas (4 wins), they lost 2 to Kansas City in the stadium. They've lost 4 of 5 to the Red Sox, and today, they face the Sox with Freddy Garcia on the hill against Jon Lester and a Boston team that is trying desperately to get to .500 (while 19-14 since the 0-6 start of the season, they're below the mark, and frankly, every time they've been getting to .500, they always find a way to phone it in and stay mired below.
Is today the game that they go otherwise? Or is this the continued loss of power from a once great dynasty / stable of big contracts?

Milton Bradley

At the end of the day, it's all about being productive, and what better way to be productive than to celebrate the 27th anniversary of a game that was played for 25 innings (just over 8 hours)? Thank you Harold Baines for wrapping that one up (while not the longest ever by innings - Boston and Brooklyn battled to a 1-1 tie after 26 innings in 1920 - it was the longest by time). And with that, here's to baseball history, present, and future.
So let's see who's being productive at the end of the 5th week of baseball 2011...
(definitely not my fantasy team who lost for the first time all year in head to head games).
Derek Jeter lost his power, and then he got it back with 2 home runs in one day after not hitting one in his previous 256 at bats. Is this the end, or is this Jeter bouncing back to glory? He did have 4 hits and a stolen base to go up to a .276 average, so that has to be something.
HOWEVER, not everyone had a good day on Sunday. Take Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson, who were swept out of the playoffs... not that we care, but that said, it's great to see the NBA's Ben Roethlisberger getting sent home early with his little Zen buddy and the Kardashian circus tag along getting sent back for siesta in most unceremoneous ways. No offense to Phil and Lamar, but when it comes to those who commit sexual assault (and only get out of it by using their fame against their accuser), they should all go drown.
But alas, that's just me.
All the same, today is the end of the road for yet another Milton Bradley adventure. While he did just get ejected against Boston not 2 weeks ago, it wasn't his attitude, but it was his bat failing to live up to its potential that sees Bradley getting ready to tread the unemployment lines of baseball as he faces outright release or trade due to being put up for assignment. Batting .218 with 2 home runs and 13 RBIs will do that to a man.
Thus, in honor of the man with the most unfortunate name in baseball (even worse than Coco Crisp since that's at least a fun name, and apparently, it's not the kind of name that inspires a player to go loco), there are the many problems of Milton Bradley: bottle throwing at fans who litter the field around him, accusing teammates of racism, accusing fans who hate his foul attitude of racism for sending him hate mail, screaming at teammates, screaming at managers, and trying to scream at announcers. Yep... he's done the whole spectrum... from umpires to oppoents, there is a world out there that hates Milton, and frankly, there's no internal locus of control to make sense of it all.
While not always his fault, it's all about how a man walks the walk after hearing the talk, and unfortunately, for this, Bradley's potential has been cut short.
We'll see if he comes back, but until then...

Andre Ethier

Andre the Giant, he's not. He's about a foot too short, and he's not French. On top of that, he just doesn't have the hair. He doesn't have the strength to last a full season either. He's also not the kind of guy that can scare the beejesus out of an in his prime Hulk Hogan. However, he's still one of the greats of the game of baseball - still coming into his stride and deciding what kind of player he wants to be.
For example, last year, Andre Ethier lost his .300 average on July 28th. He battled to bring it back, but by August 26th it was gone. For an average that was as high as .394 after 30 games, he lost it all only to go 7/10 in a meaningless final weekend against Arizona on the final weekend to take it back to .292.
Tonight, Ethier attempts to be the 54th player in baseball history to get to a 30-game hit streak. Seeing as he sat out against Carlos Zambrano on Wednesday night, one has to wonder if it's still a record if we pick and choose who we face in getting our hits. Alas, unlike Terrance Mann, we have to go with the idea that a record is a record. Joe Dimaggio didn't get to pick and choose his 56 games. Hell, he didn't even choose to sit out after the streak was over. He went right back to hitting in 19 straight games, but alas... players today are wusses.
Eric Chavez is a perfect example. As a player that isn't shy about expressing how he sits out against tough pitchers like Randy Johnson, he stands as a player that is over-rated, over-paid, and over-exposed - especially now that he is in New York - though currently injured like Derek Jeter who isn't really injured, but he isn't playing and he is replaced in the lineup, Chavez's opposite in every way. Despite this, in 2006-7, he made $9.5mill each season. This increased to $11.5mill per and went to $12.5mill in 2010. What did the A's get? He went to the field 137 times and earned a Gold Glove in 2006. Nevermind that Gold Gloves are a way of giving love to a popular player from years past as opposed to rewarding CURRENT defensive awesomeness, but yeah... After that, he played 90 games, 23, 8, 33, and 17 games. He went from a .240 batting average in 2006 to a .241 the next year, but seeing as it was over limited games, it's not rerpesentative of anything - simply a bad investment on an over-hyped player.
Now, while it would be wrong to wish him into a speedy retirement, the reality is that other than a feel good story in limited at bats in the Bronx, it's hard to wonder what the Yankees were getting, but that makes us thing about Mark Prior, Freddy Garcia, Kerry Wood, (pre St. Louis) Lance Berkman, Bartolo Colon, Chan Ho Park, and Austin Kearns (who all played for the Yankees in the past calendar year).
In this, it's hard to think what they thought they were getting. Granted, when they signed Jose Canseco in 2000, it was to keep him away from Boston - smart business sense. But these guys were all considered washed up. It's not like they went into a city that would just show them love unconditionally (St. Louis does this) for what they could be and bring them back to life.
Los Angeles still has hope for its stars. How long did Mannywood last after Manny Ramirez showed his true colors? The fans still believe in Matt Kemp as they turn a blind eye to his strikeouts and look only at his times connecting with the ball. And tonight, they'll have hope for Andre Ethier, but for us... we just wonder who this guy is.
But don't think anything of it... it's probably East Coast bias.

