Intolerable (Interleague) Cruelty

"Please Mr. Selig, don't make me bat anymore."

I love baseball. I love the Red Sox. I love hot dogs at the ballpark. I love almost anything about America's great past-time. But...

I hate interleague play. Oh, let me count the ways...

1. Does ANYONE really want to see these pitchers hit? I mean I know many of them are pretty good athletes, but when you see them up there hacking away or lacksidaisically walking away with the bat on their shoulder you kind of wonder if the men batting were plucked from the fans in the stands. Good hitting pitchers are pretty much history by about Division III level college ball. Whatever ex-pitcher came up with this idea should be drug out in the street and shot.

2. The matchups that MLB comes up with make absolutely NO sense whatsoever - except for the odd Subway Series or Battle of the Bay stuff, these historical or "regional" (aka Minnesota vs. Pittsburg?) games are an absolute joke. Chipper Jones was right.

3. Just because you have to add the term "DH" to the lineup does NOT make the position insignificant regardless of what NL pundits may claim. No one wants to see Jim Thome or David Ortiz play first base any more than anyone wants to see Greg Maddux jiggle while he waves furiously at a blazing 82 mph changeup.

Shall I go on?

I must admit that PART of my disgust arises from the Red Sox' historically poor showing in this phase of the schedule - a trend that has gloriously reversed itself over the past few years. So instead of being about a .400 team versus the NL, Boston now has won something like 26 out of their last 31 interleague games. And I still don't like it. Doesn't that say something?

Even the word "interleague" suggests something almost smacking of political correctness - gee whiz! This is baseball! PLAY BALL! not politics. And for those lifelong NL "purist" fans who still drool over their hometown pitchers blowing away their visiting counterparts to the tune of 6-8% more strikeouts per year, I am guessing that you're mostly all Cubs fans or you still believe the team in D.C. is the Senators.

Rock on you DH-haters... we'll see you in the All-Star game.

This is getting bizarre...

...and I don't mind saying that this kind of weirdness makes me nervous.

The luck the Red Sox have had over the last week has been nothing short of yankee-like. Very much like the NY start to the season, the Red Sox have been statistically dominant in every category except wins lately.

Tonight is an interesting example...

Oakland starter Lenny DiNardo has held the Red Sox to only two hits but has walked 6 batters so far! The killer stat is this though: the Sox have hit into 4, yes FOUR double plays in 6 innings including two by almost-impossible-to-double Coco Crisp and one by hotter-than-hot Kevin Youkilis with the bases loaded.

Boston won't openly gripe about the scheduling SNAFU that forced the Sox to play two games inside of 24 hours with a cross-country trip in between, but I WILL. The one way to get a healthy team unhealthy and injury-prone is to tire them out. Forget the fact that the 2nd of the two games went 12 innings.

Get a clue MLB and kill these ridiculous travel expectations.

POST GAME NOTES:

Red Sox cannot score despite getting a total of 8 walks. They hit into 6 double plays - the weird Ortiz/Pedroia one doesn't count as an official one, but it was. DiNardo threw almost 2/3 of his pitches for BALLS and was basically just wild enough NOT to give Boston anything good to hit.

I had a feeling...

Alex Rodriguez HAD to have one of his homers count for something this season against the Red Sox. Gee whiz he picked a crummy time for it. The yanks hit exactly 3 balls hard last night: one of them tied the game against the most dominant reliver in MLB this season and one of them won it against the most dominant closer of the game today.

I woke up this morning and the first words I said to my wife were, "Well, the punk did it." She'd already read the article on Yahoo!Sports and knew exactly what I meant. Too bad. But then being 12.5 games up is still pretty sweet.

Fortunately for Red Sox fans the yanks haven't played anyone hard this year except us - and I say fortunately because if the Bombers had any semblance of this sort of effort versus the rest of the league they'd still be in the hunt for the playoffs. Now there is LOTS of time left this year... but, then who in the world is gonna say, "Yeah. We've got it in the bag now"?? Ha!

Well - it's on to Oakland and the sports world will have to wait until three months from now to resume the ulcer-inducing rivalry that is Boston vs. NY.

Bring on the Tums!!

I had a feeling...

Alex Rodriguez HAD to have one of his homers count for something this season against the Red Sox. Gee whiz he picked a crummy time for it. The yanks hit exactly 3 balls hard last night: one of them tied the game against the most dominant reliver in MLB this season and one of them won it against the most dominant closer of the game today.

Fortunately for Red Sox fans the yanks haven't played anyone hard this year except us - and I say fortunately because if the Bombers had any semblance of this sort of effort versus the rest of the league they'd still be in the hunt for the playoffs. Now there is LOTS of time left this year... but, then who in the world is gonna say, "Yeah. We've got it in the bag now"?? Ha!

Well - it's on to Oakland and the sports world will have to wait until three months from now to resume the ulcer-inducing rivalry that is Boston vs. NY.

Bring on the Tums!!

I'm getting sick of this...

...the Red Sox are absolutely hammering the ball against Andy Pettite tonight and as yet have nothing to show for it. Two balls hit would have been gone had the wind not been helping Pettite and five others have been smoked right at defenders... this is the kind of luck that usually ends up coming close to no-hit type games.

Meanwhile - the yanks have two bloops and an RBI off the glove of Julio Lugo. Geez...

Women's College World Series

I know you will all accuse me of extreme bias, but I think Tennessee's women got the shaft by the selection committee for the NCAA Division I Women's Softball Championships and College World Series. They got the overall #5 seed after the following season (stats not official - but I think I'm pretty darn close):

Ranked #1 (most of the time unanimously) every week (except week of May 4th) from Feb. 13th to end of season
Swept #1 Alabama (the team at #1 on May 4th) to clinch SEC regular season title
Record of 61-6 (so far)
Winning streaks of 20 and 26 games
Lost only one series all year
Lost two games in a row only once
First team in 6 years to sweep SEC perennial power Georgia in Athens
39 shutouts (including 4 streaks of at least 5 in a row)
8 no-hitters
4 perfect games
19 games shortened by the run rule

Now HOW do you drop them to #5 after losing a 1-0 game in the SEC tournament? I guess there's no respect for the SEC until they earn it it the WCWS.

And how has the velvet steamroller that is the Orange Crush doing despite the snub?

1. 1st team to no-hit U. Hawaii this season in super regional action
2. No-hit Texas A&M 2-0 in first game of WCWS
3. Beat defending champion Arizona 1-0 in second game of WCWS

Guess there's a little payback huh? Sound familiar? It should - my Lady Vols hoops squad took a small chip on their shoulder all the way to the National Title back in March Madness.

Keep it up Lady Vols! We'll be rooting for you all the way from New Hampshire!!