Prince Fielder

There's this whole thing with Tony Larussa and his longevity as a manager of the Cardinals (and the A's and the White Sox) that just makes me want to say... I hate that guy.
From Friday night, his 5,000th career game, to Sunday, Larussa did nothing to lead the Cardinals to victory. Instead, he led the Brewers to first place, and the NL Central is now wide open for a long hot summer of who wants the pennant most (or who wants to crap the bed the least).
Maybe this can be contributed to Albert Pujols not setting the stars in the sky with 3 home run games, but part of it is also the fact that Chris Carpenter can't buy a win and Jake Westrbook's ERA isn't pretty at all. Maybe we can say that the Brewers want it more. Who knows, but if you ask me, I choose to blame it on the Cardinals not choosing to jettison Larussa into the jungles of South America in the hope that he can find some new animal friends and not find his way back to the state of Missouri ever again. But alas, that's just me.
Maybe it's the fact that Prince Fielder was 3/7 in the series with 2 home runs and 4 walks. He's definitely doing his best to sell potential for free agency with a .305 batting average and 19 home runs and 58 RBIs for the Brew Crew, who won't be trying to afford him unless he brings them to some kind of wayback machine repeat of the 1982 team (is he really Cecil Cooper to Ryan Braun's Robin Yount?).
And there is hope in the land of cheese, Laverne & Shirley, beer, and the Packers, but it's a long season and Zach Greinke and Shaun Marcum will have to work well with Yovani Gallardo if there is to be hope in Wisconsin. Perhaps if Rickie Weeks doesn't strike out so much...
But for Fielder, there is the fact that his father hit 50 home runs in a season (despite those 182 Ks that went with that brilliant 1990 offensive explosioin), and he was always the heir apparent, and for good cause. His dad smacked 300 home runs at a time that it still meant something. Now, it's just chump change since all the kids are doing it, but Prince's girth has propelled him to do some nice things with the ball (211 from 2005 to now, which includes 50 in 2007).
However, we can't see the later numbers translating that big at the bank - though someone will pay, especially if they lose out on the Albert Pujols sweepstakes.
For Prince, it's all about what the Brewers do against the Cardinals. Sure, they've gone on to October baseball, but they've gone nowhere with it. If they can this year... and if he can avenge not getting Ryan Braun bank, he can take his signing arm and make it all right.
And at the end of the day, isn't that what it's about anyway?

