September 2007 - Posts
The games ended five minutes apart in stadiums within 100 miles of each other. But Philadelphia and New York were in different baseball worlds last night.
After beating the Braves the Phillies left the field to roaring fans waving towels. Players were jumping on each other, clearly reveling in the moment and ready to play another game right away.
In Queens the Mets fell 3-0 to the depleted Cardinals and so they slowly filed out of their dugout, several players and coaches remaining behind, most with looks of disbelief and some slamming the bench in frustration.
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A sweep around the pennant races is stalled for a moment by the stunning news of Mike Winters’ suspension. Anyone who has been around baseball for any length of time could never have imagined the sport taking a tough stance against an umpire. It hasn’t happened since Sandy Alderson left the league office for San Diego and it didn’t happen while Alderson was in Oakland.
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Tonight ends a remarkable 15-year run for Barry Bonds in San Francisco as he plays his last home game as a Giant. There will be perfunctory weekend games at Dodger Stadium, but one of baseball’s great eras really ends this evening.
Here’s a great debate: Has there ever been a better free-agent signing than Barry Bonds in 1993?
Maybe only one: Barry Bonds in 2002.
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Isn’t it delicious to read the report from New York magazine that Scott Boras has already started negotiating a mega contract for A-Rod with a prospective owner of the Cubs?
For two decades, baseball has lived with the constant whine of collusion from union officials and agents. Certainly guilt was established in the 1980s and a steep price was paid to players hurt by collusive behavior. Since then any attempt by a team to exercise fiscal control is met by at least a whisper of illegal action.
Now, the tables turn on Boras if this story is true. He has denied it. Remember that, like the BALCO-related stories involving Barry Bonds, if this story is false, we should expect legal action from Boras. The absence of such motions from Bonds can only be interpreted as a tacit admission to the truth of what has been reported. Same goes here for Boras.
Now on to those out of the limelight in the season’s final week. Here are the top 10 players that flew under the radar in 2007:
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Pennant race stories from a good Thursday night:
WHY AREN’T MORE RELIEVERS IN THE HALL OF FAME? Trevor Hoffman saved his 40th game yesterday, his ninth such season and the Padres are streaking towards their third straight postseason berth. Mariano Rivera is still throwing 94-95 mph as he approaches his 38th birthday and the Yankees are heading for a 12th straight playoff berth.
Meanwhile, last night, the Mets suffered an agonizing loss to Florida while Billy Wagner (back spasms) was unavailable. Brett Myers calmly closed a one-run win for Philadelphia, which is suddenly closer to the Mets than the wild-card leader.
A team that hopes to contend better have a closer and one who is strong; hence the serious worry in the Mets camp about Wagner, who has struggled when available in September. And the concern in Boston where Hideki Okajima has been shut down and Eric Gagne needs to find himself. And the calm in places like San Diego and the Bronx where they know the ninth inning is theirs.
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One look at the AL standings and you could say it’s time to fast forward to the postseason. Barring a catastrophic collapse the four playoff teams -- Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and New York -- are set.
Yet, the AL may provide a fabulous race to the wire for the most wins. This year the league’s best record means much more than in the past. That's because of a new rule which gives the AL team with the best record the opportunity to choose whether it wants to play an eight-day ALDS by opening on Oct. 3 or a seven-day first-round series, beginning on Oct. 4.
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How can you not admire an athlete who backs up his words?
Jimmy Rollins threw himself and his team under the scrutiny of New York fans last winter when he proclaimed the Phillies the team to beat in the NL East. Now, the Mets are still likely to win the division despite how shaky they have looked of late, but the Phillies are breathing with two weeks left, largely due to the efforts of Rollins.
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Curt Schilling faces Roger Clemens in a marquee Sunday night match-up, the kind that has defined Schilling in the second half of his career.
He will be 41 this winter having ended a contract that paid him $13 million this year, a season that featured a mid-year break meant to insure a fresh arm for October.
Will the Red Sox re-up their version of Clemens, a standout likely unable to pitch a full season, but a fierce competitor who sets a marvelous tone for young pitchers?
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There are unsung heroes, highly publicized stars, and candidates who defy traditional thinking about the MVP award. It won’t be an easy choice in the NL, but my top six contenders are David Wright of the Mets, Chase Utley of the Phillies, Matt Holliday of the Rockies, Eric Byrnes of the Diamondbacks, and Russell Martin and Takashi Saito of the Dodgers. Let's take a closer look at this group.
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As suggested in my blog of last Friday names are beginning to leak out in the latest chapter of baseball’s performance-enhancing drug use siege.
Last week the New York Daily News reported the Cardinals' Rick Ankiel purchased HGH -- human growth hormone -- in 2004, a year before MLB banned use of the substance. On the heels of that story came a report that Troy Glaus of the Blue Jays received performance-enhancing drugs several years ago from Signature Pharmacy, the same Florida-based outlet which sent Ankiel HGH.
Next SI.com reported that Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons received performance-enhancing steroids and HGH after both were banned by baseball. Ankiel, Glaus, and Gibbons -- all three likely tainted permanently -- are a trio likely to be joined by others whose names will come out publicly and whose reputations will suffer because of it.
HGH has been the real scourge of sports in this era. Unlike “creams” and “clears,” HGH is legal with prescription. It provides massive growth, and no union of a professional sport will allow its athletes to be blood tested for HGH. Simply put, it has been known that HGH was a “free ride” for athletes.
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Last night highlights of Rick Ankiel’s seven-RBI game for the Cardinals exploded across our television screens. This morning headlines of Ankiel’s purchase of HGH exploded through media outlets across the country.
St. Louis, a city that still reveres its Cardinals in a manner reminiscent of another era, is dealt another body blow in a season that must feel like cruel payback for the franchise's unexpected World Series win last year.
Baseball, after watching the NFL reel through the Michael Vick saga and confront its own HGH issue, is thrust back into the drug use/misuse spotlight.
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Remember my recent blog about the lineups of the Mets and Braves? Well, to pick up on that, how about what happened last weekend. The Mets, coming off a four-game sweep at the hands of the Phillies in Philadelphia, went to Atlanta -- a house of horrors for them in the past -- and swept the Braves. Atlanta didn’t have an extra-base hit until the final inning of the three-game series.
Compare raw numbers all you want. It isn’t just how often a team hits, but when it hits. And the Mets still have the lineup that NL pitchers would least like to face in crunch time.
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