The most amusing thing to me during the major league baseball  version of Black Friday was that, during all of the frantic wheeling and dealing and speculating and analyzing, the hottest team playing ball was the Philadelphia Phillies, possessors of the lowest winning percentage of them all.  Back when Nixon was vice president, these kinds of shenanigans did not exist.  In those days, the Yankees would figure out where they needed some help and then simply raid other teams’ cookie jars for a relief pitcher or pinch hitter and then go on to win another pennant.  I’m glad those dark days are long gone, but one has to admit that things have gotten a bit silly with regard to player transactions before The Trade Deadline.

The media frenzy over the supposed presidential ambitions of real estate white shark Donald Trump has been equal parts amusing and terrifying as well, but one thing that  Trump’s Folly has done that is good is the unambiguous presentation to all who care or don’t care that  it’s all about money and everything else is bullshit.  The politicians can talk about freedom, human rights, the constitution, whatever—-wealth is power and real power doesn’t even need lawyers.Therefore, Trump can do the baseball world a big favor if his presidential bid falters by offering to become the commissioner of baseball.  Then, baseball fans would be know beyond a shadow of doubt that the same rule applies to sports.  This might be disillusioning to many of us but bear in mind that at least half of the speculating and analyzing leading up to Black Friday had to do with contracts, potential free agency, big market, small market, blah blah blah.  I truly wish that this side of sports was confined to the business pages but I am in the distinct minority here,apparently: everybody wants to play GM, not baseball.  A former GM was one of the leading analysts for Black Friday on the ESPN telecasts.  Teams used to talk about five year plans and developing players to fit their ballparks et cetera but now we have half year plans, many of which are quite confusing.

For instance, the Oakland Athletics.  In the times when the Yankees were supreme, the then Philadelphia or Kansas City A’s were sneeringly referred to as the Yankees’ farm team, an easy source of future stars for New York in exchange for much needed cash or players the Yanks no longer wanted.  Today’s A’s are the farm team for any number of contenders.  The trade of Scott Kazmir to the Houston Astros helped facilitate the sudden reversal of roles for the two teams as Oakland plummets to the bottom (while still making big money) and Houston soars to the top.  The whole Moneyball thing has been a gigantic fraud and Billy Beane should have been played in the movie by someone more like James Mason than Brad Pitt. This followed helping the Toronto Blue Jays move into contention by sending them Josh Donaldson in the winter.  Where have you gone, Yoenis Cespedes, Jon Lester, and so many others?  Off to win games , my dear.  And what is up with Detroit?  Still in contention while Miguel Cabrera is disabled, with a very solid team that would contend next year for sure even if they didn’t make the playoffs this year, the Tigers gave up, sending David Price to the grateful Blue Jays only twelve months after acquiring him from Tampa Bay.  Toronto had a great week, also relieving Colorado of its when’s he going to get hurt angst about Troy Tulowitzki and adding Ben Revere to lead off for good measure.  Kansas City added to Beane’s reputation as a philanthropist by taking Ben Zobrist off his hands just as Zobrist was getting healthy and productive.

Baltimore made what may be the best addition of them all, obtaining Gerardo Parra from the Brewers.  They won’t be missing Nelson Cruz so much now.  The Mets almost became a real team by adding Carlos Gomez as the Brewers, not really that bad a team now that Jonathan Lucroy is back, showed a mysterious lack of patience.  The Mets still need a legitimate lead off batter but they can be taken more seriously now that they have Cespedes and Juan Uribe.  It is strange that both the Dodgers and the Braves have dealt Uribe.  Maybe it’s because he looks older than he is.  Uribe is a good third baseman with a strong arm and a dangerous hitter who will let Mets fans feel better about the apparent loss of David Wright.

With David Murphy, David DeJesus, and Shane Victorino all now in their clubhouse, the El Monte Angels have depth in the outfield.  Their disappointing starting pitching has me ready to abandon my prediction of an A.L. West title, especially with the improvement of the Astros, but their lineup looks good without Josh Hamilton.

As for Jonathan Papelbon going to Washington, that would have been fine except for his insistence on being The Closer.  No team needs that kind of egotistical crap.

Cole Hamels to Texas is puzzling to ponder both because one would have thought that the Dodgers, Yankees, or Giants would have outbid the Rangers and that Hamels himself would know better than to go where flyball pitchers do not fare so well.  The Giants made a good, modest addition with Mike Leake.

So the dog days are here and everything is still mostly unpredictable.  Let’s all go count our money.

We would, and it was almost always spontaneous, go up to The Field, which later was given a name but to us was always the field, with a bat or two and a ball.  We almost never had a new ball.  The baseball would be used, a bit worn, with grass stains and probably a loose stitch or two, sometimes more, so that it had be taped up.  Maybe it was a bit lopsided but, as long as you could throw it, hit it, try to field it, it was fun.  We might have to share gloves.  A catcher’s mitt was a rarity.  I had two brothers who were catchers, George and Tommy.  They were real ballplayers, not pretenders like us, and I remember that Tommy had a real catcher’s mitt that was hidden away in what was called a cupboard but wasn’t really a cupboard.  It was a cabinet two steps down the stairs to the cellar where several forbidden items were held.  There was a clean baseball in its pocket and a belt wrapped around it to keep it from losing its pocket.