Drew Stubbs

In 272 at bats, Drew Stubbs of the Cincinnati Reds has managed to strike out 89 times. While not quite one every three at bats, there's an air of dismalness in the futility that is abounding in the Queen City. Sure, there are 9 home runs, but there are 41 players this year that have more home runs than that and 16 that have as many as him.
Letting Merle swing away doesn't seem to be the answer either. He's a career .260 hitter that is hitting .261 at this point in the game. Last  year, he struck out 168 times to finish with 22 home runs. Sure, it helped the Reds get to the playoffs, but it's not like he's Joey Votto piling on the weight.
And for this, we have to look at where the Reds are at this juncture in time: third place - 34 and 32. With the Cards and Brewers fighting for first, the Reds look to figure out what the hell is going on with their pitching staff.
Johnny Cueto's sub 2 ERA looks nice, but Edinson "the former ugliest player in baseball" Volquez is still atrocious over 5.00 (even with the dreads now shaved - a fact that has removed his "ugliest" title - if only temporarily). That said, it appears the minor league demotion helped him (that or the steroid relapse) start coming back to form a little bit. The other youth movement part of the rotation isn't much better. Mike Leake is over 4.00 and Travis Wood is over 5.00. That's not a good sign when the surprise part of your offense, Jay Bruce, is slowing down his home run pace and settling in just below .300.
And other than a few players like Brandon Phillips, the Reds are a platoon team of fragility (Scott Rolen, anyone?).
It happens, and it's never convenient, but at the end of the day, the opporuntities to win versus finish in the afterthought campaign of money spent to end up with a failed campaign are what causes tension, frustration, and a sense of someday for your fanbase (until you make it to the playoffs only to have Roy Halladay annihilate your offensive superiority and sense of self with the 2nd post season no hitter in playoff history).
And if the Reds want to morph into the Red Sox by spreading anti-St. Louis bias (like people loathe St. Louis in the same way that they do the Yankees) to the world, they're going to have to come up closer than they do. They're going to have to make people remember a year that mattered. For most fans, 1990 is a blur of nothingness. Who was even good on that team? Jose Rijo? Barry Larkin is the only name that stands out other than the more memorable moniker of the Nasty Boys (Rob Dibble's ESPN days being the only thing that keeps that memory burning), which lasted longer than their pitching.
The Big Red Machine was a beautiful thing (4 of the 9 Reds World Series appearances and 2 of their 5 wins), and even though it put the nail in the coffin of the 1975 Red Sox, those were teams filled with homegrown stars that went on to do great things.  Of course, there was 1939 and 1940, but perhaps the reason that the Reds - save the Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, and Joe Morgan led Big Red Machine that dominated the first half of the seventies in supreme style save an appearance against each of the Orioles and the A's - is so lame in the memory of most baseball fans outside of that part of the Midwest is the fact that they were the beneficiary of the Black Sox throwing the 1919 World Series. Everyone at the time (except for them) knew they were second class, and yet, they are considered the winners of a World Series that was handed to them by a team that wanted to get rich more than they wanted to be champions of the baseball universe - even if (and especially because) it could never be off of Charles Commiskey. Had it not been for gamblers threatening to get medieval on them for trying to win it when it was clear that they weren't going to get rich off of the gambling money either, the White Sox would have come from several games behind and cleaned house on the much lesser Cincinnati team.
But is the 2011 Red team worth mention with any of these teams - to include the Nasty Boys? How long until the team gets dismantled and traded away as it can't compete against St. Louis's pitching and Milwaukee's hitting?
Can Drew Stubbs lead the charge by whiffing as big as he does?

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.

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).

Gary Carter

Instead of caring about the actions of Gary Carter, a Hall of Famer that many people might have forgotten about in our non historic attitude for 1980s baseball, we spend our time getting upset at Bryce Harper for blowing a kiss to a pitcher who he just homered off of. Of course, this was precipitated by Harper getting drilled with a pitch earlier, but alas... when it's a slow baseball week (except for the Red Sox beating the Yankees AGAIN), we have to make issues where we can.
That said, when Carter gets radiation treatment for tumors that are cancerous, we should probably pause for a second and think of that... even if Harper is a number one pick and may have offended the sensibilities of baseball's Puritanical and stodgy elderly blue hairs, no hairs, and What Would Babe Ruth have done-rs (eaten Polish sausage, slept with hoochies, drank a lot, blown his money, talked smack on Charlie Root's pitching in the 1932 World Series and somehow made us believe that it was a called shot, gotten suspended for throwing dirt in an ump's face, and was too obese to run out his final home runs as a Boston Brave when the Yankees grew tired of him). Even if Harper stomped the foot of a player covering first. Even if Bryce Harper does whatever it is that a super young guy with a lot of testosterone and a big me attitude is going to do, because let's be honest... he's a future athlete supreme growing up in the spotlight.
But we talk about that... we talk about Jonathan Papelbon, a formerly decent relief pitcher, getting ejected from a game for bumping an umpire, and we think it means something other than the was angry at the calls. Sure, he was bounced and he's going to appeal whether he bumped the ump, but alas, in the long run, who cares? As Pedro Martinez once said when he gave up an appeal, "I didn't want to listen to all that stuff." He came back and struck out 15, allowed 2 hits, and threw a complete game shutout that let no walks happen. 
From 1974-1992, Carter was great. He hit 324 home runs. Only Yogi Berra (historic shots), Lance Parrish + Johnny Bench + Carlton Fisk (contemporaries) and Mike Piazza (a steroids era player alleged to be linked to the juice) have more. Despite a dismal last 4 years of few appearances, he still batted .262 from a position that was more about throwing out runners and calling the game from behind the plate than doing things at the plate. In his day, he was throwing out as many as 50% of the runners who attempted to take second on him, but then injuries happened, and now, the biggest injury of all, brain cancer, is happening, and like he did in his baseball career, Carter is fighting.
And the newspaper guys care more about blowing kisses at the pitcher.
Here, we just hope Carter gets better and beats this nasty stuff.