Osama Bin Laden

Ten years ago, I went to sleep after watching the end of the 8th inning of the 2001 World Series. That was the World Series when the Yankees were playing to win back happiness from the depths of post 9/11 depression that existed in NYC. I'm not a Yankees fan, and I never thought about that aspect during the series - just that they wouldn't 4peat. When I woke up, I found that they lost and I was in jubiliation at the Diamondbacks victory. I made sure that I made any Yankee fan who crossed my path suffer for Rivera's defeat at the hands of Luis Gonzalez's bloop single. In the end, I never thought I could wake up to better news.
About 2 weeks ago, I watched 9 Innings at Ground Zero and was visibly moved by the aspect of baseball bringing America together (from Bush's World Series first pitch to Jeter's heroics to the Mets captivating America by making a run for their own pennant). Much of it is very powerful. It's actually impossibly to watch without tears, but it takes us back to an America that hasn't existed since the great partisan divide of the Iraq War (for better or for worse).
Today, I woke up to much better news - Osama was dead. It turned out that if I stayed up another half hour or so, I would have heard the news as the reporters broke into it. Nevertheless, I wanted to shout "USA, USA, USA" like the hordes of joyous celebration at West Point, in the subways, in Times Square, and from the Philadelphia / Mets game. It was about 615 and my wife was still asleep, but I wanted to wake her up to tell her, but she still had about an hour before her alarm clock was set to go off, so I split it down the middle and told her at 645. When I did, she asked me if something was wrong, and all I could say was "we killed Bin Laden. The most wanted terrorist in the world was now dead, and everything had changed. The air of celebrations hit home. And with that, in many ways, it was like America came together again - save a few comments from anonymous You Tube posters and the like speculating conspiracy or judging whether it was hypocritcal to kill a mass murderer for murdering our people.
In the hindsight of a million news stories, I have to admit that there were times that I wondered if we'd ever get him. Years and years of wondering why Bush was failing and finally Obama made it a point to get him, and somehow, we got the intel to make it happen, and I have to say that I'm just glad that we did.
In the classes that I taught today, we briefly looked at all of the headlines from all of the major news sources, the blog sites (Huffington Post and Townhall), and Al Jazeera (Arab news network). It's interesting to see the difference, to see the words of Obama (we watched him on You Tube), and to contemplate what Bush would have done. It's amazing to think about how things have changed, and as I sit here, there are scary things, too.
I called my parents to tell them it happened, and they knew. My mom was reflecting on how they're quacks over there and would do something while wondering about the need for celebration ("but this was how it was at the end of World War 2"). I know that there will be some semblance of retaliation. We must be ever vigilant to that... we're not in a 9/10 world anymore, but that said... there is something powerful about the moment... the change.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is still out there. There are plenty of lunatics ready to make jihad and suffering on the West. The war has not been won (or lost) and yet there are people who will contemplate what we should do now that Bin Laden has finally died.
Sometimes, the world just becomes too real for sports. One has to wonder about all of the changes and events of the weekend and stop and think... to find time to enjoy the simple things, but all the same, to pause and reflect and remember our history and our future.
And to remain ever mindful.