The same cabinet also contained a totally off limits BB gun, a rifle that I took out and played with if I thought no one could see me.  The same cabinet also once held a 7-Up bottle that one day made me curious enough in my thirst and love for the taste of 7-Up to uncork and sample only to realize with a shock that it  actually contained some white lightning that my father had stashed.

It would be me and my brother Jimmy and probably two or three Fulkersons, Dicky and Patty and Bobby.  If you had enough guys, you played a game.  Maybe you only had 16 guys, so right field would be closed.  Maybe you only had 14 guys, so the backstop would be the catcher.  You didn’t have a mitt anyway.  The backstop was frequently in need of repair, so there were a lot of passed balls.  The batter would be throwing the ball back to the pitcher, so if he wasn’t liking the pitches very much he could find a way to let the pitcher know that.  Maybe the same guy would pitch to both teams, ’cause he could get it over.

This was ball as I knew it.  Maybe you only had a half dozen guys, so you played 21, or work up.  Catch a ball in the air, 7 points.  One hopper on the bounce, 5 points.  Stop a grounder, 3 points.  Miss one and you go in the hole, same points.  You could be out there all fuckin’ day.

Everybody played catch to warm up.  But hitting the ball, that was the thing.  Anybody that says that they don’t like swinging a stick at a moving rock and trying to hit it from here to Spain has never tried it.

Sometimes we arrived at the field to find a game already in progress being played by the big guys.  The big guys were older, better players already in their teens who looked upon us with disdain for the most part.  So we couldn’t play until they were finished, perhaps having to go and deliver their newspaper routes or some other task or maybe just being tired after three or four games and wanting to smoke cigarettes.  If they found themselves short a player or two they might condescend to put one of us in the game.  Usually Jimmy would be the first chosen because they knew he was the best of us but Patty and I would normally just watch since we were both a year younger than Jimmy and not nearly as skilled.  Watching did not hold our attention for long but it enabled us to learn some of the lingo that was so important, like how to taunt the batter while you were in the field and how to coax your pitcher to get them out, and possibly some new swear words.

Much of our time was spent searching for lost balls, poking in the weeds.  It was nice that whoever owned the last house on the block of Winslow Avenue would not yell at us for using the spigot at the side of the house for water breaks.  In fact, the lack of  cranky adults trying to spoil our fun was one of the best things about the field.  The time would come, however,  when the city recreation department  would decide to turn The Field into an adult influenced playground with things like swings and monkey bars and picnic tables and a slide and, worst of all, a “teacher” with arts and crafts.  We were aghast, but we had a counter plan.  And that will be a subject for another day.

Sixteen acknowledged followers of the Seattle Mariners baseball club were charged with misdemeanor negligence after it was discovered that they had failed to watch the home run derby contest on Monday July13th.  Four of the sixteen fans  pled not guilty and were seeking legal advice while the rest of the accused refused to contest the charges and were quickly sentenced to 60 days of watching replays of the Mariners’ first 89 games.

Those of us so advanced in years that we still use turn signals when driving our cars may recall the old television program Home Run Derby that was filmed at Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field about 55 years ago.  Except for the fact that it featured star sluggers of the time such as Eddie Mathews and Harmon Killebrew, including fascinating 30 second interviews, the show was a bore.  I believe it was cancelled after a couple of years when it was defeated in the ratings by another half hour filmed program Watching Paint Dry with Burt Parks or some such thing.

ESPN’s promotion of this year’s home run contest has been relentless but I am sure that it will be equally boring.  At least the old show was an opportunity for the participants to make a few extra dollars, which was meaningful in those days.  No one needs the dough for today’s showing but you can bet Chris Berman will be there trying extra hard to sound excited.  I’d rather watch Chris Christie play miniature golf.

Erratum: In my  all star selections post a while back, I got so excited over picking the DH that I forgot to include my pick for American League catcher position.  It was Salvador Perez of the Royals, although Stephen Vogt of Oakland certainly is a worthy candidate as well.

As for the All Star Game itself, sure, I’ll be watching that, although I’ll be averting my eyes when Fox inevitably shows their new analyst, Pete Rose, crashing Ray Fosse in the 1970 game.  And it will be hard to swallow  also when they keep reminding us that the outcome determines home field advantage in the next World Series.  Wait. I’ve got it!  The team that the home run derby winner plays for gets an automatic berth in the wild card playoff!  And, if they qualify anyway, they get home field!  Yes!

A long, long time ago, when sabremetrics were just a twinkle in Ford Frick’s glass eye, the legend was that  the team that held first place on the 4th of July was  a good bet to win the pennant.  I doubted then, and really doubt now, that this proved true very often but it gave everyone an excuse to review the first half of the baseball season and to speculate madly on what might be the final outcome.  Now, of course, we have six first place teams and several others vying for wild card spots but still, July 4 is really closer to the halfway point than what most of the media use, which is the All Star break.

