In honor of the NBA and NHL playoffs, here are the MLB standings presented as you would see it in those sports. Playoff teams are in bold.

National League

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	St. Louis	17	8	.680	C1*
2	New York	16	8	.667	E1
3	Colorado	15	10	.600	W1
4	Cincinnati	17	8	.680	C2*
5	Houston	16	8	.667	C3
6	Chicago	13	10	.565	C4
7	Milwaukee	14	11	.560	C5
8	San Francisco	13	11	.542	W2
9T	Arizona	12	13	.480	W3
9T	Los Angeles	12	13	.480	W3
11T	Atlanta	10	14	.417	E2
11T	Philadelphia	10	14	.417	E2
13	San Diego	9	15	.375	W5
14	Washington	8	17	.320	E4
15	Florida	6	16	.273	E5
16	Pittsburgh	7	19	.269	C6

* St. Louis is ranked ahead of Cincinnati because both would get playoff spots and St. Louis holds tiebreaker advantage.

American League

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Chicago	17	7	.708	C1
2	New York	13	10	.565	E1
3	Texas	13	12	.520	W1
4	Detroit	16	9	.640	C2
5	Boston	14	11	.560	E2
6	Toronto	12	11	.522	E3
7	Cleveland	13	12	.520	C3
8T	Baltimore	13	13	.500	E4
8T	Oakland	12	12	.500	W2
10	Los Angeles	12	13	.480	W3
11	Tampa Bay	11	14	.440	E5
12	Seattle	11	15	.423	W4
13	Minnesota	9	15	.375	C4
14	Kansas City	5	17	.227	C5

Looks to me like the National League has become highly "Centralized". The AL is not quite as "Centralized".

Which is the biggest surprise?

1. Cincinnati playing .680 ball?
   
2. Colorado playing .600 ball?
   
3. Detroit in the AL wildcard spot and knocking the cover off the ball?
   
4. The AL West actually being a little worse than the NL West?
   

The NL Central is 54-28 at home in April.

The Colorado Rockies have won 10 of 13 road games this year.

The Kansas City Royals are 0-9 on the road.

The Washington Nationals are 1-7 at home.

The Mets are the only NL East team with a winning record at home.

San Francisco is the only NL West team with a winning record at home.

From what I can tell from this story from Cox News Service is that:

1. Liberty Media owns some Time Warner stock, but doesn't want to keep it.
2. Time Warner wants to get rid of the Atlanta Braves.
3. If Time Warner sold the braves to a private party, such as Arthur Blank, there would be capital gains taxes to pay.
4. If Time Warner takes Liberty Media's shares back in exchange for the Braves, everybody goes home happy!

Commissioner Bud is worried that there are too many home runs. Players are obviously not juiced now. So it must be that the ball is juiced!

Amy Shipley of the Washington Post examines why pitchers may be wanting to experiment with PEDs. And why it may not be a great idea.

"It's a question in everybody's head: Has it helped anybody in terms of performance?" said Robert Donatelli, a physical therapist who has consulted for the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies and tennis player Andy Roddick. "With pitchers, I don't really see how that would help them in terms of improving velocity. The velocity is mostly dependent upon how far the arm goes back . . . [and] how much time the hand has to develop speed to throw the ball.

"I don't care how strong you are; you can't have a short arc of rotation."

Donatelli said reaching peak velocity in the pitching motion could be compared to a race car's acceleration. If a car can climb from zero to 60 mph in four seconds, it might reach 75 mph in five. The theory is similar for pitching: The farther back a pitcher can take his arm, the more time he has to accelerate the ball before releasing it. Brute strength has little to do with it, Donatelli said, which is why skinny pitchers such as New York Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera and New York Mets ace Pedro Martinez are able to throw hard.

And before everyone had settled into their seats. the first four Tigers had reached and scored, the last three on a Willie Horton home run and the Tigers were on their way to a 7-4 win. Despite the cacophony created by over 42,000 bat-pounding fans in Anaheim (the ability of fans to beat other fans up with a bat was apparently not a concern yet), Coleman wasn't fazed and he kept the Angels off the board until the eighth when California scored four times, but reliever Bill Zepp worked out of trouble and picked up his second save of the year (which turned out to be the last one of his career.) Syd O'Brien had a 2-run double.

This was the first major league game I attended (I would go to Dodger Stadium later in the year) and I believe that my family was given free tickets to the game by Detroit relief pitcher Tom Timmermann who grew up in the same hometown as my dad, Breese, Illinois. After the game, Tom Timmermann met the family and we went out for dessert at an Anaheim restaurant. I'm still waiting for a player to take me out to eat after a game I attend. The lasting memory I have of this meeting was that Tom Timmermann was the largest human being I had seen at that time. He was listed at 6'4", 215 lbs in his playing days, which actually makes him a little smaller than I am now. And he had a really loud voice, which must be a Breese, Illinois thing as my father had a voice that could be heard three counties away, even after he moved out to Los Angeles. And we have very large counties in California. The Tigers pitcher also gave us an autographed ball with a nice message on it wishing us well.

My clearest memory of that dessert was ordering a sundae but then finding out that there were nuts in the topping. At the time, I hated nuts in my food and wouldn't touch anything. And I remember Tom Timmermann kidding me "You don't like nuts? Everybody likes nuts!" I think ate the nuts because I was too afraid that the large man in glasses was going to get angry. He wasn't.

Some reference sources spelled Tom Timmermann's surname with just one n. And I think a few Topps cards used the "Timmerman" spelling. But if you look at his entire career, you can see that with the amount of time he spent in the minors, he wasn't going to complain too much about his name being misspelled.

The 1971 Angels were supposed to be a contender. They had finished a surprising 86-76 in 1970. Alex Johnson led the AL in batting average. Tony Conigliaro had been acquired from Boston to add power. And everything went wrong, much of it starting with the troubled Alex Johnson. Mark Armour has an excellent biography of Johnson at the SABR Bioproject. The Angels finished 1971 at 76-86 and would wander in the wilderness for seven more seasons before finally winning a divisional title in 1979. As a five-year old, I had little idea just what the internal problems were that were facing the Angels in 1971 and I think I'm glad I didn't know at the time. That was one screwed up team.

The Tigers had won the World Series in 1968, but had a losing record in 1970 and replaced manager Mayo Smith with the mercurial Martin, who had led the Twins to an NL West title in 1969. Martin and the Tigers improved greatly in 1971, finishing 91-71, but they were still 12 games behind the eventual AL champs, Baltimore. Martin would lead the Tigers to a divisional title in the strike-shortened 1972 season by 1/2 game over Boston. And then was fired in the middle of the 1973 season. He'd find work again.

Sources: SABR Bioproject, Retrosheet, Baseball-Reference, Los Angeles Times

Dave Zirin in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times argues that Latinos should refuse to play baseball on May 1.

Although Zirin raises some interesting points, I would be pretty surprised to see any big leaguers sit out May 1 for political reasons.

I would also bring up an objection to this point Zirin makes:

The new reality was laid bare at this spring's World Baseball Classic: The U.S. team couldn't compete with its Latin American rivals, failing to even make it out of pool play.

In the WBC, the USA lost to Canada, Korea, and Mexico, so that team demonstrated that it could lose to pretty much any ethnicity.

It would be interesting to see if attendance is affected at any game however. The only team owned by a Latino, Arte Moreno's Angels are at home on May 1. Barry Zito is scheduled to start for Oakland against Hector Carrasco of the Angels.

