Kuzul

When it first counted, it did seem a decent idea.

Major League Baseball had a terrible way to award home-field advantage for the World Series. MLB simply alternated home-field advantage between the National League and American League every year. 

The NFL is again the leader of the sporting leagues with their neutral-site Super Bowl showcasing one American city a year. The NBA and the NHL play in a playoff-series format, just like the MLBs, so neutral sites would not work over seven games. In the NBA and NHL, the team with the better regular season record gets the home-site advantage.

That is what Major League Baseball needs to do: make World Series home-field advantage about regular-season records. You guys play 162 of them; shouldn’t those count for something?

It is always about ulterior motives, and the national pastime, under the reign of Bud Selig, has become riddled with hidden agendas. Fox wants to have the ratings the MLB All-Star Game had back in the day of only three channels. Each of the big channels hates the advent of cable, satellite and the Internet because they have all helped their ratings plunge when compared to previous eras.

Selig can never catch a break, either. The team he owns—er—used to own, the Milwaukee Brewers, were the host ballpark for the 2002 All-Star extravaganza . The game was competitive, and after twelve tied innings, with all of the pitchers exhausted, Selig called the game a tie.

It was not well received.

Panic usually causes the worst decisions. Fox panicked about the ratings, Bud panicked about the TV deal, and, suddenly, the All-Star Game’s winning league had home-field advantage in the World Series.

Some things seem so obvious that only hidden agendas could keep them from coming to reality. College football’s playoff system used to be the most glaring, but even that sport’s glacial movement toward modern times has increased.

The MLB All-Star Game will never have the passion of Pete Rose obliterating Ray Fosse. We will never see a Cal Ripken play all fourteen innings of a mid-summer classic. In trying to rekindle that passion, a horrible choice has been made to make the All-Star Game count for something. 

In retrospect, this is a minor issue for 28 teams, but I bet you that the Texas Rangers would have liked home-field advantage last year.

They earned it in my mind since they had a better record than the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals were a Wild Card team as well, and they still were able to host four World Series games over the division champion Rangers.

The MLB All-Star Game should just go back to being a fun exhibition game. Making it count for something has not been a good idea. Regular-season records should determine home-field advantage.

Every regular-season game has the chance of something special happening, and those games should be the reason that one team hosts Game 1 of the World Series.

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The Cincinnati Reds have been a dark-horse pick by a lot of fans for a few years and the team put it all together in 2010. Dusty Baker is now taking his third National League team into the playoffs.

Will this be the year he gets that ring?

The Reds offense, led by slugger Joey Votto and lead-off hitter Brandon Phillips, gets to face the toughest staff in the postseason in the Philadelphia Phillies.

If momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher then I love the Phillies’ momentum when they can throw out Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt.

The Reds are also a great story in that they were in the NL Central where the St. Louis Cardinals were prohibitive favorites. At the start of the season, I thought that there would be no way the Cards would not make the playoffs. Tony LaRussa dealt with a myriad of injuries and at the end of the season. They looked more like an old team than a title contender.

The Atlanta Braves are also a very nice story. They led the NL East over the Phillies for a good portion of the season until the Phils finally overtook them in September. Bobby Cox is back in the postseason in his final year as the Braves manager.

The collapse of the San Diego Padres was a real surprise in the last quarter of the MLB season. A team with a limited payroll that actually picked up some bats for their meek offense in July simply fell apart down the stretch. They did survive a 10-game losing streak with the lead but that skid allowed the San Francisco Giants to make up a lot of ground. 

The Giants and the Padres look like the same team: loaded with pitching but lacking in offense. Will the Giants get enough offense to get past the Braves in the NLDS?

It looks like the Braves and Phillies will meet in the NLCS. In 1993, the Phillies shocked the Braves in the NLCS so will the tables be turned 17 years later?

Why not? Look for the Braves to go on a magical run.

The American League was supposed to be dominated by the Yankees and Red Sox again. That has not been the case as Boston suffered through a horrible season of injuries. At a critical time of the season, the Yankees have big questions about their pitching.

CC Sabathia looks like a Cy Young winner but after that the Yankees might be in trouble. I am not going to worry about Mariano Rivera so if the Yankees do have late leads, they still have the hammer to close out the games.

The thing is, will they have late leads? The Twins are going to go without Justin Morneau but they have been without him since early July and they still played the best baseball in the fourth quarter of the season.

Morneau has been out with a concussion for three months. It really makes me fret for the NFL players who sit out a week after they suffer the same injury. I applaud the Twins and Morneau for putting safety first and the story worked out as the Twins are back in the playoffs.