The ghost of Curt Flood was stumbling around my bedroom last night and he was bitching up a storm.  It wasn’t about the standings, though.  It was about the game within the game that seemingly every ESPN and Fox  baseball announcer or color man or whatever they are called these days feels compelled to play:  Who Is Buying  and Who Is Selling?  Whereas when Curt and I were young pups the average fan identified more with players and managers, it seems the fans today, or at least the ones these TV and radio guys are talking to, don’t want to play baseball so much as play owner or general manager.  Is the team under .500 and loaded with big contracts?  Sell!  Is the team healthy and playing good ball but just a starting pitcher or slugging outfielder away from the playoffs?  Buy!  I realize that all of the players are very well paid these days so that, unlike you or me, they can pack up and move to a new locale with their  families without fear of financial and emotional ruin but still….it does sound a little too much like a slave auction at times and these are real human beings, not chattel.  By the way, Curt’s ghost wanted me to pass the word that his book, or rather Brad Snyder’s book about him, A Well Paid Slave, is still worth reading.  Where was I?  Oh, yeah, the halfway point.

In the American League, the most startling development has been the consistent winning ball played by the Houston Astros.  Many knowledgeable people say that they are for real, and the success of their young pitchers  cannot be denied, so that’s fun.  I still believe that the Angels will emerge on top in the West division but Houston is fun.  The Rangers are doing considerably better than expected but, as usual, the pitching is a bit thin.  The Mariners and Athletics have been disappointing the first half but (don’t sell!) they  should both play better in the second half, or at least the A’s should.  It’s nice to see both Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder having good seasons again in this division.

Kansas City has been my choice as best in league, and so far they look that way, although not as much as All Star voting would indicate.  And, yeah, that’s another thing that presages the fall of the empire!  What’s with 35  votes per idiot?  Can we extend that to the general elections as well?  Think of all the dough the triple chinned bloviators could raise then! But the Royals have pitching and defense and hitting and speed with just a pinch of longball and the Tigers have just taken a big hit with Miguel Cabrera down and Justin Verlander looking like Charlie Brown.  The Twins are the new fun team of this division but there ain’t enough there.

There sat the New York Yankees in first place on the 4th of July but I’m sticking to my belief that Baltimore will prevail in the end.  Boston looks like they have a pulse still but they gave away too much pitching last year and haven’t really replaced Jacoby  Ellsbury yet.  Toronto has a great lineup but…I like the Orioles.

In the National League, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Washington all hold first place as of  July 4 and all three could very well stay right there the rest of the season.  I was just to the point of not worrying about the defending champion Giants a week ago and then they lost seven straight.  I think they will not drop from contention, but San Francisco has definite issues with shaky health among outfielders and bullpen pitchers that have been around long enough to be more predictable than reliable.  The Dodgers, meanwhile, have been considerably less than perfect, although Kershaw and Greinke keep them alive almost by themselves.

St.Louis was 6 games ahead of Pittsburgh July 4, but the Pirates have the time and the skills to catch and pass the Cardinals.  Mike Matheny has done well managing the Cards without Adam Wainwright, Matt Adams, and others but time will tell.  This may once again be the strongest division in the bigs. Advice to Milwaukee and Cincinnati: don’t sell!  Advice to Chicago: stay patient, but stay away from overpriced guys like Jon Lester.  This division promises the most fireworks (inadvertent July 4 reference) to come.

Washington held a modest 4.5 game lead on the New York Mets July 4 and one would expect that to gradually increase as the summer rolls along, but the Nationals have shown a peculiar ability to play down to the rest of the division’s level  and the they have had injury problems as well.  Atlanta has not been the pushover many people thought they would be while Miami threatened to get into it before Giancarlo Stanton’s unfortunate injury.

In other words, who knows?  That’s what makes it fun.

Individual half season highlights have included  Cabrera and Fielder’s high batting averages despite the obvious lack of leg hits, Mike Trout’s combination of speed, power, and defense that reminds us of young Mickey Mantle, Bryce Harper putting up numbers finally equal to the hype, Stanton’s incredible 27 home runs despite his playing home games in  what is definitely a pitcher’s home ballpark, and a slew of spectacular pitching performances by the likes of Max Scherzer, Garret Cole, Chris Heston, Sonny Gray and several others.  One last gripe for now, though–let’s put a moratorium on rating pitchers’ strikeouts per nine innings until they start pitching nine innings again.  How about strikeouts per six innings?

Now that it really is Summer, it is time for every baseball fan’s favorite game within the game, that is: picking the all stars for each league.  Let’s have a bit of a rant before we start, though, to keep pace with call-in talk shows around the country.

A few years back, the geniuses in charge (in other words, the bosses at Fox television) decided to contribute to the ruination of all things fun by declaring that, henceforth, the team that wins the All Star Game wins, not only the game, but also home field advantage for its league in the same year’s World Series.  There is no other apt way to put this: it’s a crock of shit.