There is one scheduled pitching matchup of Latino pitchers on May 1. That will be in New York, where Washington's Ramon Ortiz will be facing the Mets' Victor Zambrano.

The last time I can remember any players refusing to play over a political matter was back on April 25, 2000. That day, Cuban-American leaders in the Miami area called for a boycott that day to protest the Federal Government's handling of the Elian Gonzalez case. The Marlins drew 9,072 fans for their game that night, although they didn't draw well much of that season to begin with.

As for me, I might be spending my May Day here. I'm the guy on the right in the army uniform.

Alan Schwarz in the New York Times writes about David Neft's "on base advantage", a measurement where a walk is valued by subtracting a player's slugging percentage from 1.

However jarring to those riding the modern walk bandwagon, Neft's refinement makes perfect sense. From the pitcher's standpoint, a batter expected to slug 1.000, on average, should always be walked because his average hit is more damaging than a walk.

Meanwhile, walking a player with a .000 slugging percentage is grounds for an early shower, because he is no threat in the first place. The higher the slugging percentage, the less costly the walk.

Walking a player with a .000 slugging percentage is sometimes referred to by those of us on the West Coast as "The Grabowski Principle." You can get something of an explanation of it here.

Kansas City which had started the 2003 season 16-4, dropped to 7-13, while the Rangers were 13-9 and tied with the Angels for first place in the AL West. When the season ended, the Royals were 58-104 and the Rangers were 89-73 and three games out of first in the AL West, but in third place.

Chan Ho Park started for Texas and Dennys Reyes went for the Royals. Park was a free agent bust in 2003 for Texas and he stared off 2004 1-3 with a 5.19 ERA. Reyes was bouncing back between the bullpen and rotation for the Royals and had a 1.93 ERA early in the year.

Neither pitcher was good. Park gave up a home run to Carlos Beltran in the first and Reyes gave up three in the second on a Laynce Nix triple and a Rod Barajas home run. The Royals tied the game in the third with a pair of runs.

The middle innings saw the teams go back and forth with both teams scoring runs in the fourth through sixth innings. After six, the Royals led 7-6 and Park and Reyes were long gone.

Royals manager Tony Pena turned to rookie Justin Huisman in the seventh and he restored order, retiring all six batters he faced on just 13 pitches in the seventh and eighth innings. But in the ninth, Pena decided to entrust the game to his experienced relief "ace", Curtis Leskanic. The veteran was filling in for alleged closer Mike MacDougal, who was unavailable for the game according to Pena. Leskanic already had an ERA of 7.94 on the young season.

The ninth started out well enough for Leskanic as he struck out David Delluci, but Young followed with a homer to tie the game at 7-7. Hank Blalock followed with a triple to center. Alfonso Soriano then struck out. Fullmer, who had been 4 for his last 34, followed with a home run to give the Rangers a 9-7 lead. Francisco Cordero came in to close it out in the ninth and gave up a single to Joe Randa, but nothing else.

As bad as Leskanic was, he ended up pitching for the World Series champion Red Sox and was halfway decent with Boston. Carlos Beltran was traded to Houston in midseason as part of a 3-way deal that saw Octavio Dotel going to Oakland. That ended up working out OK for Beltran financially at the end of the year. Meanwhile, the Royals have remained the Royals.

Sources: Houston Chronicle, Retrosheet.

Former major league pitcher Steve Howe died in a motor vehicle accident in Coachella, California at age 48. Not much detail in the linked story.. The AP has a fairly long story now.

The career record of Steve Howe does not begin to tell even a small fraction of what was going in his much troubled life.

Thanks to Gold Star for Robot Boy for the pointer.

Rob Neyer wrote an ESPN Insider piece about Howe. I'd like to excerpt this small part at the end.

"Some will say that Steve Howe was destined to die early, because of the way he lived. But the world's not nearly that easy to figure out. Sometimes the good die young, and the bad live forever. And the rest of us, somewhere in the middle, simply go when our luck runs out."

I know that may sound simplistic to some, but it's so true. I've given up trying to figure out how and when people die. We just do.

L.A. Times obit.

Kevin Mench of the Texas Rangers has homered in his seventh straight game, a solo shot off of Guillermo Mota of Cleveland.

Mench is one short of the major league record of eight held by Dale Long, Don Mattingly, and Ken Griffey, Jr.

Catfish Stew has already mentioned Rich Harden's problem, but I will also note that:

• Washington has lost John Patterson with a right forearm strain. Zach Day was picked up off waivers from Colorado to take his place.

• San Francisco has put Ray Durham on the DL and recalled Kevin Frandsen.

The Atlanta Braves have announced that with the purchase of the Turner South sports network by Fox, that all games previously scheduled to be shown on Turner South will be announced by the illustrious team of Bob Rathbrun and Jeff Torborg. The usual Braves gang of Skip Caray, Chip Caray, Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton and Joe Simpson will only be heard on the radio or on TBS.

TBS will broadcast just 58 more Braves games this year. TBS is contracted for 75 Braves game next year, but just 45 per year from 2008 through 2012.

The Braves seven different announcers still pales in comparison to the mighty army of the YES network. The linked page lists people who are just in the studio or work basketball, but it also doesn't include Al Leiter and John Flaherty who joined up with YES this year. And also omits Suzyn Waldman.

The San Francisco Giants managed to unload reliever Tyler Walker, who had been designated for assignment, on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in exchange for minor league pitcher Carlos Hines.

Walker was 0-1 with a 15.19 ERA for the Giants in 2006.

Cheers of joy arise from fans of the other 28 teams in MLB who have dodged the Tyler Walker bullet.

Iriki?

Yes, Yusaku Iriki, a pitcher in the Mets system, is, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, is going to be the first player to be suspended for 50 games under the terms of the Major League PED testing regime. The other players suspended this year were found out by Minor League Baseball.

All-Star ballots are available now on MLB.com.

I cast my first ballot

AMERICAN LEAGUE

• First Base: Johnson, D., OAK
  
• Second Base: Kinsler, I., TEX
  
• Third Base: Beltre, A., SEA
  
• Shortstop: Uribe, J., CWS
  
• Catcher: Barajas, R., TEX
  
• Outfielder: Anderson, B., CWS
  
• Outfielder: Payton, J., OAK
  
• Outfielder: White, R., MIN
  

NATIONAL LEAGUE

• First Base: Jacobs, M., FLA
  
• Second Base: Gonzalez, L., COL
  
• Third Base: Feliz, P., SF
  
• Shortstop: Greene, K., SD
  
• Catcher: Ardoin, D., COL
  
• Outfielder: Floyd, C., NYM
  
• Outfielder: Francoeur, J., ATL
  
• Outfielder: Watson, B., WAS
  

Vote early, vote often. It's the one time in your life you can pretend that you're voting for mayor of Chicago!

Rob McMillin of 6-4-2 excerpts part of a Wall Street Journal article about how the big money franchises want to prevent further expansion of revenue sharing in baseball.

The whole article can't be read unless you wish to subscribe. Which costs money.

The brief strike by the minor league umpires has ended.

From MiLB.com

Financial terms of the deal were as of yet unknown, but a source close to the AMLU believed there would be a bump in salary as well as the per diem for all Minor League umpires, two of the key issues that led to the strike. The union will vote on the deal on Sunday, and the source was confident it would pass.

Delmon Young was unavailable for comment.

The starting pitcher for the Cardinals this day was much heralded rookie Dizzy Dean. Dean had pitched in one game the previous season and St. Louis manager Gabby Street finally gave him the ball to start. But Dean lasted just five innings, giving up six runs including five in the fifth, highlighted by a Riggs Stephenson home run.