Gerrit Cole

The draft is just what it is - unless we're talking about coming up unlucky with conscription, but all the same, Gerrit Cole has to be happy. His doubters look at his losing record and laugh, but as anyone with half a brain knows, wins and losses don't mean anything. Just because you're on a team with a crappy offense or because you have to apply for non-support doesn't mean that you're a bad player. It just means that you're unfortunate. That said, at least he'll be used to non support when he plays for the Pirates (although this year, they are a little better as they flirt with .500 at various points a few months into the season and they are only 2 games under at this point in time (28-30)).
We laugh at who goes first and second in pro sports. We laughed when the Houston Texans selected Mario Williams instead of Reggie Bush, but there were issues of who could afford Reggie Bush. A complete bust of a non-Kardashian career later, Bush is the guy who cost USC the National Championship (though in his defense, asking 18-24 year olds not to earn money JUST BECAUSE you've given them a full ride is asinine. If their parents are rich, they can give them beer and date money. If they're kids from the streets, well... suffer little children as you get caught for taking money and cars and jewelry and tattoos from rich donors everywhere (we feel your pain Ohio State).
And we can't blame Pittsburgh for what they can't afford or don't want to deal with heartache over. It's not like Pedro Alvarez and Scott Boras came through with an ability to match their holdout. Instead, they've got a guy hitting .208 and on the DL. One man can't change the culture of a team. At least not in MLB. Maybe in the NBA (and even then, Lebron isn't enough by himself - though he can make money at the gate). But for the Pirates scouting, they have 2 picks that had marginal talent in the Bonds-less past: Andrew McCutchen and Jason Kendall. Sure, McCutchen is touted as the 2nd coming, but he's not tearing up my fantasy league or the pros all that much. Jason Kendall is good and played for a while, but yeah... it's not like people are investing in his rookie card.
Looking at can't miss picks from number one of all of those who have played and had some degree of success, we have to look at the potential of our boy Stephen Strasburg (get well soon). We then find A-Rod, who despite hating his guts, we have to say that minus the steroids, he was the best can't miss prospect out of the league. Ken Griffey Jr. could have been great, but there were the injuries in the second half of his career. Joe Mauer could be be great as well, but he's injured so much that we don't really care what he can't do on MLB video games. Adrian Gonzalez has some upside, and we appreciate that - especially because he's finally earning his Boston Red Sox money. Josh Hamilton has a lot of upside as well - save the injuries, the smack, and the dalliances with drunken women who aren't his wife. Chipper Jones was really good too, but I never thought of him as the answer to the greatest player ever. He's a great player from an age who deserves to be remembered as being good in his age and being good for a great team during his age, but will he or should he be remembered longer than Dale Murphy was from his age?

And what of the ancients? Bob Horner? Harold Baines? Rick Monday? Tim Foli? Besides dressing up as Foli when I was a kid, there is no joy in Tim Foli land save a small town Pennsylvania Halloween parade. Baines is loved by the White Sox. Horner is pretty much forgotten outside Atlanta. Rick Monday saved the flag (we wrote about that). There are some 2 year wonders, and there is last generations Josh Hamilton (Darryl Strawberry) who always managed to blow his chances, but such is life. We can't all be perfect and this isn't about casting shame on those who aren't, but is there a possibility from number one. Can David Price continue to excel or will he end up being Floyd Bannister?
So many questions to wonder, but for now, we'll wish him and the class of 2011 the best and hope that they all end up great (same for Bryce Harper), but yeah... the minors aren't college ball, and they definitely aren't the majors. Keep working, though. The future will soon be here.