This decision is also further evidence of the decline of the empire.  Horror of horrors, there had to be a tie in an exhibition game because both the American and National League teams ran out of pitchers to use.  A tie, or draw, at one time was an honorable thing in football and hockey but no, now here in the Imperial United States of America, we have to have winners and losers, also once respectable in championship endeavors, will soon be made to cross interstate highways blindfolded to pay for their sins.  At its inception, this game was an exhibition for fans to see the players voted best in each league face each other in the middle of the season, providing a treat for fans and a break for the players from the arduous and perhaps cutthroat regular season.  The only ones getting a break now are those not selected to the teams.  Home field advantage for the World Series used to alternate between the leagues and that was fair.  The Seligism we endure now is simply not fair and proves only how big money is capable of taking the fun out of just about everything.

Nevertheless, it is the game we love and our hope is that the game survives big business while the planet somehow does the same.

Okay, National League first.  My choice for first base is Paul Goldschmidt of Arizona.  He plays in a hitters’ yard but .358, 50 runs, 19 homers, and 57 RBI are still very impressive.  Adrian Gonzalez got off to a blazing start but has cooled somewhat.  They are both excellent fielders so the Diamondback gets the nod.

Dee Gordon of Miami is my second sacker over D.J. LeMahieu of the Rockies.  At third, Cincinnati’s Todd Frazier beats out another Rockies star, Nolan Arenado.  Shortstop has a lot of capable choices but San Francisco’s Brandon Crawford beats Atlanta’s Andrelton Simmons because he is more productive offensively.

Bryce Harper has earned the left field spot easily and one could say the same for Giancarlo Stanton in right field .  Denard Span edges out Andrew McCutchen for center field since McCutchen started slowly but that was a tough call.  At catcher, I go with Yadier Molina even in a slightly off season just because of his deadly arm and his handling of the first place Cardinals’ pitching staff.

My starting pitcher selection is Gerrit Cole of the Pirates.  Max Scherzer has has the incredible run recently but the fiery young Cole has a Bob Gibson type demeanor that deserves this showcase.

For the American League, it’s not very difficult to choose Miguel Cabrera at first base, although Albert Pujols is making big noise of late.  Second base is a tough one because Dustin Pedroia is consistently great, Jose Altuve very worthy, and Jason Kipnis is very good, but I’m going with Brian Dozier of the Twins.  He gets hard competition from Manny Machado, a superior fielder, but Josh Donaldson has to be the third baseman.  The Blue Jays have become legitimate with him in the lineup as well as Russell Martin. Jose Inglesias of Detroit is the best shortstop in the A.L. with the possible exception of Alcides Escobar of the Royals so his .325 batting average puts him on top even if it’s a “soft” .325.

The Tigers get a third starter from me in Yoenis Cespedes in left field.  He keeps getting better.  Surprise surprise!  I’m picking Mike Trout of the La Habra Angels in center field.  Nelson Cruz is my right fielder even if he’s not being Babe Ruth this month.  My American League starting pitcher would be Sonny Gray of Oakland.  Oh, yeah–designated hitter.  This was an easy choice too—Donald Trump.

What an unpleasant surprise it was to tune in Fox Sports Thursday night for a baseball game and have to endure the sight and sound of none other than Pete Rose, the esteemed gambler who now lives, appropriately, in Las Vegas.  Yuck.  It stands to reason, of course, that the network that uses a criminal like Ollie North for political commentary would offer the profound thoughts of baseball’s biggest schmuck for the sporting set.

The pleasant surprises of 2015 so far: The Twins, the Rays, of course the Astros, and now we need to include the Blue Jays and the Rangers.  Of all those teams, Toronto appears to be the one with the most staying power but I keep writing off Houston and they keep proving me stupid.  For surprising ineptitude, the Athletics have now outdone the Marlins.  Less surprising is the nosedive by the 2013 World Champion Red Sox, who looked so good and smart then but now seem to be clueless with disciplinary problems.  Maybe they’ll be goofy enough to take Starlin Castro off the Cubs’ paws for Clay Buchholz or something.

Delusional Mets fans alert: their 10-21 road record is better than just one team, the Phillies.

And now, as they say on HBO, for a little basketball space.  It was really fun to see the Warriors be successful, if for no other reason than to prove that Charles Barkley just might have been wrong.  I followed their season mostly in the newspapers though because I just can’t watch NBA games.  I try but I can’t do it; it’s worse than American rules football: two, maybe three minutes of action followed by time out, foul, foul, time out, sell beer, sell Viagra, foul, time out.  I know that television executives love football and basketball because of all the interruptions but, as a convert to futbol (soccer), I really have become spoiled by 45 minutes of action, a halftime break, and then 45 minutes more action.  With some modest rule changes the NBA could become interesting enough to watch but it is never going to happen.  First, as in soccer, a team should never gain an advantage by committing a foul.  Loss of possession should be the only consistent result from fouls, with penalty kicks (free throws) for flagrant violations and yellow and red cards for things like tackling a player on his way to a goal or gouging someone’s eye out. When a player “fouls out”, he is not replaced.  Let’s play ball.  If people enjoy watching 7 footers clang free throws, no wonder they sell so much Viagra and beer.  Next, the three point circle has added drama to the game, so how about another circle?  This one should be maybe within three or four feet of the basket.  It would be a one point circle, suitable for dunks and layups.  I wonder how the Bread Truck would like that?  I think it would be fun.