St. Louis scored five times in the sixth off of Smith to tie the game, but the Cubs roared back for six runs off of Frey and Jesse Haines in relief in the seventh. The Cardinals added a run in the ninth.

The Cubs were able to get off to a fast start despite not having player-manager Rogers Hornsby available. Injuries limited Hornsby to just 19 games and eventually the Cubs fired him on August 2 and replaced him with first baseman Charlie Grimm. Rookie Billy Herman took over Hornsby's spot in the lineup and he was more than adequate, batting .314 and playing in every game as he started a Hall of Fame career. Rookie Stan Hack batted leadoff this day and played third, but veteran Woody English would play most of the time for the Cubs in 1932. Nevertheless, Hack would be a fixture at third base for the Cubs until he retired after the 1947 season. The Cubs were also missing two of their starting outfielders, Kiki Cuyler and Johnny Moore.

The Cardinals, after winning 101 games in 1931 and winning the World Series, fell victim to injuries in 1932 and won just 72 games and finished in sixth place. After scoring 815 runs in 1931, the Cardinals dropped all the way to 684 runs.

The Cubs were able to rally to win the NL pennant with a 90-64 record, but ending up facing a New York Yankees squad that won 107 games and scored 1002 runs. The Yankees squashed the Cubs like a bug in the World Series in four games.

Sources: Retrosheet, Baseball-Reference, Chicago Tribune.

Well, I think this story pretty much speaks for itself.

I'm really glad that Bobby Jenks or C.C. Sabathia aren't considering the same career after baseball.

Patrick Arnold, the scientist who purportedly developed "the clear" for BALCO, is reported to have pled guilty to charges in connection with the case.

Details were not yet available as Federal prosecutors were still working out details of the plea agreement.

Apparently a 3-2 record, 11.70 ERA and five blown saves wasn't good enough for Francisco Cordero to keep his job as the Rangers closer. Akinori Otsuka gets the privilege of striding out to the mound in the 9th with a 3-run lead now.

Murray Chass of the New York Times details the "3-4" defense used by Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon when Tampa Bay faced Boston's David Ortiz.

There is a graphic in the story. Basically, the third baseman plays left field while the shortstop moves to the second base side. The left fielder moves over to center.

You can download the pdf of the latest issue of "By The Numbers", the quarterly publication of the SABR Statistical Analysis Committee here.

There is an article explaining the basis for the Pythagorean Theorem of Wins and Losses. It invloves Weibull distributions.

Keith Jackson, best known as ABC's college football announcer, but he also covered baseball for ABC in the 1970s, is retiring.

Again.

Appparently for good, according to the New York Times.

I'm finished with play-by-play forever," Jackson said yesterday by telephone from his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. "I'm going out to learn to be a senior citizen and find a president I can vote for and believe in." He added, "I'm not angry, I'm just going off like an old man and sitting by the creek."

Jackson is 77 and last year age-related issues, such as his artificial knees as well as eyesight probems, seemed to make him quite cranky on broadcasts. His final game, the 2006 Rose Bowl epic between USC and Texas, was good enough of a game to disguise some gaffes with misidentified players and getting the score wrong.

Aside from that, we should remember the extensive body of Jackson's work, which almost of all it was high quality.

And I have a feeling that Jackson will still be on the air in Gatorade commercials.

Tampa Bay prospect Delmon Young, the first pick in the 2003 draft, is in some trouble after flipping his bat in disgust after being ejected and hitting the umpire in the chest in a game at Pawtucket while playing for Durha. With regular minor league umpires being on strike, the name of the replacement umpire who got hit was not released. News accounts don't indicate that he was hurt.

Replacement umpires have been working all minor league games this season because the regular umpires are on strike. Bill Wanless, a spokesman for the Pawtucket Red Sox, said minor league teams are not releasing the names of umpires while the regulars are on strike.

"It's an unfortunate incident and there should be no place for actions like that in the game of baseball," the umpire said in a statement released by Pawtucket. "Any official should not be treated like that. He embarrassed himself and his teammates."

Additional coverage from MILB.com.

There should be a link to video of the incident here.

This was the first season that the pitching distance had been moved to its present distance of 60' 6" and the batters enjoyed it, rapping out 24 hits, including nine doubles. Nevertheless, both starting pitchers, Jouett Meekin for Washington and Sadie McMahon of Baltimore, would go the distance as was the practice of the time.

Washington was managed by left fielder Jim O'Rourke, who started his major league career in 1872 and would catch one game in 1904 at age 54 for the Giants and eventually end up in the Hall of Fame. Baltimore was led by Ned Hanlon who had led the team to a last place finish in 1892 and would only improve to 8th in 1893, but would soon start the Orioles on a famous romp through baseball's rough and tumble era. Hanlon too would end up in Cooperstown.

Despite being the home team, Washington opted to bat first, an option available at the time. Presumably O'Rourke wanted to take advantage of a clean ball and good light. The strategy paid off as the Senators scored a run to take the lead. The Orioles pushed across three in the third to take a 3-1 lead. But Washington answered with three of their own in the fourth and went back ahead 4-3. A single run in the fifth and two more in the sixth stretched the lead to 7-3, before Baltimore narrowed the gap to 7-5 in the sixth.

Opening Day would be the highlight of the season for the Senators. They would finish in last place with a 40-89 record. From July 1 to the end of the season, Washington went 16-61. The team scored 722 runs, while giving up 1032, easily the highest total in the league.

Baltimore would finish in 8th place at 60-70, 26 1/2 games behind pennant winning Boston. The Orioles had the nucleus of one of the NL's greatest teams starting on Opening Day. John McGraw, who was just 20, would bat leadoff most of the year and play shortstop. He put up an OBP of .454. Future Hall of Famer Joe Kelley played center field and batted .305 with a .401 OBP. Wilbert Robinson started at catcher (he was 30) and he had an OBP of .382 in 95 games. Hanlon would acquire Hughie Jennings in the middle of the year and he would be a starter for the 1894 squad that won the NL pennant.

The NL would have a Washington team until 1899 when the league cut back to 8 teams. Baltimore would stay in the NL until 1899 as well before it was swallowed up by Brooklyn. The Orioles would win three pennants and finish second twice during their NL stint. The Senators never finished better than seventh.

Sources: Washington Post, Baseball-reference, Retrosheet.

As of April 26, the Pittsburgh Pirates have the worst record in the majors at 5-18. The last time the Pirates started out 5-18 (the only time since 1901) was in 1957.

Back then the Pirates were outscored 116-77 in those first 23 games. This year's version has been outscored 133-94.

The 1957 squad would finish the season tied for seventh place (aka last) in the National League at 62-92 with the Cubs. Some of the players on the 1957 Pirates were players like Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski, Dick Groat, Bob Skinner, Bill Virdon, Frank Thomas (the guy who got into the fight with Dick Allen, not the present one), Bob Friend, Vern Law, and Roy Face.

In August of 1957, Bobby Bragan was let go as manager and replaced by Danny Murtaugh, who led the Pirates to a 26-25 record to finish the season. And in 1958, the Pirates improved to 84-70. They slipped to 78-76 in 1959 and in 1960 the Pirates went 95-59 and won the World Series.

Is anyone holding out similar hopes for the 2006 Pirates to improve that much in the next three years?

And who will be the Pirates All-Star representative (the game is in Pittsburgh this year)? In 1957, it was this guy. Presumably, Jason Bay would be the leading candidate.

The 1952 Pirates had an even worse start at 4-19 and they finished 42-112.