Alex Rodriguez

It seems that Lance Berkman is taking criticism from the Houston team and their annoucner (Milo Hamilton) that he left behind as he moves on with his rejuvination in St. Louis (6 HRs, 16 RBIs, .378).
"Why did you think it wasn't necessary to get in shape your last couple of years as an Astro? And now to a team you didn't even know, a manager you didn't play for, you felt it was your responsibility to get in great shape? And it's paying off. ... Lance, I love you. But wouldn't it have been great to have given that same dedication to the Astros and your owner here that you did in two short months to the Cardinals?"
To this, he can only agree, which is a sign of class in his resurrection from the ashes of Houston and the Bronx.
"You kind of want to be a (Craig) Biggio or a Chipper Jones (and) that's kind of how I had it in my mind that I was going to be the same type of guy, my whole career in Texas, one team," Berkman said. "I have to take some responsibility for not still being here. ... We were terrible. I was terrible. And they were ready to move on."
It's not perfect. he's not perfect, but he's trying and he's internalizing the blame, which is the sign of maturity that some athletes just don't have.
Take A-Rod for example.
I hate A-Rod. I really do. I can't think of anything nice to say about him. I don't think fashion models should be baseball players, and it doesn't matter if they're pretty boys making out with themselves in a mirror (A-Rod) or muscleheads posing with shaved and oiled chests (Brady Anderson / Gabe Kaplar). That said, I'm not of the shaved chest persuasion and I don't look good in baby oil. I'm not tanned (though I am farmer tanned from my past 2 days in the sun hiking between work sessions), but yeah... I'm also not sporting a haircut that costs more than some people's wardrobes OR using stuff in my hair (I don't use the P word). So yeah... I really loathe the man. I hated him with Seattle. I see him as sinking the ship in Texas. I absolutely LOATHE him in New York. He'll never be a Yankee. Even Jeter hates him.
They say it best in The Other Guys when referring to Jeter getting shot when it should have been A-Rod... I hear you.
And when he got caught for steroids, he really had the lamest excuses in the world.
"Again, it was such a loosey-goosey era. I'm guilty for a lot of things. I'm guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. And to be quite honest, I don't know exactly what substance I was guilty of using."
And from trying to take things back to Selena Roberts to trashing his "cousin" to all that he did and didn't do, in the end, there was a well scripted apology that was so full of crap that it makes porta potties at the state fair seem nice by comparison. When THEE Peter Gammons wants to save your ass and he can't, something is wrong.
"When you take this gorilla and this monkey off your back, you realize that honesty is the only way. I'm finally beginning to grow up. I'm pretty tired of being stupid and selfish, you know, about myself. The truth needed to come out a long time ago. I'm glad it's coming out today."
No you're not... you want to be inseminating Madonna or smoking your stogies and living the high life. This is just a step between celebrity relationships and all that your life is.
But with that said, yesterday, I broke my relic cherry as a box of cards that my wife got me was all too Alex Rodriguez heavy. It featured a regular Topps graded Rodriguez from 2009. It featured a Masterpieces of the Game Rodriguez with some grand slam that he hit (there was also a Chris Chambliss from that set where he's doing the '76 home run dash - that's already in a place of awesomeness in my collection). There were a lot of interesting cards in small pack combinations (Goudey, Upper Deck variations from the past 4 years), but the highlight was a Baseball Heroes jersey (pictured left 99/200) that I pulled straight out of a pack - I've never done that before, and even though it was A-Rod, I was happy as a pig in the mud at 82 degrees.
Because in the end, baseball cards are about the closed pack and what could be inside. There is a sensation that anything or anyone could be in the pack. It's never been viewed since it was put in there, and for that, the lottery exists, and one could win big with a player he likes or come up with a couple faces that are commons from teams he doesn't know, or he could get a rookie of a no name and win big years from now. Nevertheless, figuring out rookies is all but impossible without a copy of Tuff Stuff, and even then, who knows if it's THEE rookie. But it's a sensation of getting something good, and in the end, any night that features a box of baseball cards that await opening... it's a great day (already made beautiful with sun and flowers and breezes over the water and life is good - as it was today for the same things and some herons and a few painted turtles sunning themselves on logs down from the 20lb snapping turtle just swimming in the water like nothing was doing).
Here's to spring and the good things.