It’s a rather consistent theme among corporate types to accept blame when mistakes have been made and assign that blame to middle management if blaming lower echelon workers doesn’t provide enough relief.  The latest example in the major leagues is the firing of Bud Black by the San Diego Padres.  The Friars tried to excite a flatulent fan base in the winter by acquiring outfielders more capable of power hitting, such as Justin Upton and Matt Kemp.  This didn’t really improve the team because, while these are honorable fellows and , indeed, good power hitters, they are not any longer what we pundits refer to as fleet flychasers and the Padres have a big yard. So, sorry, Bud.  Will Venable understands.

As anyone who has ever seen eight cars parked right next to each other in a 200 car parking lot knows, we humans often behave very much the same as the sheep we like to make fun of do.  This is often the case among management type folks, even in baseball.  Hector Szerkopf, who deliberately walked in front of a moving streetcar in Brooklyn New York after making the first out at third base in a sandlot game in 1903, started a trend.  Little did witnesses know that the real reason he did that was because of his failure to make people fully understand his proposal for the infield fly rule, which subsequently took a full half century to be properly implemented.

Sheepheads who currently run major league baseball teams abuse old fart traditionalists like myself in many ways.  Today, we will discuss just one—the role of the “closer” on just about all of the 30 teams.  I believe that a false need has been created and I tend to blame Tony LaRussa for being the Szerkopf in this instance.

In 1920, at the end of the so-called dead ball era, starting pitchers completed 1399 out of the 2468 games started, or 57 per cent.  Many starters pitched between 250 and 300 innings for the season.  At the extreme end, Pete Alexander of the Cubs completed 33 out of 40 starts and pitched in relief in six other games for a total of 363 innings.  He won 27 and lost 14 for a Chicago team that finished three games under .500.

In 1954, starting pitchers completed 840 out of 2472 games played, or 34 per cent.  So expectations for starters had decreased or, perhaps, recognition of the validity of bullpen usage had increased.  Either way, in both of these seasons the pitching load was pretty much shared by nine or ten hurlers per team and there were at least six or seven bench players on every roster. Robin Roberts of the Phillies had taken up the Pete Alexander role with 337 innings pitched and a 23-15 record for the Phils, who finished four games under .500.  He completed 29 of 38 starts and came out of the bullpen seven times in addition to that but, by this time, his was more like an extreme case and not very many (11) pitchers hurled 250 innings or more (and three of those pitched for Cleveland).

More roster spots were held by pitchers in 1988 despite the adoption of the designated hitter rule by the American League 15 years earlier.  Complete games by starting pitchers totaled 622 that season, 15 per cent of the 4200 starts. Dennis Eckersley of the Oakland Athletics fit the image of relief pitcher for the years previous  to that because he was an aging (33) flame thrower who had fallen on rough times with the Cubs, completing just one of 32 starts in 1986, with a 6-11 won lost record and a 4.57 earned run average.  With the A’s in ’87,  he made only two starts but appeared in 54 games and tied Jay Howell for the team lead in saves with 16 with an E.R.A. of 3.03.  His role became more defined in’88 as Oakland waltzed to the A.L. West title with 104 wins. Their entire pitching staff had well defined roles as four starters began 132 games and Gene Nelson was used for long relief and Eric Plunk, Greg Cadaret, and especially Eckersley were used to finish games off.  Eckersley bumped his saves total to 45 in 60 games with 73 innings of work and an E.R.A. of 2.35.  LaRussa was hailed as a genius for, among other things, discovering the potential brilliance in the diminished stamina of the former starter.  This, I believe, is when the perceptions of others in baseball began to separate from reality with regard to pitching staffs.

Now it is simply conventional wisdom that you have to have an Eckersley or a Mariano Rivera on your team or else you can’t win.  Who is your closer?  So we have a seemingly endless parade of “closer” candidates who are asked to , usually, throw as hard as they can or with “lights out” trick pitches until they need surgery, at which time we will desperately seek another.  Well, Eck is in the Hall of Fame and Rivera will be soon but there is not and does not have to be an endless supply of Hall of Fame pitchers for general managers to pick and choose from in the year 2015, even though many are now being groomed in college and even high school.  I think Whitey Herzog, who also had some success as a manager, was correct.  He said that he felt that it was better for a reliever to throw two innings in one game and then not pitch the next day than to be out there every night for one inning because it’s a “save” opportunity.  He also, I believe correctly, felt that many games are determined well before the ninth inning and that when big trouble exists and you need your best reliever in the 6th, 7th, or 8th inning, why wait?