Pakistan wrapped up the title in the Asian Baseball Cup with an easy 14-3 win over Thailand at Rawalpindi's Pindi Cricket Stadium.

This quote sounds like something out of the 19th century.

"We played in the tournament by adopting different strategies against different teams. We read our opponents before the start of the match. Boys worked really hard and showed their best in the whole event," captain Nabeel Ahmed said in his post match comments. He said Pakistan would display better game in the coming international events.

The Daily Times of Pakistan's story claims that Pakistan is assured a berth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but I have to think that it's just a spot in the qualifying tournament. I would have liked to have watched this tournament just to find out who Pakistani baseball fans are. Or Iranian ones.

According to WUSA-TV (via tips from Capitol Punishment and Federal Baseball and a bunch of people on Dodger Thoughts), it seems that FINALLY Commissioner Bud Selig has decided to award the Washington franchise to the Ted Lerner/Stan Kasten bid.

Nationals fans will be gathering on the Mall tomorrow to see if Selig comes out on to the balcony to announce the name of the new pope of Washington D.C. baseball.

Church bells will toll! Heads of state will gather to watch!

And Jim Bowden will probably be fired.

UPDATE

MLB people have issued strong denials of the report.

"There has been unfortunate speculation rampant in the media in Washington, D.C., [Wednesday] that Commissioner Selig has selected one particular group to acquire the Washington Nationals and that a press announcement would be made this Friday," said Bob DuPuy, MLB's president and chief operating officer.

"Those rumors are baseless. No decision has been made to date. The Commissioner and I continue to meet with representatives of the groups and there will be an official announcement when the decision is made."

This is the lead paragraph in the MLB.com story on the Marlins 7-5 win over the Cubs today.

In need of some relief, the Marlins found some from Ricky Nolasco and Matt Herges. And the offense received a boost from pinch-hitter Wes Helms.

There are so many things that scare me in that sentence, I don't know where to begin.

Did you know there is now a College Baseball Hall of Fame?

And do you know where it is?

It's in the city you instantly associate with college baseball: Lubbock, Texas!

The initial class of 10 was named today:

• Bobby Winkles, Arizona State coach
  
• Skip Bertman, LSU coach
  
• Ron Fraser, Miami coach
  
• Cliff Gustafson, Texas coach
  
• Rod Dedeaux, USC coach
  
• Bob Horner, Arizona State
  
• Robin Ventura, Oklahoma State
  
• Dave Winfield, Minnesota
  
• Will Clark, Mississippi State
  
• Brooks Kieschnick, Texas
  

Barry Bonds's personal trainer, Greg Anderson, has been subpoenaed to testify before a U.S. Grand Jury in San Francisco according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Far east.

Wes Obermueller who pitched parts of three seasons for Milwaukee and broke in with Kansas City, has been signed by the Orix Buffaloes of Japan's Pacific League.

Obermueller had been pitching for Richmond and had a 2.46 ERA in the early going. The PA announcer at the Osaka Dome is going to be working overtime to learn how to say "Obermueller".

Maybe I should tell them it's pronounced "ober-miller", similar to the Dodgers third baseman.

The Royals have brought back Runelvys Hernandez from the minors. Kansas City had sent him down after spring training mainly because he was overweight.

In three starts at Omaha, Hernandez was 1-2 with a 10.67 ERA.

In a game that would be more evocative of a game from 50 years in the future, the Cleveland Indians won their fifth straight game to start the 1948 season with a 14-inning, 12-11 win over the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park. Eddie Robinson hit two home runs for Cleveland, one of them in the 14th inning off of losing pitcher Earl Caldwell. Russ Christopher picked up the win, although Bob Feller had to relieve in the bottom of the 14th and work out of a 2-on, no out situation. Feller then started two days later for Cleveland.

Cleveland had scored in each of the first five innings and piled up 9 runs, but trailed anyway 11-9. Cleveland starter Don Black lasted just 2 2/3 innings and Chicago starter Howard Judson went just 3 1/3 innings. Cleveland used seven pitchers in the game.

The Indians got four home runs in the game, two by Robinson as well as one each from Ken Keltner and Larry Doby. Chicago had home runs from Tony Lupien, Cass Michaels, and Dave Philley. The White Sox would hit just 48 home runs in the entire 1948 season, in which they finished in last place with a 51-101 record.

Cleveland trailed 11-9 going to the ninth, but got their first two hitters on base. Doby couldn't bring them around, but player-manager Lou Boudreau doubled home both runners to tie the game. Boudreau would go 5 for 6 in the game with a pair of doubles and a pair of triples. Overall, Cleveland had 22 hits and received 11 walks. The game lasted 4 hours and 32 minutes, an eternity in that era.

Two of Cleveland's pitchers were in their final seasons, although they didn't know it. Black, one of the first major leaguers to openly admit that he was an alcoholic and a member of AA, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on September 13, 1948 and had to quit baseball. He passed away in 1959. Russ Christopher suffered from a heart ailment that kept him from playing after the season (or pitching much during the season) and would pass away at age 37 in 1954.

1948 was the last season that Cleveland would win the World Series. The Indians would finish the 1948 regular season tied with Boston for first place, but won the playoff at Fenway and then went on to beat the Boston Braves in six games in the World Series. Sources: Chicago Tribune, Baseball-reference, NY Times, Retrosheet.

If you were betting on Pakistan in the Asian Baseball Cup, you may be in luck.

According to the Daily Times of Pakistan and their ace baseball correspondent, Kasim Ali, Pakistan has the edge with one game left.

Pakistan is a +31 in runs scored with one game left to play (against Thailand).

Of course, the overall records of the five participants can't be found.

Thailand beat Iran in its last game 16-12. This further cements Rawalpindi's reputation as the Coors Field of the Indian Peninsula.

Pirates prospect Brad Eldred, who was at AAA Indianapolis suffered a broken thumb and will likely miss the rest of the 2006 season.

Last season, Eldred hit 12 home runs in 190 at bats with the Pirates.

The Rockies issued a press release stating that Todd Helton has been diagnosed with acute terminal ileitis.

HOWEVER, the terminal refers to the problem being at the end of the small intestine.

This source says you might know the disease better as Crohn's disease.

Not being a medical professional (although I am quite a hypochondriac), I will stop here.

Leigh High of San Jose pitcher Tyler Derby helped to pull of a rare K-2-1-5-1 triple play in a a game against Oak Grove High.

The San Jose Mercury News has an account of the play. You have to read it to fully appreciate how bizarre this play must have been.

This put Opening Day (in this case Opening Night) on a Tuesday in Miami as the Dodgers squared off against the Marlins. The Dodgers were hoping to build on their success in 1994, when they were leading the NL West when the season ended. The Marlins, in just their third season, were looking for respectability.

Each team started their aces on Opening Day. Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda called on Ramon Martinez and Marlins manager Rene Lachemann sent John Burkett to the hill. Lasorda was experimenting with his outfield and sent the 1994 Rookie of the Year Raul Mondesi from right field to center so he could start Henry Rodriguez in right field and Billy Ashley in left. Eric Karros, Delino DeShields, Jose Offerman and Dave Hansen (filling in for the injured Tim Wallach) filled out the infield. And, of course, Mike Piazza was behind the plate.

Lachemann had fewer stars to work with. Jeff Conine and Gary Sheffield provided good offense in the outfield, but Chuck Carr was in centerfield. Greg Colbrunn, Quilvio Veras, Alex Arias, and Terry Pendleton started in the infield and rookie Charles Johnson was behind the plate.