Ryne Sandberg

I was watching The Wizard of Oz last night. I can't remember ever having watched it before, but then again, I give myself no credit for anything that I've done before turning 18. Simply put, I remember very little of it, and some is for good reason - being a teenager is an awkward time that I'd rather forget about (and a pre-pubescent, and a kid, and...), but alas... I know that I've seen bits and pieces of it, and I get its populist message that lurks underneath the childhood story, but more than anything (and somewhere beyond Dorothy's annoying moans - man, how do people appreciate Judy Garland when her 2 most important offspring - being Judy and Liza frickin' Minelli - just grate all that we are, but nevertheless, before I start getting hate mail, let me just say, I was laying in bed thinking about how there really is no place like home. 15 years ago, I was living in England, and it was rapidly coming to the point that I was heading home. I had no desire to go home at that point. England was my adopted home, and I was clinging to it with a fierce tenacity that wouldn't give way to the fact that the relationship I was in had to dissolve so that the both of us could go on to happiness (we've both since married and are doing reasonably well with our lives), and I had no concept of what America or life was meant to be - just that I was going to soon go back home and live with my parents while I went to school and got my life together (on July 8, 1996, that reality finally happened). It took a while. The first year was hard. I still had a lot of England left in me - not least of all the idea that I would go back and be with my ex-gal friend (when you're older than high school, you can't really be a girl), but alas, that didn't happen, and it was a long dark winter that was finally punctuated with a few trips to California to see another friend. For the first trip, I bought a baseball preview guide with Derek Jeter on the cover. I didn't know who he was or hate the Yankees at the time (that was in 1998 with the story of Roger Maris and accentuated with the pickup of Roger Clemens), but it was that which brought baseball back. Sure, there were moments like watching the Braves dominate in 1996 while working at an Air Force sports bar in England, or watching the Phillies lose in 1993 when the Blue Jays smacked them around (thank you Paul Molitor), but through it all, there was nothing other than the memory of Ryne Sandberg... a guy who played for the Reading Phillies, but was later traded to the Chicago Cubs where he went on to have Hall of Fame stats. And he was right there waiting for me when I returned home, and for that, I am eternally grateful. His career wasn't like it was in the 1980s, and while I still have his rookie card, it isn't the value that I'd like it to be. Then again, neither are the cards that my wife bought me the other night that sit smack dab in the middle of this era (1990ish). It was a great gift for a player, and there's something about looking through cards - even of players we don't necessarily know. There are still favorites from my childhood, guys left over to adulthood, and marquee players that will always be known. In the end, there were a few cards that stood out. Curt Schilling 1990 Topps - not THE rookie, but a first Topps card. Sammy Sosa 1990 Topps - if only it was 1998... I'd be sitting pretty. While not the Upper Deck Griffey Jr., there was the regular set Topps marked rookie of Ken Griffey Jr. Most of these are now selling for $1. Juan Gonzalez? Joey (Albert) Belle? Names of once great, but fallen stars. Jose Canseco? You can't even give his rookie away, but there was a 1990 Canseco - when he still sort of kind of mattered. But there were the guys from this era... the ones that were still left... the Ryne Sandbergs... the million dollar contract trail blazers who used to name names and define the era... And they're largely forgotten in modern baseball history, but they're still a part of my childhood history, which I see myself going back to more and more (also, the Disney Pixar movies and brainless comedies)... and I know that's not such a bad thing. It's made me the man that I am, and it's made my American home (in the middle of Amish Paradise) such a great place to be and to sit on the backyard furniture while watching my firepit and looking over my wife's garden and just being. That's really what home is all about. That sense of mellow Americana and nostalgia for a time past in a time now... Even if that time never really was.

Derek Jeter

I know... I know... I've said it before about a great many things: A) I'm a Red Sox fan and a "Certified Yankee Hater" (I've got the t-shirt to prove it).

B) Derek Jeter's flip play is the most over-rated play this side of Willie Mays' backward catch (great play, but Mays was well known for losing his hat to make plays more theatrical and that yard was really deep - players today would watch a homer rather than get a chance to duplicate the feat) in the history of baseball.

C) Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty was a great book and an even greater feeling (though we wouldn't know for sure until the Angels in 2002 and the Marlins in 2003; Detroit in 2006 was just the icing on the cake) to know it was over... yeah!

D) I didn't watch the original single of the Luis Gonzalez game winner. All of my talk about Mariano Rivera being over-rated was shown for what it really was - knowing the truth as I went to bed after the end of the 8th inning. I did celebrate the next day, but it would be ages before I saw the video of the whole inning.

E) I have come to grudgingly respect Joe Torre since Tom Verducci's excellent Yankee Years book. In fact, some of my greatest dreams (and worst experience in the last 5 years of teaching) came from Mike Mussina and Jeter rallying the troops together in 2005 and thinking that giving my students a motivational push would make them want to do the same for me. Fat chance of that, but it's still a nice dream for a Mr. Holland moment.

F) Since the Yankees didn't make the playoffs in 2008 and since the Red Sox won in 2007, I have lost some of my hatred for the Yankees. Well, that and the fact that I don't watch full Yankees / Red Sox games religiously since I spend more time with my wife (we met at the end of 2007).

That being said...

On Saturday, I watched Nine Innings from Ground Zero, which is actually an HBO production, and let me just say...

It was the best documentary this side of Ken Burns Baseball. However, I don't think I would or even could watch it twice. Yes, there are scenes that stand out (the aforementioned flip, the George Bush first pitch, and Brielle Saracini), and those can be watched again, but even those are super emotional - especially Saracini.

