Okay, baseball fans, we are just about there—baseball’s midpoint. Actually, the All-Star break comes a bit past the midpoint of the season. Each team has already played over 81 games. It’s been an interesting season (to say the least). Here are a few observations.
I don’t understand where Manny’s head is at right now. He threw a tantrum yesterday after getting struck out and got himself chucked out of the game. He was in a bad mood all day and didn’t seem to understand why the New York crowd was booing his every move. What does he expect? It’s like the guy has no sense at all of what he did – he seems like he just got a free 50 day vacation. Idiot.
Three quick thoughts to end the week:
Joe Torre said today that he doesn’t think that Manny Ramirez should play in the all-star game if he gets voted in. I’d go a step further – if the fans vote Manny into the all-star game then MLB should immediately ban people from entering every stadium in the league. It would be better to play in empty stadiums then to let people who are stupid enough to vote a suspended druggie into the all-star game make the team. This would make a mockery of the all-star game. Of course, the mockery ship sailed years ago when it come to all-star games.
Day one of the post-Manny world was rocky for his Dodgers. The good news was that they scored nine runs. The bad news was that that was only against the lowly Nationals, and it wasn’t enough runs to win. There’s not much in that game that can be blamed on the loss of Manny directly, and we didn’t learn that much, but losing to the Nats is never a good thing.
After reading the news yesterday and reading my colleague’s insightful blog on Manny Ramirez, I had to chime in on the situation. Just when you think the air may be clear in MLB, it clouds up again with accusations and evidence of wrongdoing. Because it’s baseball the effects are huge on the game, the world of sports betting and society. (Yes, even society.)
There’s only one big story in sports today, and it is far from a pretty one. Hitting savant Manny Ramirez joins the frustratingly long list of high profile drug cheats in major league baseball, and becomes the first of them to get caught red-handed and face immediate and concrete punishment.
The Major League Baseball season is more than a month old. Here’s what’s happening with just 136 games to go in the season.
Humanly Possible?
I’m about to watch my Calgary Flames play at Dallas. It’s with a sense of doom, though – Dallas is red hot, and Calgary played last night. The Flames have played back to back games seven times this year, and have won just one. Expecting to lose is not a good feeling for a fan. Hedging my loyalty with a bet on the Stars is probably the best solution.
I was just about ready to count out the Rays. They were going to make the playoffs, but I was seriously doubting that they would do anything once they got there. But then the last two game happened. Twice they got into tight spots against the Red Sox, and twice they found a way to win. It wasn’t easy, either. The first time they had to beat Jonathan Papelbon. That rarely happens. The second time around they hung around in a 1-1 game until the 14th before erupting for three runs. I’m still not viewing the Rays as my favorites, but they keep showing guts that I wasn’t sure they had, and that will be very useful in the playoffs.
I don’t want to spend too much time on this because it has been talked about to death in the media, but I do want to touch on a few of the trades that were made recently in baseball. Two historic franchises made out like bandits.