As both teams went out to the base lines for the Opening Day festivities, they were asked to tip the caps to thank the fans for their patience. 42,125 Floridians booed lustily. And not all the personnel were back as the umpires were on strike.

The Dodgers got to Burkett early when Mondesi hit a 2-run homer in the first, although the Marlins got a run in the first and a solo home run from Pendleton in the second to tie the game. The Dodgers scored three more times in the fifth to knock out Burkett in favor of Terry Mathews.

In the seventh, the Dodgers scored three more times off of Matt Dunbar and John Johnstone with Mondesi hitting his second home run of the game. The Dodgers would have eight extra-base hits out of their total of 13 for the game.

Conine homered off of Dodger reliever Antonio Osuna in the eighth, but Lasorda sent him back out for a third inning of work in the ninth, despite having a roster of 30 players for a few weeks. After a strikeout of Andre Dawson, Osuna walked three batters and gave up a single and a wild pitch and it was 8-4. Lasorda turned to his closer Todd Worrell, who led the NL in blown saves in 1994 with 8. And Worrell almost blew it again giving up two RBI singles to Pendleton and Colbrunn that made it 8-7. So Lasorda pulled Worrell and brought in Rudy Seanez who struck out Johnson to end the game.

The Dodgers would go on to win the NL West in 1995 by one game over Colorado, who won the wild card. Despite his shaky first day, Worrell would save 32 games for the Dodgers with a 2.02 ERA. Piazza would slug 32 home runs and bat .346, but the real story for the Dodgers was Japanese sensation Hideo Nomo, who led the NL in strikeouts with 236 and jump started attendance in Los Angeles. The Dodgers would be swept by Cincinnati in the Division Series however.

As for the Marlins, they escaped the cellar by a game and a half over Montreal. Injuries limited Sheffield to just 63 games. Veras would lead the NL in steals in his rookie year with 56, but also lead in caught stealing with 21.

Sources: Los Angeles Times, Retrosheet, Baseball-Reference.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim placed Maicer Izturis on the disabled list with a strained hamstring.

Superprospect Howie Kendrick has been recalled from AAA.

Eric (five home runs allowed in three starts) Milton has had arthroscopic knee surgery and will miss three weeks for the Reds.

Elizardo Ramirez was called up to replace him and will pitch tonight against Washington.

Although the Metropolitans had won the 1884 AA flag, they had hit hard times in 1885, finishing 44-64. Meanwhile Brooklyn was working its way up improving from .385 to .473 in its first two years in the AA.

On this day in 1886, the teams would meet at Brooklyn's home ground, Washington Park. and about 7,000 fans would watch ("almost one-half of them ladies" according to the New York Times.) And the home team would pull out a 4-3 win.

Metropolitans manager Jim Gifford started Ed Cushman at pitcher while Brooklyn manager Charlie Byrne countered with Henry Porter. The Metropolitans used just four pitchers all season while Brooklyn used only five, with one pitcher appearing in only one game.

Brooklyn scored first thanks to some Metropolitan mistakes. Right fielder Steve Brady dropped a fly ball off the bat of Brooklyn's Bill McClellan. A passed ball by Jim Donahue moved McClellan over a base and he scored on a base hit by Ed Swartwood.

The Metropolitans did all their scoring in the second. Left fielder Steve Behl drew a walk (reduced to just five balls that season). Then singles by Brady, Tom McLaughlin, and Cushman, capped off by a double by Frank Hankinson scored three runs.

In the third, Brooklyn got a run back. George Pinkney had a one-out double and came around on singles by McClellan and Swartwood. McClellan tried to steal third and appeared to be out, but the lone umpire, Bob "Death to Flying Things" Ferguson, called him safe. Ernie Burch sacrificed McClellan home to tie the game at 3-3.

There was no more scoring until the seventh. Catcher Jimmy Peoples singled with one out and then advanced two bases on a passed ball by Donohue. Porter then hit a slow grounder that allowed Peoples to score with what proved to be the winning run.

Brooklyn and the Metropolitans would play a close season series. In 20 games, Brooklyn won 10, the Metropolitans won 9 and there was one tie. Overall, Brooklyn fared better, finishing in third at 76-61, although that was still 16 games behind pennant winner St. Louis. The Metropolitans finished 53-82 and would get rid of Gifford as manager and replace him with the umpire for this game, Ferguson. Neither team featured any players who would make much of a mark in baseball history, although Metropolitan first baseman Dave Orr would finish with a career .342 batting average in eight seasons.

The Metropolitans would last one more season in the American Association before eventually ceding control of New York to the NL Giants. Brooklyn would regress in 1887, but bounce back in 1888 to finish second and then win its first pennant in 1889. The next year, Brooklyn switched leagues to the NL and won the pennant there too. And the longstanding Dodgers-Giants rivalry would be born.

Sources: New York Times, Retrosheet, Baseball-Reference

My new favorite baseball writer, Kasim Ali, of the Daily Times of Pakistan, reports on the latest scores from the Asia Baseball Cup.

I have a feeling that Mr. Ali is a cricket writer most of the time. This line was telling.

Kamran Junior hit only one homerun during his stay at the batting base.

I haven't been able to find a complete listing of the scores, but I have a feeling that Hong Kong is the team to bet on this competition.

Frank Ahrens who writes "The Web Watch" column for the Washington Post writes about the Mac users have with MLB.com streaming media.

But the absence of Real essentially alienated Mac users (among them, the sprawling Web Watch staff) who preferred watching the streaming games on that player. MLB said that the stream would work fine on the Mac version of the Microsoft player.

But The Register, a British online publication covering the IT industry, said it tried out the new streaming setup on its Macs (What? They couldn't get cricket?) and found it "almost unusable," owing to starts and stops in the stream and sudden drop-outs. The video "played like a champ" on Real last year, the site reported.

So, if you have a Mac, it's not just you.

The San Diego Padres activated Mike Cameron from the disabled list and sent Jon Adkins back to Portland.

Cameron, while with the Mets, was involved in a horrific collision at PETCO Park on August 11, 2005 with teammate Carlos Beltran that left him with several facial fractures. Cameron was traded to San Diego in the offseason, but had been out with a strained left oblique.

Cameron played Sunday and went 0 for 3 with two walks and two strikeouts.

I've started to add a few more things to the sidebar. I'm making the totals of who has the best record, worst record, most runs, fewest runs, and what the playoff matchups are at the time a part of the sidebar and I'll try to update it more or less every day. And eventually, I'll format it better.

Starting in May, I'll have an archive of the Random Game Callbacks.

Bill Gullickson started for the Expos while Randy Jones started for the Mets. They were two pitchers on different career paths. Jones, who had won the Cy Young award in 1976, was pitching in his last season in the majors. Meanwhile, Gullickson was starting his third full season and would pitch until 1994. New York was managed by George Bamberger, who would see his former team, the Milwaukee Brewers make it to the World Series in 1982. Jim Fanning skippered the Expos.

The Mets scored in the second inning when John Stearns singled home Dave Kingman. Kingman homered in the fourth to give the Mets a 2-0 lead.

The Expos tied it up in the bottom of the fourth when Al Oliver followed Andre Dawson's double with a home run to tie the game. The teams each scored a run in the fifth to make it 3-3.

In the bottom of the sixth, Warren Cromartie homered off of Jones to put the Expos ahead 4-3 and chase Jones from the game in favor of Craig Swan. Ed Lynch came in to pitch the seventh and eighth to keep the Mets down just by one run.