When you watch Saracini, she's a tween reading a letter about being bummed out over the events of 9/11, but she's writing it to Derek Jeter and asking if he can cheer her up with a phone call. Not knowing who she is or isn't, it's at that moment that they reveal that her father was Victor Saracini, the pilot of Flight 175, which was horrifically slammed into the World Trade Center on that September morning, killing everyone aboard (for a total of 2,819 victims). And it's at this moment that the emotion of the rest of the film truly hits - it's human lives lost, stopped, and completely eliminated. It's survivers that don't know how to make sense of it. Looking at the link to all of the dead and what the stats mean (the lives, the money, the city, our America), it's just catastrophic and over-whelming and completely emotional.

I was a blubbering wreck.

Watching Jeter 10 minutes before tell Bush to throw from the mound or face being booed while giving him advice to throw a strike brings it all home... as my friend Dale said, to not include that on Ken Burns' The 10th Inning, wasn't right. It is our game and what our game can do. For all of the pro Yankee sentiment that they should have won (and while I wouldn't have wanted them to win ANY of the other 5 World Series they won since my rebirth interest in baseball after the Air Force, I don't think I would have minded that one for all of these reasons in hindsight). To understand that there was a visible presence of anti-Arizona sentiment for what this win would mean for New York... it just said everything. But we forget that... and we forget that the Mets almost went to the playoffs that year before folding as America cheered for them, too - from the moment of Mike Piazza's game winner to their last hurrah in that elongated month of baseball.

And it goes back to the event of the flip... fat ass Jeremy Giambi chugging around the base path on a shot to the corner, and somehow, some idiot decision allowed him to move around third even though he had to be gasping for air, and if only he wasn't Jeremy Giambi, but rather, someone who didn't look like a softball player from a beer league, he would have made it a half step sooner or slid to avoid the tag... but he didn't.

And for that, he was out and the New York comeback was in motion and that was it for Oakland. It was finished. Seattle was soon to be history, and it was all because some force of nature compelled Jeter to be a superhero that post season. His game winning home run in the World Series against Byung-Hyun Kim, perhaps the worst reliever this side of Joe Nathan and Rod Beck, and the set up for the second comeback the next night against Kim... it all made it seem like he really did save the day...

And then Rivera folded like an ironing board being put into storage, and it was all over. And for this new perspective... it's really there and understandable in truth and reality and perspective and sadness and nostalgia from the Yankees, their fans, and Rudy Giuliani. And perhaps, there is a lot of anti-Yankee hate in some of the Amazon reviews... and perhaps there is some for Rudy and Bush, too, but politics aside, they were the men of the hour. Bush was at his finest in that pitch and with the bullhorn. After all, this is 2 years before Iraq and in a time when people wore anti-Osama Bin Laden shirts... a time before we all took the following statement from Condoleeza Rice (as taken from CNN): Still, she disclosed that the U.S. intelligence community had intercepted communications from al Qaeda suspects during the summer of 2001 that included these words: "Unbelievable news in the coming weeks;" "Big event ... There will be a very, very, very, very big uproar;" and "There will be attacks in the near future." Rice described these interceptions as "troubling, yes." But she added, "They don't tell us when; they don't tell us where; they don't tell us who; and they don't tell us how."

to mean that America was somehow complicit in the act of 9/11 because we didn't know enough to stop it. And for this partisanship, perhaps, it's the ultimate treason in America to believe that we did this (even Bill Clinton condemned the attitude of blaming our own country for this radical act of jihad).

But alas, we have forgotten so much about that day. I remember one time in teaching 9/11, I had a video of the events from Youtube, which played the news clips and people left the room in tears. They had literally never seen it before or it was personal to them (we never know who in the room has lost a friend, neighbor, or relative), and I felt truly bad for daring to show a video so that I could make them understand the statistics and events that they were to try to write about (in part because many of their comments weren't grounded in reality - through no fault of their own, but based on how they were caught in a post Iraq / Afghanistan uprising attitude of the media and the world around them).

And yet, I knew why I did it. This was our history, and the same tears I felt at MANY times in the video were something that makes me realize that we should never forget.

And it was something that says no amount of understanding what America could have done to make someone hate us so much that they would plan out a heinous attack on this level WOULD EVER JUSTIFY their having done what they did or even TO ALLOW US TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO KEEP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. And while I don't claim that America is innocent or totally happy go lucky nice to the whole world, I don't see that search for WHY as being worthwhile - only WHAT can we do to eliminate this evil from the world and make sure it never comes back again. For that, I have come to wonder that if by doing anything so rational as hunting for understanding, we are in a sense enabling the evil in the world that would seek to destroy us, and for that, I have changed from the 30 year old man that stood in front of a room slack jawed as the building came down while 9th graders looked to me for understanding and I had none - only an all too wrong idea that the only thing that mattered after 9/11 was maintaining our lives and rights as normal - when in reality, we were changing for always and needed to adjust to winning a war that we would quickly be forced into.

