The National Pasttime
Most people of my generation have one remeberance of baseball, and that is the strike that cancelled the 1994 Wold Series. I am a huge baseball fan and was absolutely crushed by this turn of events. I could not believe that the owners and players would let their fight over the millions of dollars in revenue that MLB generates come to that. Most guys can go backwards and name the World Series Champions of the past few years, now, whenever you get back to 1994, there will always be the answer of there was no champion due to greed.
Baseball will now have an even bigger image problem to deal with, the image of their players as steroid freaks second only to the WWE. Baseball in this era will always be questioned by so called experts, and by people longing for "the good -old days". Well, I hate to break it to you but thoise days are long gone and mean absolutely nothing to the youth of today. I respect the players of the past, but I never saw them play. So Aaron’s record has as little meaning to me as someone who grew up watching Aaron’s record chase. Records when you think about them, are completely meaningless, I suppose they are kept for some sort of comparison between the years, but to me it does not really matter who the Home Run Champion is. Barry " Mr. Beef Steroid (allegedly) " Bonds will eventually be the home run champion, but it does not matter to me or to anyone outside of him. To many people but such emphasis on these records, like they are important in the grand scheme of life and the sport. Does no longer being the home run champion diminish what Aaron did? Does it make him any less of a great player? No, it does not.
MLB Predictions:
AL East - NY Yankees - It pains me to pick them, but they have spent the most money on it. Until the Sox or the Torontos take them out, they will be the champs of the East again. Hopefully the Sox stay healthy and push them till the end.
AL Central - Chicago White Sox - Too much pitching and lineup depth. Cleveland will give them a good run, but can you really pick a team that has only one knock-out pitcher in Sabithia. Minnesotta stil does not have enough bats. Do the other teams really really matter?
AL West - Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim close to Newport Beach and adjacent to Santa Barbra - Oakland is the trendy pick here but they have Milton Bradley on their team and he is just poison. Texas still has no pitching and until the Delluci trade had more outfielders than all other teams put together. What in the world has happened to Seattle? A few years back they won 112 games.
Wild Card - Boston Red Sox - More of a hope than anything else. Lots of If’s but if all the pieces stay together, than they will win going away. Cleveland and Oaklnad will be in the mix here.
NL East - Atlanta Braves - Until they lose how can you not pick them? The Mets have no pitching past a fragile Pedro and the fading Tom Glavine. Their lineup could be lethal, but they stil look lie a rotisseie team. The Phillies need all their pitching to outperform expectaions and Chase Utley and Ryan Howard need to continue to perfrom at their high level.
NL Central - St. Louis - too deep not to pick them. Houston needs the Rocket to come back to make a serious run. The Cubs need a healthy Wood and Prior, but we all know that is never going to happen. Milwaukee is too young and Ben Sheets can not stay healthy, maybe next year.
NL West - San Diego Padres - Does not really matter, as whoever wins this division will get killed by the Cardinals in the playoffs. Los Angeles just does not appear to be that good to me, San Fran has to hope Captain Beef-roid stays healthy and their old stars do not break down as the season goes on. Colorado still plays in Colorado so they will score tons of runs but destroy the confidence of their young pitchers.
Wild Card - NY Mets - They should have enough to get here. The Phillies and Houston and the Dodgers should be contending.
Playoffs:
Los Angeles over Yankees Cardinals over Mets
Red Sox over White Sox San Diego over Braves
Los Angeles over Red Sox Cardinals over Padres
World Series:
Cardinals over Los Angeles