Rusty Staub batted for Ron Gardenhire to lead off the ninth and drew a walk. Bob Bailor ran for Staub and Jeff Reardon came into relieve Gullickson. Pinch hitter Mike Jorgensen sacrificed Bailor to second. Mookie Wilson then tripled to right to score Bailor and tie the game at 4-4. But Reardon was able to retire Wally Backman and George Foster to preserve the tie.

Jesse Orosco came in to pitch the ninth for the Mets. Orosco had celebrated his 25th birthday just two days earlier. With one out, Rodney Scott singled and stole second. Terry Francona drew a walk and Bamberger opted to bring in Neil Allen to face Andre Dawson, who singled to load the bases. Now with one out and the bases loaded, Allen had to face Oliver, probably Montreal's best hitter. Oliver singled to center to score Scott with the winning run.

After the game, Bamberger bemoaned his relief corps' inability to get out lefties. Of Orosco, Bamberger said, "The kid has been spotty, but if I can't use him against left- handed batters, what's the use of having him." This game was Orosco's 32nd career appearance in the majors. He would go on to pitch in 1220 more games. Apparently, he was able to get out lefties.

The Expos were not able to return to the playoffs in 1982 as they finished third with an 86-76 record, six games behind St. Louis. The Mets finished last with a 65-97 record. The biggest event for the Mets in 1982 was the amateur draft on June 7. With the 5th pick, the Mets took a righthanded pitcher from Tampa named Dwight Gooden.

Sources: New York Times, Retrosheet, Baseball-Reference.

Is the guy (I'm assuming it's a guy) who is covering the Asian Baseball Cup for the Daily Times of Pakistan. There is a non-bylined "staff report" about Sri Lanka's 15-7 win over Iran in Rawalpindi.

Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Thailand, and Hong Kong are competing for one spot to play in the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar from December 1-15. Five teams have already qualified, although I can't find them listed. I'm guessing that Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan are four of them. The Philippines could be the fifth.

Benjamin Hoffman of the New York Times examines really fat pitchers. There seems to be a tendency for the big guys to throw more innings per start than the skinny or normal guys.

Doug Mientkiewicz has agreed to donate the baseball that was used in the final out of the 2004 World Series to the Hall of Fame.

Gary Gillette penned this essay about why there is no need for asterisks over the records of the "Steroid Era".

Here are the highlights.

1. Several new seasons with play by play detail have been added. In addition to posting the 2005 data, we have expanded our string of "recent" seasons back to 1957. Furthermore, it is very gratifying that, due to the generosity of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), we are also able to present the data for 1993-1998. That leaves only 1999 without this level of detail from 1957-2005 and we hope very much to have that information available later this season. The proofing of these new seasons was done by Clem Comly, Tom Ruane and Dave Smith.

2. Old seasons with play by play detail. The previous release had this information for the 1911 NL and we add the same for the 1922 NL. Also, the 1921 NL games are presented in detailed expanded box score format, but without play by play. These earlier seasons were proofed entirely by Tom Ruane

3. Data for umpires has been greatly expanded and gaps filled in. We are missing the identities of a handful of substitute umpires who officiated during the strike in 1979, but other than that, the website now has every umpire assignment for every game from 1939-2005 as well as the data for several earlier years. For 1957-2005, these are accessed most easily from the game log page for a team in a season (e.g. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/VCHN01988.htm as a purely random example). For seasons prior to 1957, the umpire assignments may be found by going to the "ML Umpires" portion of the season summary. For example, again randomly chosen: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/YPU_1942X.htm (these follow the standings for the year). Of course, it is always possible to go to the umpire page for any specific arbiter and click on his name to get what we have for his career. See http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Pmcgob901.htm for Bill McGowan's totals, which include many pre-1939 seasons. David Vincent was the overall coordinator for this enormous effort with significant help from Bob Boynton, Rich Carletti, and John Schwartz.

4. The "event files" are the primary data format for the games we have. These are available for all the above seasons through the link on the front page. There are details there on file format, software we post, and other details on downloading and using these files. These files are the basis for the many detailed analyses that various users perform and post on-line. See note 5 for an important additional note.

5. For each season prior to 1974, there are games for which we have not been able to find play by play information. Rather than waiting, possibly in vain, for accounts to complete these seasons, we created the "box score event file" which has all the information necessary to generate a complete box score that is indistinguishable from those derived from full play by play data. We are continually getting new data and in fact some games that were only in box score format last time have now been converted to full play by play. These box score event files are linked on the relevant event file page where there is also a detailed description of the contents.

6. Modifications have been made to some aspects of biographical data on the player pages. For example, birth and death locations are now presented when they are known, even if the dates of those events are not.

7. Some format corrections have been made to our posted box scores, including more complete usage of the data in the box score event files.

8. Other changes include the addition of game number of each series to the box score. Standings prior to 1893 are now based on games won instead of winning percentage, as was the standard of the time.

The Retrosheet website has about 400,000 html files which are interlinked and cross-referenced in many ways that enhance their usefulness. These are all generated by Tom Ruane and the legion of fans who enjoy these pages owe him a huge thank you.

"Going to Alabama" is not a good thing to hear about a pitcher like A.J. Burnett. But he is on his way to visit Dr. James Andrews after leaving Friday's game against Boston after four innning because of elbow pain.

Canada starts holding its breath.

Although that's more likely because the NHL playoffs have started.

Toronto Star coverage.

Eventually, Burnett went on the DL and Shawn Marcum was called up.

On April 18, Luis Gonzalez doubled and became the 21st player to reach 500 doubles and 300 home runs in his career. I present to you the list of players who have done this.

Primarily to see if I can make a table in HTML. Players are listed by number of doubles.

Player	Doubles	Home Runs
Stan Musial	725	475
George Brett	665	317
Carl Yastrzemski	646	452
Henry Aaron	624	755
Cal Ripken	603	431
Rafael Palmeiro	585	569
Barry Bonds	567	708
Eddie Murray	560	504
Rogers Hornsby	541	301
Dave Winfield	540	465
Al Simmons	539	307
Lou Gehrig	534	493
Frank Robinson	528	586
Dave Parker	526	339
Ted Williams	525	521
Willie Mays	523	660
Edgar Martinez	514	309
Babe Ruth	506	714
Tony Perez	505	379
Andre Dawson	503	438
Luis Gonzalez	501	321

The next most likely player to join this group would be Jeff Kent, who presently has 476 doubles and 332 homers. That includes Kent's two doubles this season and he's had over 26 doubles in every season from 1996 through 2005.

Canadian righthander Oscar Judd started for Boston and was staked to an 8-0 lead after three innings as the Red Sox pounded Washington starter Early Wynn (in the first full season of a long Hall of Fame career) and reliever Alex Carrasquel (uncle of Chico Carrasquel). Wynn lasted just 2/3 of an inning.

DiMaggio had four hits in six at bats for Boston and Doerr went 2 for 5 with a double and an inside-the-park home run. The Red Sox had 17 hits for the afternoon and even got a stolen base from cleanup hitter Tony Lupien. Why Lupien, who hit three home runs in 1942, was batting cleanup remains a question whose answer is known only to Boston manager Joe Cronin.

Washington's lineup in 1942 was the usual collection of guys cobbled together on the cheap by Washington owner Clark Griffith. First baseman Mickey Vernon was playing his first full year of his wildly inconsistent career. Left fielder George Case was one of the few players left proficient in stolen bases and stole safely 44 out of 50 attempts in 1942. Manager Bucky Harris started Al Evans behind the plate this day instead of regular starter Jake Early preventing a battery that would have been very early: Early Wynn and Jake Early.