That brings me to the final point which is that there is no more overrated and useless statistic in baseball than what is called a “save”, with the possible exception of “WHIP”. Jerome Holtzman had it right back in 1960:  a pitcher should be awarded a save if he finishes a game in which he either faces the potential tying or winning run as the first batter he faces out of the bullpen or else he finishes the final three innings of a victory.  Period.  As it now stands, I can come into a game in the start of the 9th inning with a three run lead, give up two runs, leave the bases loaded, and get a save.That’s an E.R.A of 18.00, which no Hall of Famer to my knowledge ever logged.  Worse, managers save their most prized possession, THE CLOSER, for only “save opportunities”.  Rubbish. That’s a good definition of inflated currency.  Then you hear about how it takes a “special kind of pitcher” to want that job.  Well, yeah.  That’s why they call it the major leagues.

Like so many things, baseball seasons used to last a lot longer, or so it seems.  It seems like only yesterday we could figure everyone’s batting average in our heads, and now we approach the end of May and a full quarter of the new season has passed.  MLB.com has now been around long enough to become as much of an irritant as it is a helpful resource, selling stuff  to an obnoxious extent and pushing us to vote for all stars already.  It still is too early for that, but it’s not really early anymore.

The divisional races are providing some surprises, particularly the American League West, where it is equally astonishing to most of us to see that not only are the formerly woebegone Houston Astros in first place by 5.5 games as of May21 but also the formerly contending Oakland Athletics 13.5 games behind in last place with a paltry record of 14 wins and 29 losses.  I haven’t seen either team play very much, but as a box score devotee I can vouch that the records they have established so far have been well earned.  Oakland no doubt is suffering without their prize acquisition Ben Zobrist while another winter addition, Marcus Semien, has been even worse at shortstop than his predecessor Jed Lowrie.  Former coach Ron Washington has now been brought back to Oakland to help with the infield woes, and Bob Melvin had better watch it or Washington may be given his managing job because the whole team has, well, stunk.  As for the Astros (I hope they still have a farm club in Florida, the Kissimee Astros), the safe thing to say is that their youth and breathtaking ability to accumulate strikeouts as hitters will eventually bring them back to Earth, but, in the meantime, they are fun. Certainly, their youthful potential will be keeping them in contention in future seasons as well.

The most pleasant surprise so far has been the play of the Minnesota Twins, arrogantly written off by yours truly and many others before the season began.  Still, it looks like a battle all the way between Detroit and Kansas City in the Central.

Another happy surprise is seeing the Tampa Bay Rays atop the A.L. East.  Losing managerial genius Joe Maddon  hasn’t stopped them yet.  Now if only someone could safely disintegrate their hideous yard.  I still like Baltimore best in that weak division.

In the preseason many of us thought that the Miami Marlins were ready to contend.  They are 16-26 despite good talent, which shows that having a real butthole for an owner can be harmful.  Maybe they can import a Cuban to manage, or is Ozzie Guillen still around?  Otherwise, I’m afraid Washington can sleepwalk to another division title.  Atlanta appears to have made some good changes, but not enough.  Forget the Mets.  They were blessed with a favorable schedule and the usual New York media hype at first but reality is setting in.

It’s not surprising that St. Louis leads the Central N. L. but it is somewhat surprising that they are 27-14.  Wow!  They look good while Pittsburgh is under .500 at 18-22.  The Pirates have lots of time but have to catch fire at some point because the Cardinals are strong and deep.  The Cubs have enough to stay close and the Brewers and Reds are not as bad as they have sometimes looked.  That race should tighten up.

The Dodgers were sailing away from everybody in the West until this past week but now, after a three game sweep of them by the Giants that included three shutouts, things are looking a little different.  The home of the bouncing beach balls is missing Yasiel Puig but they still have a lot of weapons and an improved defense.  The Giants, despite their recent surge, still have questions about their pitching.  Meanwhile, winter darlings San Diego is yet to make a move, while Arizona has been starting to play better and win more often.

Let’s see what the next quarter has to offer; it should be fun.  Meanwhile, it’s not too late to cast that all star ballot and remember: this time it counts.

It seems appropriate to re-publish this post from May of 2015 in light of the latest Hall of Fame voting. Next time up, I’ll address Vlad Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, and some other fun stuff. Thanks.In the summer of 1994, the baseball world, particularly the major leagues, was a mess.  According to the owners of major league teams, 19 of the 28 teams were losing money.  Without casting aspersions on the honorable philanthropists who bring athletic entertainment to millions of us, or on their highly paid and scrupulous accountants, let us just say that there was no way to prove this because, just like our national government, much of what they do is secret and unknowable.

