MLB recently received two black eyes due to the incidents in Houston between Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon and GM Ed Wade and the other incident also being in Houston, but this time on the visitor's side between Red Sox LF Manny Ramirez and Boston's travelling secretary Jack McCormick.

The Houston Astros Incident

The Astros incident arose when Chacon had a physical altercation with his GM where the player shoved his GM to the ground. The ESPN story tell of how the GM Wade asked the player Chacon to come into the manager's office (Cecil Cooper) when Chacon proceeded to shove Wade to the ground during an a confrontation when Chacon refused to enter his manager's office.

The Boston Red Sox Incident

The Boston incident was another argument that ended with the shoving to the ground of a club employee by a player. This time it was over tickets. A team's travelling secretary is the person who can get players tickets for family and friends on the road, when possible. The players usually get allotted tickets for each road game and it is the job of the travelling secretary to act as the team's concierge. This time Ramirez had asked for 16 tickets on game day and when McCormick told him that it might not be possible, the ESPN story, based on the original story in the Providence Journal, said that a confrontation began and ended with Ramirez shoving McCormick (who's around 30 years older than Ramirez) to the ground. Ramirez has since apologized and the team has said to have handled this incident internally.

My Thoughts

Personally, I have no problem with these teams penalizing these players. In fact, in the case of the Red Sox, I don't think that they were as strict as they should have been with Ramirez or if they were, they kept it very quiet. Ramirez recently had an altercation with teammate and Red Sox 1B Kevin Youkilis in the Boston dugout during a game against the Rays where Ramirez slapped Youkilis in the face. Given the fact that the team has explored their options of parting company with the left fielder in the past (they had once tried to release him outright a few years ago, but no one claimed him) and these two incidents and I wouldn't be surprised if they do not pick up the club option for him for 2009.

In general, I am disturbed at how professional athletes, who are in the public eye, behave. To me, although they are just regular people with special athletic ability, they should still be more aware of their influence on society and therefore, handle themselves more appropriately. Now maybe I'm speaking like the father of six that I am, but also as a fan of the game who wants to see it played with respect, these incidents concern me. If I care about the sport, they should concern me. Most younger players don't seem to have as much respect for the game as players once did. Maybe it's the money or maybe it's the agents, which indirectly is also about the money or maybe it's just how teams and ownership treat the players now given the higher investments they have in their product as opposed to in years past.

MLB is getting stricter with its drug policy and the next step should then be a crackdown on incidents like these in an attempt to protect the integrity of the game from its reckless youth in which it relies so heavily on. Maybe the minors should implement a program on the history of the game with an emphasis on a healthy respect of the game that we all love.

What do you all think?

This week's Baseball Links Exchange will focus on Out in the Desert, an MVN site on the Arizona Diamondbacks authored by Devin Jessup and Nicholas Cote.

Here is the author's bio on Nick from the Authors page (Devin doesn't have a listed bio here):

Nick is currently in his senior year at Providence College, where he studies political science and serves as president of the Debate Society and vice president of the political science honor society. When not at school in the middle of Red Sox Nation, Nick resides in Las Vegas, making his love for the Diamondbacks a bit more manageable. He spends far too much time in front of the television.

The Diamondbacks are a team that I really like. I like the direction they are taking as an organization (the youth movement) and I like the way they play and they have a young GM in Josh Byrnes, too. In my opinion, all they need to be a serious contender is a veteran presence in the clubhouse, preferably a player in the starting line up. A player in the Derek Jeter mold would be a positive influence and may just give them the confidence they need to go deep into the playoffs.

I picked this MVN (Most Valuable Network) hosted blog due to the quality that the people at MVN produce. Check them out by either clicking HERE or any of the other three of their links on this page. Enjoy!

Atlanta's 1B Mark Teixeira hit 6 HRs last week while driving in 11 runs and hit .429 with an OBP of .571 to take this past week's top spot for hitter of the week.

The Rays' rookie sensation had another good week hitting 4 HRs while driving in 12 runs of his own and he hit .424 with a stolen base.

Number three on this list with 3 stolen bases is Yankee OF Bobby Abreu. His complete line was 6/2/9/3/.478/.571 (R/HR/RBI/SB/BA/OBP).

The 4th & 5th guys on this list both play for the Sox and had 2 stolen bases. They are Boston's minuete 2B Dustin Pedroia and White Sox RF Jermaine Dye.

Rounding out the bottom 5 of this top 10 list are Met's 3B David Wright, Toronto 3B Scott Rolen, Rays' LF Carl Crawford, Mets' 1B Carlos Delgado and Boston's 3B Mike Lowell.

Player Tm Pos R HR RBI SB Avg OB% Totals

Mark Teixeira ATL 1B 8 6 11 0 .429 .571 26.000

Evan Longoria TB 3B 8 4 12 1 .424 .444 25.868

Bobby Abreu NYY OF 6 2 9 3 .478 .571 21.049

Dustin Pedroia BOS 2B 8 2 5 2 .594 .606 18.200

Jermaine Dye CWS OF 6 2 7 2 .423 .500 17.923

David Wright NYM 3B 5 3 9 0 .417 .483 17.900

Scott Rolen TOR 3B 5 3 9 0 .360 .448 17.808

Carl Crawford TB OF 7 3 6 1 .273 .314 17.587

Carlos Delgado NYM 1B 4 3 10 0 .138 .242 17.380

Mike Lowell BOS 3B 7 1 8 0 .500 .545 17.045

I haven't had much to say for a while. Why the long silence? Well, I wanted to put some distance between myself and the World Series before commenting on it.