The 1942 Red Sox would finish 93-59, the most wins of any Red Sox team since 1915. But the Yankees were still nine games better. A 14-17 July ended the Red Sox pennant chances as the Yankees went 21-9 in July. And even though Williams won the Triple Crown with a .356 average, 36 home runs and 137 RBI, he didn't win the MVP. Instead the award went to New York second baseman Joe Gordon.

Sources: Washington Post, Retrosheet, Baseball-reference.

MLB issued its annual denial of the financial numbers produced by Forbes.

"They make these numbers up," [Rob] Manfred said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "However close and lucky they may get in aggregate, there are individual instances that materially misstate the situations. From our perspective, we just think it's important that people understand and realize these are not in real in any sense of the word."

Scott Merkin of MLB.com examines the reduced roles of organists at major league parks.

If you want to keep organs at the ballpark, please contact your state's DMV and get the sticker placed on your driver's license, so doctor's can pry a 500-pound Wurlitzer out of you before you die.

Maybe I'm overstating the matter, but Jody Gerut decided not to get knee surgery after all and will report to the Pirates extended spring training. The Pirates had threatened to withhold Gerut's salary if he went ahead with the surgery.

If Gerut gets healthy, Pirates manager Jim Tracy will have a valuable weapon to use in his potent offense that scores almost at will!

This link is from the Richmond Braves website:
"Batting leaders" Not only is the information formatted in an incomprehensible manner, I believe it's a year old!

Long time passing....

Jim Moore of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a column about the declining attendance at Seattle.

Hmm, let's see

• 2003, 93-69 record, attendance 3,268,509
  
• 2004, 63-99 record, attendance 2,940,731
  
• 2005, 69-93 record, attendance 2,725,459
  

The recent three game series with Texas drew an average of 17,822 fans per games.

But it was midweek. In April. Against the Rangers.

No this isn't about the Devil Rays (who are in St. Petersburg), but rather about the actual city of Tampa.

Former big leaguer Derek Bell was arrested in Tampa and charged with felony possession of cocaine. Dwight Gooden is now serving jail time on drug charges that he committed in Tampa.

McCarthy started right hander Johnny Broaca while Connie Mack countered with former Yankee Henry Johnson. The Yankees were not kind to their former teammate, chasing him after three innings after Bill Dickey slammed a 3-run homer to give New York a 4-1 lead. Reliever Charles Lieber didn't fare much better in the fourth giving up two runs after Yankees center fielder Dixie Walker tripled and Frankie Crosetti singled and Red Rolfe doubled.

Philadelphia pushed across a run in the eighth and New York countered in the top of the ninth with another to take a 7-2 lead to the bottom of the ninth. Skeeter Newsome opened the inning with a single over Tony Lazzeri's head. Frankie Hayes popped out to first, but Broaca walked pinch-hitter Emil Mailho. (Mailho's MLB career consisted of 18 at bats and had one hit, but he did walk five times.) Lou Finney walked to load the bases. This brought up Wally Moses, one of two offensive threats on Philadelphia. And Moses cleared the bases with a triple to make it 7-5 and send Broaca out of the game in favor of Johnny Murphy.

Murphy faced Bob Johnson, the other offensive threat, and walked him on four pitches to put the tying run on base. And McCarthy didn't waste any time and he pulled Murphy in favor of lefty Pat Malone. George Puccinelli greeted Malone with a single to make it 7-6 and send Johnson to third. But Pinky Higgins fouled out to Dickey and Rabbit Warstler grounded into a force out to end the game.

The Yankees, who already had a power-filled lineup with Gehrig, Lazzeri, and Dickey would soon be getting some help from the West Coast. On May 3, Joe DiMaggio would join the Yankees (Walker would be sent to the White Sox.) The Yankees turned into an incredible offensive machine, scoring 1065 runs with a team batting average of .300 and OPS of 864. Five Yankees would drive in over 100 runs and Gehrig would be named MVP. The Yankees would win the AL with a 102-51 record, 19 1/2 games ahead of Detroit. And the Yankees would win the World Series over the Giants in six games.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia would be a near mirror image of the Yankees, going 53-100 and giving up 1045 runs. The Athletics were in the midst of a stretch of 13 consecutive losing seasons.

Pat Malone, who got the final outs, would pitch one more year for the Yankees in 1937 before retiring. He would pass away at age 41 in 1943 of pancreatitis.

Sources: New York Times, Retrosheet, Baseball-Reference

Julio Franco aged 47 years, 7 months and 27 days (give or take a day as I'm doing the math in my head) hit a pinch-hit two run homer off of Scott Linebrink in San Diego.

This makes Franco the oldest player in MLB history to hit a home run. The former record holder was Jack Quinn who was 8 days shy of his 47th birthday when he homered off of Chad Kimsey on June 27, 1930.

The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport gave MLB generally good marks in the area of minority hiring.

The grade was B+ for minority hiring and D+ for gender. So that looks like a C+ to me.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Along these lines, Ted Lerner has added two African-American investors in an attempt to strengthen his bid to gain ownership of the Washington Nationals.

The owner of the Nationals will be named "soon."

Armando Benitez is back from the DL to anchor the Giants bullpen. You may interpret the meaning of "anchor" any way you choose. Jack Taschner, with a 34.71 ERA, was sent back to the minors. Also Lance Niekro returned from bereavement leave and Travis Ishikawa was sent to AA Connecticut.

Also, the Orioles called up Luis Terrero and Raul Chavez and disabled Luis Matos and optioned Val Majewski back to Ottawa. Sadly, this means that the Baltimore-DC area will no longer have two Majewskis playing in it. Majewski had just been called up to replace David Newhan, who had broken his leg.

Cleveland put Matt Miller on the DL and called up Rafael Perez. Rafael Betancourt might be headed to the DL soon pending more tests on his arm.

And finally, the Mets drive to clinch the NL East early has been ramped up as Kazuo Matsui has been reactivated from the DL and Anderson Hernandez has been put on it with a back injury.

Oscar Acosta, manager of the Yankees team in the Gulf Coast League, and Humerto Trejo, who worked in the Yankees front office dealing with Caribbean matters, died Wednesday night in automobile accident outside Santo Domingo.

According to news accounts, Acosta was 49 and Trejo was 38.

The Angels had come agonizingly close to the World Series in 1986, but slumped to a last place 75-87 record in 1987 and manager Gene Mauch retired for good and Cookie Rojas took over. Meanwhile, Oakland, trying to recover from the dark days of Charlie Finley, had managed an 81-81 record in 1987 and featured a powerful lineup with the "Bash Brothers": Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, who had combined for 80 homers in 1987.

In the early going, Oakland was 8-6 and California was 6-7. Oakland had taken the first two games of the series with rallies in the eighth inning against a beleaguered Angels bullpen. Oakland closer Dennis Eckersley had picked up saves in both games and was unavailable for this game.

Both teams sent good pitchers to the mound this afternoon. The Angels started Mike Witt and Bob Welch got the call for Oakland. But neither pitcher would figure in the decision.

Oakland jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first. Third baseman Carney Lansford led off with a triple to left. After Canseco walked, designated hitter Dave Parker singled home Lansford. McGwire followed with a single to score Canseco and make it 2-0.

Both teams tallied in the third. Butch Wynegar doubled for the Angels and moved to third on a Gus Polidor sacrifice and scored on a sacrifice fly from Johnny Ray. But Oakland answered in the bottom half with another RBI single from McGwire to score Canseco to make it 3-1 Oakland. Lansford had an RBI single in the fourth to make it 4-1.