Carlos Zambrano

In the continuing story of Goofus and Gallant, Carlos Zambrano (aka Goofus the big thug / slug of the Cubs) continues to mouth off about his team's effort to help him win, and we just nod appropriately because this is Carlos being Carlos (aka the meds aren't working). But perhaps, this is the story of Gallant Albert Pujols finally getting it together with a pair of walk off home runs over the past 2 days.
Then again, perhaps this is the tale of Zambrano being on his last pitching leg. If there was no upside (a better than average pitcher on a less than average team for the past 103 years that is still owed WAY TOO MUCH money), then Zambrano would be gone. If he mouthed off more or got in a fight with someone who had more of an upside, it would have meant something, but alas... Carlos Marmol is not the man (despite his high percentage of strikeouts a year ago). Neither was Derek Lee or Michael Barrett or walls or bats or Gatorade coolers or the voices in his head. This time, it was an ESPN column filler that went something like this:

We are playing like a Triple-A team. This is embarrassing. Embarrassing for the team and the owners. Embarrassing for the fans. Embarrassing, that's the word for this team.

And it's Big Z, and he really sucks as a teammate, and personally, it doesn't matter if he only let up a handful of hits and a run. Sometimes, the tough luck losses come, and we accept them. So it goes.
But he doesn't, and he runs his mouth, and we all say... the contract will be over soon. The Cubs will still be losing, and yeah... perhaps they can do what the Onion felt that they Yankees should do and buy every great player in baseball and let Mark Cuban run the show (even with Dallas down 2-1 against the Lebron / Wades (who knew that Jay Z could have them both instead of just Wade), he's still an owner that will do what it takes "colorfully" to win).
But if this is Albert Pujols, who is and will always be the man, no matter what he is batting (.278 at this point with 13 home runs and 38 RBIs), then so be it. Let the season turn around. Let good things happen. In the past 4 games, he is 8 for 16. He has 9 runs, 7 RBIs, 4 home runs, and a double to go with his stolen base. He is a man on fire, and he's getting pumped up to take over for an injured Matt Holliday and a deflating back to Earth Lance Berkman. He is the heart and soul of the Cardinals and he's watched the pitching staff prop the team up long enough. He's playing to win.
The way any Gallant player should.
Zambrano should take note - or go the way of the dodo bird.
Either option would work nicely at this time.

Adam Lind

Just back from injury, Adam Lind didn't make too much of an impression in his first game. He was 0-3 with a strikeout, but that second game... sometimes, all it takes is a can of WD40 on the old rusty joints, and the body responds, and respond it did - 4 for 4 with a pair of home runs and 3 RBIs, and his batting average is up to .326. Nice production for a Toronto Blue Jays team that refuses to fold at 1 game over .500 (30 and 29).
Granted, the offensive charge is still being led by Jose Bautista (.348 with 20 jacks), but it's nice to have runners to knock in other than the solo shots that look good on highlights reels, but do little else (Bautista has 40 RBIs at this point). That said, Rajai Davis, Yunel Escobar, Juan Rivera, and Corey Patterson aren't exactly playoff bound guys, but they're trying - even if they're not always as good as can be expected (on that note, Patterson and Escobar are currently over-performing, so we have to give them credit for something).
The pitching staff... well, that's scary. We already talked about Jo Jo Reyes winning for the first time in years, but he won again. Kyle Drabek, a key part of the Roy Halladay deal isn't materializing yet, and the pitching staff is all about Ricky Romero, who is over-performing with a 3.16 ERA and a 5-5 record. You've gotta believe, especially when your closer is Marc Rzepczynski (spell that quickly, spelling bee champion wannabes - I know I can't - I went out on mackerel in the 6th grade (2 Es not 2 A's)).
And 1992 and 1993 are light years ago. The Joe Carter home run off of Mitch Williams, a first class idiot that we still have to deal with on MLBTV, is still a great memory - even if the 2 years north of the border by Roger Clemens have become steroids inflated mirages. And there hasn't been much that was good. Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green went packing to other teams as the great hope, but then they vanished, too. And somehow, every player that ever had upside left. The grass was always greener somewhere else. They could have stayed in Toronto and gotten on the all star team in obscurity, but they went for the big money and the big sag in production (Vernon Wells (4 home runs - .183), Alex Rios (4 home runs - .199)).
So if Adam Lind has a good game, we want to believe .305 in 2009 is real and not .237 in 2010 (roughly the same at bats per year - the strikeouts went up as the homers dropped from 35-23 as well).
We want to sing and extol the virtues of the Blue Jays and we want to know what the future can be for a team with a chance, but that said, in the division that they're in, it's going to take more than a few players having career years above their average status. Jose Bautista can't do it all on his own - even if he's so much better than I ever give him credit for (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry).