The war that was going on in 1994 was widely reported as being between the players’ association and the owners.  In reality, the war was really between the large market owners, such as the New York Yankees, and the small market owners, such as the Pittsburgh Pirates.  There were boxcars full of money to be made from the sale of television rights and the small market teams wanted that revenue to be shared among all teams, a form of socialism that was apt to induce severe dyspepsia among the more well off owners.  The compromise that developed was that the sharing would occur, but only if the players, who still had something to do with the game, agreed to a salary cap and changes in the arbitration rules, a form of socialism that the players were benefiting from to the alleged ruination of owners and fans alike.

Much to the chagrin of the owners and sports page editorial writers, the players would not agree to what would have amounted to the destruction of their union and all that it had accomplished so far.  On August 11, the games began to be cancelled and a month later the commissioner did what he was paid to do and called off the rest of the season, including any attempt at a World Series.  It was shocking and infuriating to most of us but, while none of the owners or players had to sign up for food stamps, virtually the entire baseball loving public became turned off and pissed off.  “I’ll never go to or watch another game!” was a frequent vow.

When the 1995 season came near, some of the ice from the fans’ furor had melted, but certainly not all of it.  Replacement players were going to be used, at least as a threat, but not many of us were lining up for that farce.  Negotiations finally led to a late start and a shortened, 144 game season but attendance was down significantly and a sour taste remained.  How, you might ask, was baseball going to overcome its most recent fall from grace?  After the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when the World Series was corrupted by payoffs to some members of the Chicago American League team so that Cincinnati would win the World Series, it took the emergence of the Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth, to bring popularity back to the big leagues.

Ruth played for the Boston Red Sox in 1919.  As a pitcher, he won 8 games and lost 5 with an earned run average of 2.98, not his best year. As an outfielder-pitcher, though, he smacked 29 home runs out of his team’s total of 33.  New York led the A.L. with 45 home runs that season, 10 by Frank “Home Run” Baker.  The next season Ruth became a Yankee and a full time outfielder and knocked 54 homers to set in motion the long ball era that helped the major leagues win back the fans that had been soured by the scandal.

Three things helped baseball revive itself after the fiasco of ’94—divisional play, which put more teams into competition for playoff spots; fan friendly ballparks, where now you could actually have a foul ball tossed to you rather than having to scramble and fight for it, and the long ball, which, we were told, chicks dig.

Small wonder it was, then, when managers, teammates, owners, and the commissioner’s office all began to suffer neck injuries from looking the other way while certain players began to suddenly look, act, and perform much differently as the nineties moved into the 21st century and home run records began to look as ridiculous as the real estate and tech market bubbles.  In 1996, the World Champion New York Yankees sported a team earned run average of 4.65.  Baltimore hit 257 homers, led by Brady Anderson’s 50 and Rafael Palmiero’s 39. Palmiero, once a high average but low power guy, had hit 39 the previous season as well, but Anderson had hit 16 in 1995.  The big change came in 1998, of course, with the big (and I mean BIG) battle between Mark (Mum’s the Word) McGwire and Sammy (No Lo Se) Sosa for the National League home run title.  One hit 70, one hit 66, and we were all hearing and reading things like “Well, maybe the balls are juiced,” or “There are a lot of really small ballparks now…” and Hall of Famer Joe Morgan authored a book extolling the virtues of the new power surge and how good it was for the game.  Then, finally, 2001 and 73 and all the crazy numbers that accompanied the steroid era. Now, just as it looked like we had gotten past all that, Alex Rodriguez comes back to remind us of the decade of wretched excess.

The worst part of it all to me is the way that most people have chosen to paint the picture now that the hideous hypocrisy of denial has been outed.  Players who used ‘roids or PEDs or whatever you want to call them are lambasted and disdained as “cheaters” for the most part.  What’s wrong with that is that, while there is no doubt that Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Ken Caminiti and countless others indeed performed better than they would have  otherwise, the thing that makes anabolic steroids evil isn’t that they help you perform better (at least in the short run).  There have been many forms of “cheating” in baseball and other sports over the years.  Some of them have been relatively harmless and even amusing while others have been dangerous.  It is the danger in using steroids that I believe ought to be the chief basis for their banishment (remember, they were not strictly banned at first and, even now, cortisone shots are plentiful).  If all they did was make you play better, well, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that good nutrition or honest weight training isn’t “cheating” as well.  Of course, steroids are extremely dangerous and, especially when we are addressing young athletes, that should be the reason we hate them

Our sons and daughters need to know that the common side effects from anabolic steroids are severe acne, oily skin, hair loss, liver disease such as tumors and cysts, kidney disease, heart disease, such as heart attacks and strokes, altered mood, irritability, increased aggression, depression and suicidal tendencies.  That’s not all.

In men, there is a likelihood of reduced sperm production and shrinking of testicles.  Those are reversible if you stop but baldness and breast development are not.

In women,one can expect enlargement of the clitoris and excessive growth of body hair.  When a child or adolescent takes steroids, resulting high sex hormones can prematurely signal bones to stop growing.

Steroids increase low density lipoprotein and decrease high density lipoprotein, thus increasing  the risk of fatty deposits in the arteries.

