Baseball Fever - Catch It!

It all begins tonight. The Phils and Dodgers get their NLCS rematch underway at Chavez Ravine. Dodger Stadium will host game 1 tonight for the right to represent the National League in the World Series. The Yankees will begin their series tomorrow in game 1 of the ALCS versus the LA Angles.

The Phillies, defending World Series Champs will throw ace Cole Hamels up against 21-year-old left-hander Clayton Kershaw. Hamels took the loss in Game 2 of the NLDS but may have a bit of an excuse as his wife went into labour during the game. After he was taken out he was notified and was rushed to the hospital. Hamels said: "Best cop ride I had ever been a part of when I wasn’t in the back, Just being able to be there with my wife and my family and then to go through that process of the labor and then all of a sudden the birth -- it was definitely an emotional day." He may be a little more focused this time around and will have to be facing a difficult Dodgers lineup.

Don’t discount the young arm that LA is throwing out there, Kershaw has shown that he may be big time and deserving to take the ball in game 1.

What is interesting but not necessarily a good thing, all 4 teams involved in the LCS’s have payrolls that surpass $100M. It is good that they seem to have spent their money wisely enough to get to this point but it also reminds us that in baseball you seem to need to spend money to compete.

In any event it is October and it is baseball and that is truly what is important. This is time for baseball fever and unlike the Swine Flu this fever is ok to catch!

Gagne - Not The Pride Of Canada Anymore

Former Cy Young Award winner Eric Gagne has signed with the Quebec Capitales of the independent Can-Am League. This is quite a fall from grace for the Canadian pitcher that was at one time the most dominant pitcher in the game. Too bad that the Ottawa Rapidz folded. It would have been great to go to Lynx Stadium for a chance to heckle him behind his back and try and hang out with him and be fake to his face.

Gagne began as a starter while in Los Angeles but was a colossal failure. I remember that he was referred to as a "Piece Of Crap" weekly if not daily on the Jim Rome Show. He was then moved to the pen where he became the Dodgers closer and quickly began dominating the National League, rattling off a record 84 consecutive saves. He was basically untouchable during that stretch. At this point he was praised for turning his career around and becoming a dominant force. If the storey ended there he may have had some play for post career awards, sadly it does not. A series of arm issues and shoulder problems kept cropping up and made him very vulnerable to the opposition. After teams kept wasting big money on this known risk and signing him on the basis of long past good performances they ended up getting what they deserved . Texas, Boston, Milwaukee this means you.

On December 13, 2007, Gagné was listed in the Mitchell Report and has been linked to HGH. So it is now pretty clear on why he was so good during that stretch and why he was so bad early as a starter and then all of a sudden he was "re-discovered" as a dominant closer. I guess that is what happens when you are cheating (allegedly). We will see if his attempted comeback as a starter will work out but he has one huge hill to climb.

MAN-SHAM!

When they say that it is Just Manny Being Manny I don’t think this is what they had in mind.

In shocking news LA Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez has been suspended immediately for 50 games after testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance. Up until this point there was never a finger pointed toward Manny and his name was never in the forefront. Who would have thought that Manny would get suspended while ARod has not, despite much publicised reports of past use. Of all the players that could suffer the wrath of the performance-enhancing crackdown one would think that Manny and Albert Pujols would be the 2 biggest and most unlikely to become linked. There has not been much attention given to either of these two but at least in Manny’s case there is.

In the Steroid era I guess nothing should be surprising but I find this, for lack of a better term a little shocking just because Manny is such a pure hitter. I stress hitter, not power hitter. He has one of the best eyes in all of baseball, the most patients at the plate and probably the smoothest right handed swing of all time. Of all the superstars who may or may not be using one would have thought that Manny wouldn’t need it. I mean if he doesn’t have the same power numbers he is still going to be a dominant hitter. Why take the risk of killing your reputation. You are not going to make more money then you are already making. How big must your ego be to jeopardize your career and place as one of the games all time bests? Is it due to injury or rehab, perhaps but how could we ever know for sure.

You can be sure that Theo Epstein and the Boston Red Sox are glad to have Jason Bay in left and not Man-Ram. I don’t think he will be getting too much support in this matter from Beantown that’s for sure.

This only goes to prove that no one can be above suspicion and that the drug cloud is still looming over baseball.

I feel bad for those who actually do it right and do it clean...but I guess how do we know if there are any in the game that are, how can we not paint everyone with the same brush?