Hanley Ramriez

Oh, Hanley, you once were so talented and full of hope and life and the future. The Red Sox shipped your younger self out to Miami with Anibal Sanchez and a few others who don't really figure into 2011 for Josh Beckett. They threw in a few more players because your current team demanded that they eat Mike Lowell's contract, and they said OK. In the end, those guys combined to help Boston to the 2007 World Series over the exhausted Colorado Rockies who had ripped through the end of the 2007 series like a dream.
From September 16 to October 1st, they lost one time. The final game was 13 innings. The game before that was tied 1-1 until the bottom of the 8th, when the Rockies tacked on a 3 spot. In the end, they almost lost that 1 by allowing 2 runs in the 9th, but they won, and then they beat the Phillies 3 straight and the Diamondbacks 4 more games straight. From that point, it was a matter of waiting for the Red Sox to finish up the Indians in 7, and well, bodies get tired, and when streaks end, so does karmic energy that drives a season to something good.
And maybe that's what has happened to Hanley Ramirez who is currently out of the lineup since May 29th (a game he only played for 1 at bat). He's batting .210 for the year and the 4 home runs he hit aren't much. In the end, he is yet another player who once had so much value in serious decline. This is more of a sign of something scarier than The Year of the Pitcher Part 2 (mark my words).
According to Stephania Bell of ESPN (what, a female fantasy baseball player / writer? Can I possibly use this to my advantage to get my wife playing?!!):

Ramirez has been dealing with severe back pain and intermittent sciatica over the past week, and it appears ever more likely that he will make his way onto the DL.

In another blog, she quotes him as saying:

"I feel it doing anything. I can't even put my shoes on. To get up from bed I have to take 10, 15 seconds. I have to do everything slow,' Ramirez said. "That's the worst pain I've ever had in my life, in my career."

 That's not good for him, for Anibal Sanchez's hopes of winning a lot, for the Florida Marlins hopes of competing long term this year, and for the 8 fans of regular season baseball at Sun Life Stadium.
We can only hope that he gets better, and while he gets better, he chooses to come back a team player that we can all like and support again, so that when he eventually takes his 6 year $70million contract somewhere else when the Marlins decide to rebuild from scratch again (as they always do), we can feel good about him being the new shortstop (instead of Marco Scutaro or Jed Lowrie or someone less flashy and worthy of getting a $150million mega contract).

Dan Uggla

Dr. Kevorkian is dead, and while Kurt Vonnegut may want God to bless him, I don't know how I feel. Sometimes, I think that there are too many babies being born into this world, and then I think that my wife was #10 out of 11 kids, and I'm pretty dang happy that her parents kept procreating. But then I go back to Jack, and he's dead, and nothing is going to bring him back. Nothing is going to stop the terminal illnesses of many of his patients, those that wanted or got his help during those times. Nothing is going to help the ones who suffered painfully from the same thing that Lou Gehrig suffered from. And I can't say that I would want to go that way, and I wouldn't want anyone I loved to suffer that way either, but I don't know if I'd want some creepy old dude with a suicide machine setting me up for my final end.

Just press this button and it will release poison into your veins through the IV that I've set up.