But all of this detracts from what is good with America, and the end result of that is baseball (amongst other things). For anything that gives us happiness in its entertainment and sense of pleasure while making our day brighter is good, and this isn't something that a cornered dog lashing out with 19 of his minions to devastate the true sense of normalcy and the world that we live in some sense of jihad purpose would ever be able to understand.

And if there are rights and truths in the nearly 10 years since this day they are that anyone can offer something, even something insignificant to a large part of the world, to make the world a better place.

For that, I love baseball, slot canyons, waterfalls, Christmas, music, the history and culture of the country I live in, my family, and especially my wife.

And for that same reason, I despise tyranny and blind partisan hatred and agression.

Joe Torre

When one does poorly, there is a certain demeaner that they should take - want to do better and not screw up so badly the next time. However, Manny Ramirez's remark that "he likes it" begs to differ with the philosophy, and all things considered, it is "Manny being Manny" - i.e. a complete idiot who needs his unconditional release for the purpose of waivers / psychiatric counseling. To be honest, he can live off his last couple contracts for a while. And since Bleacher Report is offering a list of the top 50 most over-rated people, what better way to start with than a guy who doesn't deserve a 5th chance (AT LEAST 2 from Boston, 1 from LA, 1 from Chicago, and now 1 from Tampa Bay), and to think that he does is saying A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT MORE ABOUT 1995 TO 2004 THAN THE REST OF HIS CAREER THAT ISN'T THE LAST 187 AT BATS OF 2008. Most of the list should be called 3 things - Yankees, Red Sox, and steroids users - oh my! On the list is some pretty standard fare on the bigger contract and "value" to the team than actual productivity: Hideo Nomo, Alfonso Soriano, Vernon Wells, and Barry Zito (minus his teddie bear). But there are some pretty confusing choices, too: Cliff Lee, Brooks Robinson, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, and Pete Rose, a man who played the game to win obsessively, but who is slighted for being ONLY a hitter in the same way that they call Nolan Ryan only a strikeout pitcher who threw a lot of walks. In this, we can only say one thing - "If Rose's stubborness to never give up and keep playing until he ran out of gas completely is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Didn't Cal Ripken never give up his streak until it was incredibly late in his career? The Orioles had been in the toilet and have been since he refused to make room for a new guy - because Baltimore loved him that much. But alas... the point of lists is to debate, so I debate with two of their choices. The first question would be how Roger Maris is considered over-rated for two good seasons despite the folks at Bleacher Report forgetting his 1960 MVP Award. Perhaps, from their narrow minded judgements of remembering what parts of baseball history that they choose to see, they should remember how the New York media did their damnedest to destroy the man who failed to live up to being Babe Ruth. Now, we are Maris apologists here - because we realize what he was to the game: a hard working player who didn't have time for the cliches and short talk. He may not have been as charismatic and lovable as Mickey Mantle, but he brought a tremendous upside - even if he never did hit .300. And for that, he was very good. He wasn't great. We don't claim he was. I can't do that revisionist history thing, but at the end of the day, his season in 1961 will stand as the only home run season to eclipse Ruth's - without aid of PEDs. And then, there is Joe Torre. Now, I'm a Yankee hater, but I do love the books Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty by Buster Olney and The Yankee Years by Tom Verducci. Both of them accurately depict an era of time that I came to loathe as I grinded my teeth to the thought of the Yankees winning again and again (I wasn't vested in 96, but the Padres, the Mets, and the Braves all had to have something to beat the Yankees... and when they didn't... thank God for 2001 and the DBacks, which led into the Angels, the Marlins, and that miracle Red Sox run in 04 before the collapse that led to teams like Detroit and Cleveland beating the Yankees. I used to hate Torre. I used to hate his look as he sat in the dugout waiting for something good to happen or to pull the hook on Chin Mein Wang, someone who is TRULY over-rated (but not on the list), but after I read that book, everything changed. There was something about the way that guys like Jeter and Mussina rallied the troops for the coach, a guy who wasn't even wanted in New York due to the fact that he couldn't get his other teams to gel. But that's leadership. Sometimes, being in the right place for the right people is all that matters. Call it a facet of Gladwell's book Outliers, but could anyone else have had the right training, the right manner, the right respect from his young troops that he built confidence in with any of the same talent that Torre used to get it done? Was he the best manager ever? Probably not, but then again, Larussa and Francona are far more over-rated than Torre and they're on teams that I like. In the end, he was run out of town by the extended Steinbrenner family, but for what he did for that time, we all hope that we can get the troops to come together and win 4 of 5 and almost 2 more. That's dominance beyond the players he did and didn't have (since really, only Jeter and Rivera are hall of famers on that team). If that makes the list of Yankees that I loathed for the better part of my adult life over-rated, so be it, but I have to believe that a leader brings the best out of his players, and for him to do that, and for me to spend my life hating the Yankees... I don't fear what isn't real.