Lyle Alzado  was undersized in high school and began experimenting with steroids in college at Yankton, South Dakota.  He was able to star in football to the extent of being an all star linebacker for Denver and Oakland.  He said he spent $30,000 annually on steroids.  He was known for his short temper.  He was a “cheater”.  He was also dead from brain lymphoma at age 43.

The baseball establishment wants us to blame the individual “cheaters” for steroids or the unscrupulous dealers of the drugs for their widespread recent use.  That way acknowledgement that just about everybody knew what was going on would never lead to any sort of repercussions to executives or owners.  I find it very difficult to be stupid enough to go along with that.  Therefore I think steroid use should not be a reason to bar any player from the Hall of Fame.  Any admission or proof of such use should be noted on the plaque.

One of the more interesting ballplayers to come along in recent years is young Billy Hamilton, outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds.  It’s not yet certain that he will reach base often enough to remain an every day player but, as Reggie Jackson once said about Rickey Henderson, Hamilton is a fast enough runner that, “…he could RUN .260.”  Hamilton batted .250 in 2014, his first full season, and through his first 21 games in 2015 was batting .204 with a lowly on base percentage of .260.  It is his ability to steal bases that excites Cincinnati fans, however, and he is also an excellent defensive asset.  Hamilton has 13 stolen bags in 14 attempts so far this season after 56 steals and 23 caught stealing attempts last year.  The native of Collins Mississippi will turn 25 years old on September 9.

Some of us are too young to remember another Billy Hamilton—“Sliding Billy” Hamilton, who played from 1888 to 1901 for Kansas City of the American Association and Philadelphia and Boston in the National League.  This Newark, New Jersey native had a career batting average of .344 and was credited with 937 stolen bases in an era when that aspect of the game was emphasized a bit more than it is these days.  Sliding Billy also cracked 40 home runs in his career, a pretty hefty total in the pre-Babe Ruth or so called dead ball era.  Ty Cobb, the most famous base stealer in history prior to the arrival of Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson, totaled 892 steals in his career.  So it was Sliding Billy Hamilton’s record that Brock surpassed with his 938 prior to Henderson zooming past everybody with his 1,406.

Here’s hoping that today’s Billy Hamilton sticks around long enough to accumulate at least half the numbers that his namesake from over a century ago accomplished.  He is fun to watch, unless you’re in the opposing team’s dugout.

Nelson Cruz of the Seattle Mariners has 13 home runs in his first 25 games of 2015.  Followers of this space may recall that, in my preseason prognostications I wrote that he would not, as he did for Baltimore last season, hit 40 home runs for the Mariners.  He is currently on pace to hit 81 this season.  That is NOT 40.

San Francisco Giants fans have pretty much enjoyed themselves the past few seasons but an ongoing issue that keeps many of them in a state of confusion is the decline in performance of their one time ace and Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.  Little Timmy gets talked about a lot in the Bay Area.  Is his hair long or short?  Is his fastball fast or slow?  Who is his favorite catcher?  Is he any catcher’s favorite pitcher with his unpredictable command and wild pitches?  Something that doesn’t seem to get talked about like his mechanics, velocity, and choice of recreational drugs is his inability to hold runners at first base.  The guy has as much trouble holding runners on as Dick Cheney has telling the truth.  Throw in his propensity for wild pitches and you have the hurling opposite of a guy like Tim Hudson, who gets a lot of double play ground balls.  Now that home runs are not flying out of major league parks as they did in the recent past when balding incredible hulks dominated, it is a big deal to have a pitcher issue a walk when you are sure that a walk is as good as a double.  Some guys are slow to the plate and some guys have lousy pick off moves, but then there is Timmy, who seems to forget that the runner exists.  You would think that a young man capable of earning a gazillion bucks would have this brought to his attention but so far it’s all about his stuff and mechanics.  My theory is that many young pitchers are so dominant in high school, college, or the minor leagues that they don’t have to care about base runners and that scouts are so busy checking velocity or “stuff” that things like fielding the position and checking runners get overlooked.  That can be the difference between winning lots of games, which Lincecum used to do, and being a mediocre journeyman, which is what he has become.

Peckerhead.  That has long been my nickname for Pete Rose, whose banishment from baseball is possibly going to be reconsidered now that the old Chevy salesman retired from the commissioner’s office.  My disdain for Mr. Rose goes back farther than the did he or did he not gamble on baseball stuff.  First, I thought he became a media and fan favorite due to racism, in that in the sixties and early seventies the major leagues were dominated by so many great black stars that there was a need for a redneck favorite that “Charlie Hustle” filled. Then, when he took out Ray Fosse in an exhibition game and not only was unapologetic but also showered with praise for doing so, he symbolized to me the decline and fall of the empire.  He was a very good player at first but as time wore on he became an ugly self promoter who kept suiting up just to go for his hits record.  However, I must be mellowing with age, both his and mine.  He should be allowed back, just not in any sort of management or executive position, and he should go to the Hall of Fame as well.  To the new wing of the Hall, along with his idol Ty Cobb and a few others, the Flying Asshole Section.