And maybe we've gone on in life as a people long past the point where we're truly ripe. Joseph Heller said something about that, too, when he wrote Catch 22 and spilled the secret of Snowden all over the plane. Life is everything. Being able to live and do the things that we want to do before we get too old and too feeble to go to the good places. I think of my dad not wanting to be alive if he can't hunt and fish. I think to myself of all the joy I get through the physical exercise of hiking while experiencing the beauty of the woods and the world around me as my legs carry me to waterfalls, slot canyons, and mountain views. I wouldn't want to live if I was chained to a chair in the living room of my house, rocking into a slumber that seemed to take ages to get to. Somehow, I believe there has to be a point where we fulfill our need, and that's that. We make peace with the universe, and like Allen Ginsburg, we go "toodle loo."
My neighbor's husband died of a prolonged death just recently. We've lived in this house since November of 2009, and we saw him a few times. He never made it to the porch. A couple of times, I went in the house to help move him. He just died slowly, and it was sad watching how much it took out of my neighbor as she witnessed the end of her husband of 50+ years. She never knew it was the end - even when the hospice team came in. He just slipped further and further out of consciousness as his body filled up with toxins, and eventually, that was it. He was gone. Now, she's lost and angry as he isn't there to give her support to do the daily tasks - even though she's done them for ages now. She's trying to fill up her time, and we talk to her for companionship and because she's a good person, but the bitterness of having a person that was so loved gone is hurting her as she spends more time remembering the bad things that were done to him. She still remembers the struggles that they went through and perhaps there is a sense of "looks like we made it," but there's also a sense of we had a hard life.
And some do, but...
The days just get harder and longer, and thoughts of writing out his life's memories are lost to her (the kids aren't interested in this - even if that's now, and you never know what they'll feel years later - I say this as I have stored the memories of ancient times of my own family - 80-90 years ago and those from 70 years or so ago).
And sometimes, it's all about the giving up that seems to be the answer to living. I remember being around my neighbor at times when you could see how much it hurt her to watch the man she loved suffered, and she eluded to feeling like she wanted his suffering to stop - ashamed in part - but still understanding that the man she loved wasn't there any more. But still she held onto his belongings because they were his. She fixed his car up - even though it was old and gone and she really wasn't using it. She still wanted to believe, and she didn't want him to see his life given away before it was gone.
And there is nobility and love and honor in what she did. Now, she just has to move on to accept death and grief. It won't be easy, but it will lead to something good - hopefully.
+++
For the baseball metaphor of all of the things that have gone and are no longer as they were before, we can only look to Dan Uggla. He's hitting .172 with 7 home runs propping up his 37 hits. Sure, 15 of his hits are for extra bases, but he's batting .172! He was killing me for keeping him in the lineup. I bounced between 2nd and 4th place (out of 6 teams), and as soon as I dropped him - acknowledged the end - I went into first place.
It wasn't easy to say goodbye to Uggla. I've liked him. A lot of the players who come up with Florida are really likable and good players, but sometimes, we have to say goodbye. Like Mike Lowell before him... sometimes, the end comes.
The Baseball Project sang of Willie Mays.
There was the sad end of Ken Griffey Jr.
I wasn't the same after the 2001 season of Mark McGwire until the Angels went to championship glory.
Death isn't easy. The cycles of life aren't easy.
I'm not saying that saying goodbye to a loved one is as easy as moving out a fantasy player or bidding goodbye to a favorite player, but in life, all of the things we love, whether human, animal, or larger than life heroes we never see in our daily lives, are important to us. They make us who we are.
They're not easy to put aside, but there comes a time to understand that we have to help them and us when the time comes and to confront things as realistically as possible - whether we want to believe the end is here or not. I wish my neighbor would have seen the signs a little clearer. That would have made this time now a little easier for her.