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?

Reggie Jackson

At 6 foot 2, Babe Ruth's 250 pound "official" final weight made him the original Big Sluggi (in contrast, David Ortiz is listed at 6 foot 4 and 230 - an estimate that seems rather kind - all things considered). When "The Sultan of Swat" launched his final 3 home runs, he was too sluggish to chug around the bases, but he still gave the crowd 3 more moonshots to remember him by. They weren't his most famous home runs - the one that he called (or didn't, depending on who is asked, and history supposedly vindicates) stands as that, and while I tend to side with a pitcher who was willing to admit to having a hankering for drilling any player who would do such a thing (Charlie Root), baseball legend is gold - just ask Abner Doubleday.
And Yankee lore is all about famous home runs. Reggie Jackson swung at 3 pitches on the night of October 18, 1977 when he made Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa, and Charlie Hough wish that they never dared to come to the Bronx. Three at bats. Three swings. Three long fly balls into the stands. Gotham was in pandemonium and all was celebration. The straw that stirred the drink had done it and proved to the world that it was he and not Thurmon Munson, then Yankee Captain, who was running the show with a little help from all of the clout that a 5 year $3 million contract (when that meant something - not this inflated era of just above league minimum pay).
But Jackson was what it meant to be in New York, leaving Oakland to come to the Bronx, he made his name over a half of a decade before moving on to California and back to Oakland to finish up his show with 563 jacks and 2597 strikeouts (in this, I'm sure he's hoping that Jim Thome gets 2 more full seasons). That said, strikeouts must be OK in the Big Apple. After all, Alex Rodriguez quietly has 1836 at age 34.
But all things considered, there is only one home run that has ever been hit in the house that Ruth Built (by a Yankee) that really moves me (the Pine Tar incident not withstanding):
Chris Chambliss - The Game 5 1976 walk off home run that ends with Yankee Stadium emptying onto the field so that Chambliss has to shove the fans out of his way.
Granted, I'm a Yankee hater, and I was a Brett fan. Had it not been for that home run, the Royals would have taken the game to extra innings on the strength of Brett's homer. However, the Yankees went to the World Series for the first time since the Maris era, and Steinbrenner had arrived as the owner he was to become.
In this, part of the game is loving the game and seeing its finest moments. Since this happened when I was 5, it wasn't like watching Aaron Boone. Hell, I feel nothing with Bucky Dent - I was 7 at the time and didn't follow baseball, but to lose the game now - to Jeter, A-Rod, or Cano... I'd feel that blast.
Chambliss was a thing of beauty - a more riotous version of Hank Aaron's finest blast without the feeling of "get the hell away from me you sons of bitches."

Kurt Bevacqua

Every once in a while, I get a hankering to buy baseball cards again. I'll look for them on e-Bay in hopes that there will be something cool and cheap. The two don't often go together. I do have a Pedro Martinez and Bob Gibson jersey card that I got for under $10 with shipping. I don't care about the real value. I just like that two of my favorite pitchers of all time are memorialized on one card with their jerseys fashioned into the card itself.
Cards like this are what makes collecting nowadays special. I never pulled a card like that from a real pack, but I did get some cards that were above and beyond the sets themselves. That said, other than ones of Mark McGwire's numbered home runs (especially #55), I really don't think much of any of them.
Baseball card companies today had to go back to the concept of something special to set them apart. For example, there's a 2007 Topps Derek Jeter card that also features George W. Bush and Mickey Mantle. That's a cool card. Really.
However, it's not the 1976 card that features Kurt Bevacqua of the Milwaukee Brewers blowing a huge ass bubble to win the Joe Garagiola / Bazooka Bubble Gum Blowing Championship. Things like that don't happen nowadays.

That said, it took a whole different era to respect Garagiola since he was the guy who spiked Jackie Robinson back in the day. A large part of his life was spent explaining away how he wasn't a racist until he eventually turned into a voice of the good things in baseball.
But that's not why this card is so cool. Kurt played from 1971-1985 for 7 teams. He finished with a .236 average and 27 homeruns. He stayed around as a bench player for that time. He did have a 3 hit game in the 82 World Series that saw him hit a homerun, but he wasn't anything great.
That said, he was a bubblegum blowing champion, and frankly, that goes a long way towards something great.

Baseball cards today are still nice. My wife bought me a pack of 2011 Topps, which didn't really feature anyone special, but the anticipation that I'll get someone life altering in that 5 cards for $1 pack is still like playing the lottery and seeing if I can get more than 2 numbers.

