Baseball Roundup

Bronx to host '08 All-Star Game in old Yankee Stadium's last year

Unnamed sources within Major League Baseball have unofficially announced that Yankee Stadium will host the 2008 All-Star Game. You'd think I would be excited about it.

I'm not.

I'm actually a little pissed off. The last time the Bronx had an All-Star Game was in 1977, the year after the Stadium was remodeled. Venues for the Midsummer Classic were picked by alternating AL and NL parks, and cities with new ballparks got preference. Now that the Yankees and New York City have finally reached an agreement on a new stadium, MLB decides that they'd rather have one last look at the old park. It's like having an old relative who doesn't keep in touch suddenly wanting to visit you when you're about to move to a better place.

And then the question becomes, "When do the Mets get to show off the new pad?"

The same story that announced MLB's plans for the '08 All-Stars has the 2009 edition earmarked for St. Louis. This leaves Queens's earliest possibility at 2011. Would the Commissioner's office really vouch for two All-Stars to be held in New York City in such close proximity? Given its contempt for large markets, the answer is most likely "No."

A rookie or not?

This week, Baseball America and ESPN's Alan Schwarz wrote an article for ESPN outlining his predictions for potential Rookies of the Year. First he offered a definition (actually the definition as defined by voting guidelines) of a rookie:

Like it or not, Daisuke Matsuzaka, eight-year veteran and 108-game winner in the Japanese Leagues, has officially pressed the reset button, kicked out the cord, and is rebooting as far as the major leagues are concerned. It doesn't matter that Hideo Nomo, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro Suzuki made mockeries of the official Rookie of the Year awards in their first seasons after coming west.

That's all well and good, but let's not forget that Hideki Matsui was left off some Rookie of the Year ballots completely in his "rookie" year of 2003. The writers who declined to vote for "Godzilla" claimed that he wasn't a pure rookie, being a seasoned veteran from the Japan Leagues.

Will Daisuke Matsuzaka be held to the same standard? Will he be good enough to put this potential hypocrisy to the test? I'm not so curious as to wish Matsuzaka well to find out.

Prosecutor investigating BALCO forced to resign

U.S. attorney Kevin Ryan, who has headed the investigation on the BALCO steroid distribution ring, was among a group of federal prosecutors who announced their resignations. There has been talk that the White House is pressuring these prosecutors to resign so Washington can appoint "interim" attorneys without Senate confirmation and no term limits, thanks to last year's USA Patriot Act reauthorization.

The provision in the Patriot Act was a last-minute addition by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA). What a schmuck.

Un-American to cheer for the Bears?

Rush Limbaugh took issue with Illinois Senator and potential presidential candidate Barack Obama for saying that New Orleans's football season was all but over. This is a reference to the upcoming Conference Championship between the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears. The Saints have become something of a feel-good story given New Orleans's plight with Hurricane Katrina. Rush Limbaugh feels that Obama's comments are insensitive given that the Saints are "America's team."

Limbaugh thinks that it was politically incorrect to trash talk the Saints. Really, Rush? You mean like suggesting that Donovan McNabb's fame was due to the media overcrediting him for his team's success to fuel the media's own desire for an African-American quarterback to do well? I was just waiting to hear in the news that some right-wing asshole suggested McNabb an affirmative action hire.

Umm, so does this mean that it was un-American to root against the Yankees throughout the playoffs and World Series in 2001? Is Luís González an asshole for daring to get a bloop hit off Mo Rivera over a drawn-in infield? Or is this just Limbaugh's pathetic attempt to lead his audience away from the fact that the Bush administration was slow to provide relief to the citizens of the Gulf Coast, FEMA was incompetent in their efforts to do the same, and Sen. Joe Lieberman is backing down from his vow to use his position as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to investigate the administration's handling of the situation.

The conservatives are cringing at the very idea that a brown man might be President. Play the clip below to hear Rush spin this non-story.