Theo Epstein

There are many ways that people can leave a club. For example, Shaq and Kobe hated each other's guts and traded insults until Shaq left Eagle, Colorado's least favorite visitor in Los Angeles, and went on to a progressively extended career with stops in Miami, Boston, Cleveland, and Phoenix. In the end, he was a lovable guy who's contributions to cell phone commercials and stopping online predators far outweighed his performance on the basketball court or in the studio. Maybe he didn't know when to leave. Maybe he believed that a high field goal percentage from shots really close to the basket constituted greatness... we'll never know or really care at this website, but all the same, it's sad to see someone who defined the game as much as he did leave it.
And if Daisuke Matsuzaka is bidding adieu to Boston in order to get Tommy John Surgery, his last game on May 16th, a game where he let up 5 runs in 4.1 innings with 2 strikeouts and 5 hits to go with his 7 WALKS is a fitting end to a mistake that Theo Epstein made by bidding $51,111,111 just to deal with Matsuzaka. Sure, we were hyped up with the talk of the gyro ball and the 150 pitches a game and the World Baseball Classic performance, but in the end, if he was great, and we're definitely not saying he wasn't, let it be known that a fish out of water in a major media town is a recipe for disaster. Boston's courting of Hideki Okajima to be Matsuzaka's wingman seemed like an OK move... until it all went south with spot relief and holding pattern usage taking him to an ERA that is north of 4. Boston sent him down to AAA Pawtucket, and we forgot about the 2007 All Star appearance and the terrible post seasons in 2007 and 2008 because we knew that he wouldn't be around much longer.
And Daisuke was all alone to face the hate of a manager who really doesn't manage and a town who expects a hell of a lot from all of their players, but why shouldn't they? Matsuzaka cleared $51million for 6 years that saw him go 49 and 30 on a team that was really good for pretty much all of those years. Sure, he has a 6th year to come, but Tommy John Surgery isn't quick, and let's be honest, if it takes a year to 18 months to recover, it's not like he's going to be flame throwing AL East competition.
Instead, he'll be recuperating in Japan or wherever he chooses to go. The Red Sox won't be able to deal him, and they'll eat the last $20million for this year and next year and have less interest in picking up Asian players after the debacle of their last few (ok, so Hideki Nomo did have a no hitter in game 2 of 2011 against the Orioles, but other than that...
And it's a shame, but we can't all be Ichiro or Godzilla.

Jo Jo Reyes

After a dismal beginning to the 2011 season that saw him go 0-5, Ubaldo Jimenez finally seems like he's back, at least for one game, as he shut out the Dodgers on a 4-hitter in Chavez Ravine. Add to this the fact that he was free of walks and had struck out 7 batters and you have the recipe for the first 4 months of 2010 Ubaldo Jimenez. That said, what happened to Ubaldo?
Was it all just make believe? Did we dream that 2010 season? Maybe he's just trying to steal Jo Jo Reyes' thunder after he finally got a win for the first time after losing 28 straight starts. From June 13, 2008, (his last win) to May 30th, he couldn't buy a win. He made it to 3-4 on the 2008 season on that victorious day in June, but after that, he lost 7 more games. He 0-2 the next year, 0-0 the year after that, and prior to his win a few days ago, he was 0-4. Talk about an absolute lack of love.
So can either of these guys rattle off a win steak for the ages? Sure Jimenez has potential, but scouts talked about his lack of velocity in recent times. That's a far cry from Dexter Fowler making a superb catch to save Ubaldo's no hitter and be useful on the baseball field (other than striking out in the batter's box).
But we can't all be great, it's just when a player does what Jimenez did...
15-1 with a 2.20 ERA on July 8th.
19-8 with a 2.88 ERA when the season finished.
We have to wonder.
He had and has potential. The 214 whiffs say it, but he has problems (the league leading 16 wild pitches say that, too).
Reyes is Reyes. The career 5.87 ERA might reflect hope in upside. It might reflect being cheap to get a pitcher to eat innings in a town that doesn't have a contract (see Toronto, and see the $439,000 salary).
But Ubaldo has movement on his pitches and he could be the man... with or without blisters on his hand.
All the same, for whatever he is, he has a great name that just rolls off of the tongue. He's like Asdrubal Cabrera... there's just pop on that name and we want to feel something great is going to come when it hits the senses.
Sadly, prior to tonight it hasn't happened, but maybe, just maybe, like Francisco Liriano turning things around with that no hitter, we want to believe it's going to happen, and then it doesn't, and something worse happens (1 hiccup game in the next 3 and an injury), and we forget the greatness, and the Yankees don't have a pitching option to trade for in July, and  yeah... hope dies withering.
But there are always the moments of glory and the feeling of greatness that is like a long yearned for moment of ecstasy that comes with a pie in the face...
And couldn't we all use one of those.