The Angels tried to get back in to the game in the fifth. Devon White led off with a double and scored when McGwire couldn't handle Wynegar's grounder. After Welch balked Wynegar over, a ground out by Polidor and another sacrifice fly by Ray made it 4- 3 Oakland. But Oakland got the run back in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI single from Lansford.

In the sixth, the Angels put their offense into high gear. With one out, designated hitter Bill Buckner singled. Jack Howell grounded into a force play. But the third out would take a while. White singled Howell to second and Wynegar walked to load the bases. Mark McLemore batted for Polidor and drew a walk to make it 5-4. Ray singled to score White and it appeared that Doug Jennings' throw caught Wynegar at the plate, but Ron Hassey couldn't hold on to it and the Angels lead 6-5. Dick Schofield singled home McLemore to make it 7-5 and Oakland manager Tony La Russa brought in Greg Cadaret to relieve Welch. But Chili Davis singled in Ray and it was 8-5 before Wally Joyner made the last out.

Stewart Cliburn, who had missed the 1986 and 1987 seasons, came in to relieve Witt in the sixth and was able to use double plays to get out of minor jams in the sixth and seventh.

In the eighth, Lansford led off with his fourth hit of the game, this one a single to center. Cliburn walked Jennings and then gave up an RBI single to Canseco to make it 8-6 Angels. Rojas came to the mound and called for his nominal closer, Donnie Moore.

The first batter up was Parker and Moore was able to strike him out. McGwire followed and he struck out too. As Wynegar would say after the game, "Moore was throwing the [bleep] out of the ball." Up came Hassey, batting .120 at the time. Moore threw a 1-0 pitch right over the heart of the plate and Hassey crushed it over the right-field fence to put Oakland ahead 9-8. Gene Nelson, who entered the game in the eighth, set the Angels down 1-2-3 in the ninth to get the win.

Rojas was upset, to put it mildly, after the game. He and Angels GM Mike Port started looking for bullpen help after seeing it blow three straight late inning leads to Oakland. The Angels would turn to rookie Bryan Harvey, who would finish with 17 saves to lead the team and turn in several more good seasons in Anaheim. But the season was a disaster otherwise for the Angels. They would finish 75-87, losing their last 12 games of the season, nine of them with interim manager Moose Stubing in charge after Rojas was fired late in the year.

As for Oakland, it was a happier ending than the Angels. The Athletics went 104-58 and won the division by 13 games. Canseco was named the MVP of the American League with the first ever 40-40 season. Dave Stewart would win 21 games and Eckersley would save 45 games. It would have been a perfect year for Oakland if not for the pesky World Series.

Sources: Orange County Register, Los Angeles Times, Retrosheet

When watching ESPN's Bonds on Bonds reality show, you are reminded several time that the show is "ESPN Original Entertainment." And as I watched an episode of it, I thought to myself, "Is this entertaining?" Do I want to listen to what Barry Bonds has to say about how he didn't lie to a grand jury? How he didn't start any trouble with Jeff Kent? How he loves his family?

I don't really know. I can say that I didn't find the show to be completely without merit. But is listening to Barry Bonds talk compelling? Is listening to other people talk about Barry Bonds interesting? I'll put it this way, it's better than "Yes, Dear".

The episode I watched started with a sequence Bonds and how he works with two of his non-BALCO trainers. This was shown against the backdrop of the news about Bonds being investigated by a grand jury as well as heavy rain falling in San Francisco. So it's possible the director was showing the actual rain falling as metaphorical rain falling on Bonds as well. Or else I'm just trying to show off some pretentious understanding of filmmaking. I would bet on the latter.

There is also a sequence where Bonds is shown at home in Southern California with his family as the Giants were visiting L.A. for a 3-game series. Bonds is shown as a caring and doting father. Whether that is the case or he is just edited that way is for the viewer to ponder.

Various Dodgers fans are interviewed about their attitude about the Giants and Bonds. Needless to say, the people interviewed did not like the Giants or Bonds. Bonds also gave his opinion on how the rivalry between the Dodgers and Giants is perceived in each city and he thinks that L.A. fans take the rivalry more seriously. This may be because since 1993 Bonds has been receiving abuse from Dodgers fans in the left field pavilions at Dodger Stadium. I've always thought there was plenty of hatred to go around between both teams, but it's likely that the Dodgers draw a rougher crowd now than the Giants since AT&T Park has a much different type of crowd than Candlestick. Los Angeles has now become more of the blue collar crowd park than the fans in San Francisco. Ultimately, if you're looking for keen insights into the Dodgers-Giants rivalry over time, don't watch this show.

Finally, Bonds talks about his fight in the dugout in San Diego with Jeff Kent back in 2002. Bonds claimed to have no troubles with Kent prior to that time. Bonds' account of the event almost appears to be taken verbatim from Henry Schulman's story in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 26, 2002.

"David Bell and Jeff Kent started throwing F-bombs back and forth. Barry stuck up for David Bell. Jeff Kent then started going 'F-- you' to Bonds," according to a fan who provided only his first name, Scott. He was sitting in a small section of field-level seats that are practically inside the Giants' dugout. There is a clear view of the entire dugout from those seats.

Change that quote to the first person and you've pretty much got Bonds's statement on the matter.

At the end, we are given a preview of the next installment of the show, which will be highlighted by a fan throwing a tube of toothpaste (or sports gel, accounts vary) toward Bonds at Chase Field in Phoenix. And you can see Bonds meet players on the Arizona State baseball team. Ooh, compelling viewing....

Overall, what this show really needs is Bonds to hit some home runs. It might provide a bit more drama. A story of a man, hated by seemingly everybody, going after one of baseball's most cherished records. (Personally, I think baseball's most cherished record is F.P. Santangelo's record for most HBPs in a season by a switch-hitter, 25 in 1997.)

The show could be a lot more than it is. But it's pretty much just listening to Barry Bonds talking for 22 minutes or so about how rough he has it. And how he's misunderstood. Somehow, I don't see how that concept can hold up for how many weeks ESPN has this scheduled for.

Last year's AL Cy Young Award winner, Bartolo Colon went on the disabled list with inflammation in his right shoulder. Kevin Gregg was recalled to take his spot on the roster. Hector Carrasco will move in to the rotation.

For reasons I don't understand, "Zack Greinke" has been the most popular search term to reach this site. And I haven't posted anything about him this month I believe.

But now I will.

Greinke is working out in Arizona.

Greinke won't say exactly what his problem was, but he does mention working with a sports psychologist to deal with anxiety. I don't know if coming back to the Royals will relieve his anxiety.

No, not April 29 for the NFL. Who cares about that except Chris Berman and Mel Kiper Jr.'s hairstyling squadron?

No, it's the MLB First Year Player Draft for 2006.

The always exciting conference call will be held June 6-7.

The official order of the draft is found in the linked pdf.

You can "watch" live on MLB.com. I'll pass.

MLB says it will name the Nationals new owner soon. Maybe next week.

First thing I remember was askin' papa, why? ,
For there were many things I didn't know.
And daddy always smiled; took me by the hand,
Sayin', someday you'll understand.

Well, I'm here to tell you now each and ev'ry mother's son
You better learn it fast; you better learn it young,
'cause, someday never comes.

Taken from postings on the SABR-L listserv, check out how the Chicago Sun-Times runs boxscores online.

Good thing for the Cubs that their pitcher's last name started with a Z. But when David Aardsma appears, I suppose he becomes the leadoff man.

Tom Van Riper of Forbes states his case that baseball should have complete NFL-style revenue sharing.

The players don