But they have never beat the Yankees in the playoffs.

The Texas Rangers are back in the postseason for the first time since 1999. This is a franchise that has never won a playoff series and they get matched up with the Tampa Bay Rays. It is all about timing and Josh Hamilton’s injury could not have been at a worse time. This is a fun Ranger team that has a chance to make some noise and they have their best player returning from a rib injury.

No one ever said that life was fair.

Still, I like the Rangers to get past the Rays as Tampa Bay has no home-field advantage to speak of. They had to give away 20,000 tickets to “sell out” their moribund stadium after they clinched a playoff berth. Their catwalk also cost them a game this season and the rules have been modified to account for that quirk of Tropicana Field.

Now, the Yankees also have always beaten the Rangers in the playoffs but this is not the same Rangers team. I think that they will find a way to get past the Yankees as long as they don’t trail late in the game.

Josh Hamilton was the AL MVP but he won’t win it due to his late-season injury. I do expect him to have a huge impact in what will be a magical run by the Rangers.

I am a real sentimental guy and that makes it tough for me to go against Atlanta. I look for the Braves to finish off their magical season with a World Series win over the Texas Rangers.

Let’s now take one final look at the issue of parity in the MLB. 16 out of the 30 teams were at .500 or better. That is a very good sign of the health of the game. The Reds and Giants returning to the playoffs is also a good sign as well as the Padres staying in the race until the last day of the season.

The run of the Tampa Bay Rays is sadly coming to an end after this postseason. I do realize they have prospects aplenty in their farm system but losing the likes of Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena will have them in a temporary decline. Joe Maddon is a great manager and I hope he can keep this thing rolling in Tampa Bay.

The best farm system in baseball belongs to the Kansas City Royals. That means that the Royals might have a window opening soon to be relevant again. As a Cleveland fan, I do enjoy those windows and understand that we have to suffer through seasons like 2010 to get to those windows.

As a baseball fan, I sure wish that the windows for small market teams could stay open longer.

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The 2010 MLB season has really been great. With 17 out of 30 teams at or above .500, I have to admit that a form of parity does exist as I am seeing that form on the field.

And the surprises have been what have made this a great season.

The San Diego Padres, with a payroll ripped apart by the divorce of their owners, have been at the top of the National League all season. The Padres were even buyers at the trade deadline as they brought in the bat of Ryan Ludwick to help their lone superstar hitter in Adrian Gonzalez.

The pitching of the Padres has been amazing all year long and the main reason they have avoided any long losing streaks as they have put San Francisco and Colorado in their rear-view mirror.

LA Dodger fans should expect their team to be competitive through the looming divorce of their owners.

The National League is full of great story lines in the other two divisions as well.

In Bobby Cox’s last season, the Atlanta Braves have been out in front of the Philadelphia Phillies for most of the summer. The injury to Chipper Jones was a real shame as it might be a career ender.

It is simply amazing that Cox has managed Jones for his whole career. That would have to be the exception that proves the rule that coaches and managers are hired to be fired.

The Cincinnati Reds have been a real nice story as well. The Reds have been a dark horse pick for a few years now and they have kept it together as the season has reached the dog days. They survived the sweep by the St. Louis Cardinals and showed a ton of grit in what was a real brawl in a baseball game between the two rivals.

Most baseball fights are like a party where no chicks show up.

The American League has the Texas Rangers for their nice storyline. In a year when the LA Angels looked to be ripe for the taking, the Rangers have gone out and taken the AL West.

The Tamp Bay Rays look to be the Wild Card team and they are truly a loaded team. From manager Joe Madden, to their ace pitcher David Price, to their potent line-up, the Rays have everything in place for another deep run in the post season.

The Boston Red Sox have been a nice story as they have dealt with an incredible amount of injuries and found a way to stay competitive.

The American League East is a monster division. The Baltimore Orioles have a new skipper in Buck Showalter, but they seem to be years from competing for anything more than fourth place.

Thank goodness Cleveland landed in the AL Central when the league realigned. The Indians are in the process of rebuilding and might be a good team in a few more years.

That is my complaint about the lack of parity in that the same teams always seem to be on top of their divisions, and the little guys like Cleveland have these tiny windows where they can rise up and utterly rip out the hearts of their fans.

I still am upset with Jose Mesa, thirteen years later. Tony Fernandez could have made that play too.

It could be worse, the Pirates are setting records with their prolonged run of futility. And then there are the Chicago Cubs. Not even a great baseball man like Lou Piniella could guide them to the promised land and now he is moving on to the next part of his life.

