More baseball?!?!?

Well, yes, actually. Last night I watched the All Star game from start to finish, including all of the opening and closing ceremonies, interviews and comments. That was a 'first' for me, and I'm really glad that I took the time to do so. Did any of you watch? Beautiful! Particularly the long segment where Fox was honoring 'all stars' from everyday walks of life who are making significant contributions to their fellow man. Inspirational and quite moving, I thought.

Hunter Pence (rf) and Miguel Tejada (ss) were our two representatives to the All Star game, and I thought Hunter could almost have jumped halfway up to the moon in his excitement. He was voted in by the players. A nice honor by his fellow outfielders. He didn't get to play, altho "Miggy" did, who acquitted himself nicely with good defensive plays and a couple of really solid swings at bat.

I was particularly interested in seeing for myself Roy Halladay's pitching prowess. Rumors were that he was on the trading block, and it would now seem that the rumors are true. 'Insiders' say that the owner is 'shopping around' for the best deal. Well, that cuts us (the Astros) out, altho Drayton has been known to throw good money around after bad! I'm not saying he'd be doing that in this case, but I was not that impressed.

The American League won this game by a final score of 4-3, and so they will once again have 'home field advantage' in the World Series. It was a good game. The AL made a couple more fantastic plays than we did, including an almost unbelievable catch in deep left and a 'leg triple' that subsequently led to the winning run.

One kind of funny story from last night's game. Roy Halladay didn't anticipate having an 'at bat' in the game, so he didn't pack his batting helmet. He had to borrow one. Rrvit!


A couple or three things I was noticing earlier today, when I was doing final recaps and noting current standings, upcoming schedules and so on ... ... 1) ALL of the teams in the American League East are "Off" tomorrow night (the resumption of regular schedules), and so all of them have an extra day to 'recuperate from' and celebrate their win. Doesn't seem fair, somehow! 2) In the National League East (where Patrick's Braves play), every single one of their next series is against opposing teams from within their own division. That'll be an interesting set of 4 games each to watch, won't it? (You will no doubt have noticed that I left out the Washington Nationals here, but I talked so much about them in my last post that I didn't feel the need to continue.)

3) ... ... Outside of the facts I mentioned in the preceding paragraph ... of the 18 dates between tomorrow night and August 2nd (I'll be doing my next recap of 'our club' on or about August 3rd), only the Philadelphia Phillies (from Patrick's NL East division) have all 18 scheduled! I thought that was noteworthy. And then I thought, "Well, let's see, who else in 'our club' has 18 dates scheduled?" You know how many? None, that's how many!

The Phillies would have had 'only' 17, but they have a makeup game in there vs. the Padres (rescheduled from 4/20) on July 23rd. Most of the members' teams in our club have either 16 or 17 games scheduled between now and August 3rd except for the Blue Jays, who have only 15. Wouldn't you just know it? What will Steven's Jays be doing on their extra day off? Contemplating their navels? Commiserating with each other? Calling up all of their lady friends? Seeing their chiropractor? Whaat?!? Geez, I would hope that they would be working on their basics -- pitching, hitting and fielding. Well, we'll see, won't we?


Tammy, check this site out for the latest 'wild card' standings. It's way, way, way too early to be talking about the wild card, but you asked - so, here it is. I'll talk about this neat little added feature to the major league playoff picture sometime later on down the line ... I promise!


I'm going to close today's post with an oldie - but most treasured goodie - from the YouTube files. Here you are, with Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?"