However, going to shows is more about seeing the names and the faces than being able to plunk down big bucks for the Golden Era of collecting (1950s and 1960s). There's the Platinum Era, too, but I can't afford tobacco cards. Nevertheless, I'm always amazed by what cards go for - even in 1 and sub 1 condition.

All the same, it's still fun to wander around the Convention Center in Valley Forge and think about what I could get.

Babe Ruth

At the risk of being the weirdest baseball fan of all time, let it be known that I NEVER liked Babe Ruth. Not that I'm much faster than Jeremy Giambi in the 40 yard dash, but let's just say, I would have slid - however clumsily - rather than be faced with the dubious distinction of having an out of position Derek Jeter throwing me out at home. Never, never, never.
And the A's would have gone on to the World Series INSTEAD OF PULLING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY AGAIN. Why couldn't they have just listened to Jason Giambi when he screamed at Miguel Tejada for being a slacker bum? The future was theirs, but the ghosts... the ghosts do it every time.
And the ghosts are Babe Ruth.
If you're a Red Sox fan, you know.
Here was a man who won 94 games and had a 2.28 ERA. He didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but he did pitch exceptionally from 1914 to 1919. Four other years, he pitched at least once, and he wasn't bad. He wasn't great, but hell, he did what he had to do.
Other than the 20 home runs that he hit before 1919 and the 6 in his last season, he went on to hit 688 home runs over 16 seasons. This includes 1925's dismal campaign that saw the mighty Babe for the self serving hedonistic slug that he had become. However, he came back bigger and better than ever. His next years' totals were 47, 60, 54, 46, 49, and 46. That's positively sick and does a lot to make up for the fact that the last 3 home runs that he ever hit for the Boston Braves in 1935 made him look like a Molina brother on way too much Burger King food.
But the Boston Braves are not the Boston Red Sox, and when Boston gave up their great pitcher / slugger to bankroll No, No, Nanette, by Harry Frazee (originally known as My Lady Friends). Dan Shaughnessey of The Boston Globe then took this to put the nail in the coffin of the city's baseball team since apparently, something had to be stopping the team from winning a pennant since 1918 (other than lack of quality pitching).
But that's not why I don't like Babe Ruth.
If you wanted the truth, the asterisk given to Roger Maris for daring to overcome Babe Ruth's treasured record of home runs in a single season has more to do with it than anything, but there is something in being the Michael Jordan of his field before Michael even was a candy bar in his dad's back pocket that sums it up. It's not hating greatness. It's just wondering what all the hype and hooplah means to the grand scale of the player.
Sure, Ruth was great, but that doesn't mean I'm wearing his jersey.
Lou Gehrig lived in his shadow for years and years of being true class and workmanship excellence, and he was the luckiest man to ever live. I agree with that if you take me out of the question since being married to my wife leaves me really lucky as well.
But Babe Ruth and his crown and his curses. It's all to much like Metroman for me.
Call me Will Ferrell in Megamind, but perhaps the existential reality of not being able to measure up to all of that greatness (what greatness is that? Brad Pitt?!!) has left me in a quandry. In that, Megamind is the story of all Red Sox fans who ever lived (without getting to hook up with a cartoon Tina Fey in ultra tight top at the end).
For years, we waited for a home run in extra innings or a pitcher left in too long by a manager who just doesn't get the city's need for victory. We watch home runs just stay fair, and we still lose. We get crushed by dominant pitchers hitting home runs in games that matter. We lose our young players to injuries or defecting to the Yankees after asking out of the clutch game early. We watch an old hobbled player left in the game so that a ground out can be a game winning hit that dashes the next night's hopes, too.
We win it all, coming back from the biggest deficit ever. We beat our nemesises in 7 and sweep the World Series. But still we wait for the sky to fall. We're not supposed to win. This was a fluke. But then, we come back 3 years later, and we win again, and it's like Will Ferrell and Tina Fey talking to the statue of Brad Pitt, wondering all the while, what do we do now. You're gone. What is our place in this world. Without the curse, we're nothing... well, we're all too many hats and shirts and fair weather fans. Hell, we're not even real hats. We're pink hats and hip colors.
That's not baseball.
What is the meaning of life if we're not the lovable losers? And if we're not the lovable losers, then who is? The Chicago Cubs? Sadly, with the team they're playing with, they'd simply be the Jonah Hill character (Tighten): an over-exaggerated burst of nothing much played into believing that it's better than it should be.
But that said, are the Red Sox with the cast of free agents who are playing for them now anything more than the Evil Empire North that they railed so harshly against when bloody socks, idiots, and "Cowboy Up-ing" was the answer to life?
What is the existential meaning of all of this?
Why is the word existential in a baseball column - much less a kid's movie?
I blame Babe Ruth - or at least Dan Shaughnessey.