Sweet Lou will be missed.

I should have been a Yankee fan, those guys always win and they should beat the National League team in the fifth game of the 2010 World Series.

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The pitching numbers have been staggering as the baseball season hits its mid-point.

There have been two no-hitters as well as two perfect games thrown. Then there was the perfect game that was not in Detroit thanks to Jim Joyce.

Travis Wood and Ted Lilly also had no-nos going into the ninth inning before they were broken up.

Ubaldo Jimenez is at 15-1 with a 2.20 ERA as the ace of the Colorado Rockies staff. He is putting up these amazing numbers while pitching in Coors Field.

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The big story of the start of the baseball season would be the great starts by Tampa Bay, San Diego, Cincinnati and Washington.

The other big stories are off the field tales of Hall of Fame players napping and teens getting tasered.

The big debate is about parity. As of right now, there are fifteen teams that are .500 or better. That is great news for those who argue that parity does exist.

I hope that the Tampa Bay Rays cool off and are not in contention for the World Series.

MLB looks terrible when the team that wins it all has to dismantle due to their revenue shortcomings. The end is already on the horizon for Tampa Bay as Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena will be leaving next year for the big free agent money.

The Rays are a nice story, but they are also a sign of what is wrong with baseball. Parity does not exist because small market teams have to win in certain windows and then return to the pack.

A salary cap and salary floor would give this TampaBay team a shot at running off a few titles but they will soon be like the Florida Marlins of 1997 and 2003.

That is if they win the World Series. If they don’t win it all then they will be like the Cleveland Indians from 1995-1999 and 2007.

The Yankees might be trailing the Rays but they are a playoff team. Whether they win the division or take the wild card, does anyone want to face their three man rotation Of CC Sababthia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Petitte or Phil Hughes?

It took three last year to get them the title, they might go to a four man rotation for the 2010 playoffs.

The Red Sox Nation is wondering if it is too early to panic. The two best teams in the American League are in your division in the Rays and Yankees. The shift from offense to pitching and defense has been a slow transformation.

Their offense is still solid and the pitching and defense should come around. Having a healthy center-fielder would help too.

After one quarter of the season, panic should not happen. There is room for improvement though, that is fair to say.

The Twins are a tough minded, competitive team and the loss of Joe Nathan didn’t worry me. Joe Mauer got hurt too and they just plugged in another prospect who played well.

They are the team to beat in the AL Central.

The White Sox, like the Red Sox, wanted to shift to a more pitching and defense approach. It has not translated to a good first quarter of the season.

The White Sox have a good offense and solid pitching. They should be able to catch the Tigers in the AL Central. The Twins might be able to runaway and hide though.

The Seattle Mariners were thought to be a dark horse team this year but they turned out to be a horse apple team.

They will have two stories this summer:

Ken Griffey possibly napping through a pinch-hitting appearance and that story is already winding down.

Which contender will trade for Cliff Lee.

And now onto the National League.

It is very hard to watch a baseball player of Hanley Ramirez’s stature dog it like he did against Arizona.

If you are too hurt to play then sit but if you are out there then please give more than token effort.

And for him to take a stand on an apology is absurd. Say you are sorry and play the game right from this point on.

The Marlins and Mets are close to Philly but does anyone really think that the Phillies will stay close to the other NL East teams?

The Nationals are above .500 and they also have their phenom pitcher on the way. For an obscure franchise like Washington, they could not have had a better first quarter of the season.

The Reds didn’t come out great at the start but they have weathered an average start to rise to first place in the NL Central.

Another nice small-market story where the team has drafted well and their young players are producing. Can they compete with the mighty Cardinals all season long?

Now in the NL West, the Padres don’t have a big team on the block to contend with so they might have a shot to stay in this race all year long.

All in all, this has been a very nice baseball season so far. This is the high point of parity though as the number of teams playing out the string already, like Cleveland, Kansas City, Baltimore, Houston and Arizona, will only increase.

Is it really parity when a small market team like Cincinnati competes for a few years then has to rebuild for a decade? I don’t think so when a team like Boston can struggle mightily then add pieces in the off-season while Tampa Bay will have to draft their replacement for Carl Crawford.

It is not true parity rather the illusion of parity. Illusions can come to be but it takes more than a quarter of an MLB season for that to happen.

I am pulling for the Pittsburgh Pirates to finish at .500 or better for the first time since 1992. They peaked at 7-7 but are six games under .500 right now so they are going to earn it if it happens for them this year.

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