Now that it's been a couple of weeks, I have something to say. I've been knocking around for the last 12 days feeling like something is missing from my life. It finally dawned on me that keeping up with the baseball playoffs has been the equivalent of a part-time job! No wonder I get to the evenings and can't figure out what to do with myself. I've been heading off to bed as early as 8 or 9pm! The season is over, yet my soul isn't satisfied! I've been spending the last few days trying to decide why that is. . .

In many ways, it was a great season. The down-to-the-wire races in the National League really set the stage for a great playoff show. I was expecting each series to be claw-your-way-to-the-next-level style baseball. Instead, it was sweep, sweep, and more sweep in both the division and league championship series. With the exception of the Boston-Cleveland series, which went 7 games, the other battles remained lop-sided. And then the Rockies, who emerged victorious after their consecutive sweeps in the National League play-offs, were completely bowled over by the Red Sox in the World Series.

I can sum up baseball's need to deliver a quality post-season with 3 words, quoted from the movie Field of Dreams:

GO THE DISTANCE!

The World Series championship will inevitably be awarded to the team whose pitching staff, offense and defense can endure the 3 extra high pressure series which make up the post-season (this amounts to potentially 19 additional games-nearly 12% of a regular season). We're talking about a month's worth of overtime here. Unfortunately, some teams are up to the task and some are not. There have been occasional teams who have won it all without much post-season experience as a whole ( Florida Marlins in 2003). But for the most part, playing in the post-season is like parenting. No matter how much you try to plan in advance, there is nothing that can prepare you except for the actual experience. That's when you find out if you have what it takes. This year, Colorado didn't. They were running on adrenaline and momentum (huge factors in sports). But, when the adrenaline settled down, there was no picking it back up to face Boston with the playoff experience and confidence the Red Sox have accumulated. The Rockies could consider 2007 their "first child" and hopefully learn from their mistakes this year. Perhaps 2008 will give them their 2nd child to put into practice what they missed this time around. The same could be said for Arizona and Philadelphia. If these teams can prepare themselves to go the distance, which means potentially 181 games, we will have a World Series that the whole country can enjoy and savor all post season.

That is NOT what we are left with here in the early days of November 2007. It is what needs to be addressed. The fall classic has got to be a matchup of the best of the best. I'm looking for a nail-biting, low scoring feast of all that makes baseball great. I don't want to be distracted from it to discuss which manager was let go or which player is opting out of his contract. I want to be so entranced by the series that I don't care about the future of eliminated teams. I want pure, unadulterated baseball that has the stamina to go the distance. World Series sweeps should be rare and special. When they're common, it's no good for baseball. The World Series has been swept 5 out of the last 10 years- 3 out of the last 4!!

However, I will allow this: major league baseball as a whole still has work to do and that is a good thing. The World Series and the playoffs would be meaningless if they didn't give us a taste of the amazing stamina needed to win. The World Series is still the biggest stage of baseball. The playoffs are so critical that every inning has meaning and consequence. The post season is set up so that no one can reach, let alone win, the fall classic on a fluke. There is a high standard set. This aspect is good for baseball. The clout of the World Series title is exactly where it should be: reachable only by the teams with the most stamina when it matters, the teams able to play under the most strain and pressure. I'm looking for October matchups that go the distance. I'm looking for a few good teams. Who will deliver?

Fair Warning: This is one of my major league pet peeves!

The use of the modern day bullpen is a sore point with me. In my opinion, this practice is holding baseball back from gaining more widespread popularity. In order to gain more attention, all unnecessary down time needs to be eliminated. It is my opinion that the length of the games prevents people from becoming fans. The game can be just too darn long for the non-fan to cope with. One of these bottlenecks is the unnecessary use of bullpen "specialists" (I use that term loosely). A "specialist" is a pitcher who comes in just to face one batter and then is replaced by another pitcher who happens to throw with the other arm.

If you are a major league pitcher, you should be able to get out major league batters no matter which batter's box they're standing in! This is a situation where I throw Sabermetrics out the window. To me this was the idea of a few managers, which worked so well at the time that everyone jumped on the bandwagon to the point where this practice has become the norm for the modern day bullpen.

This development, as best as I can pin point it, started sometime in 1987 with the

Oakland A's when they converted SP Dennis Eckersley into a closer. He only got 16 saves that year, but it was a turning point in baseball history. I don't blame Eckersley, I blame the way in which he was used. I blame, right or wrong, Tony LaRussa! I also admit that it was and is a very successful method for getting batters out, but at what price, long-term for baseball? One inning and out granted Eckersley and all other closers who followed him, a "save". It has gotten to the point where one can gain a save even in a 30-3 game! Before this, closers went at least 2 or 3 innings per save. Guys like Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, Tug McGraw, Hoyt Wilhelm, Sparky Lyle and Dick Radatz, to name a few. They came to the rescue in close game situations and shut down the opposing team and they broke a sweat doing it! Every now and then, you see someone used the way those guys were used; Mariano Rivera, one of the best modern day closers is known for his occasional 2 or 3 inning saves. We even saw young Jonathan Papelbon going multiple innings in 2007 (especially in the post season). I'll speak on this topic again when I address the problems with the saves rule, but for now, let's get back to bullpen "specialists".This is what Wikipedia has to say about Left Handed Specialists:

In baseball, a left-handed specialist (also called, somewhat derisively, a LOOGY or Lefty One Out Guy) is a left-handed relief pitcher who specializes in getting left-handed or poor right handed switch batters out. These pitchers will commonly only pitch to a very small number of batters in each outing (often just one), and rarely to straight right-handed batters. Most Major League Baseball teams have a couple of left-handed pitchers in their bullpens, one of whom is probably a left-handed specialist.

Why not just bring in the best pitcher you have, outside of your closer, to pitch to the next few players coming up to bat in order to get out of an inning. I don't mind if teams bring in a new pitcher to start an inning, but to break up the flow of the game by allowing a pitcher to just face one batter seems silly to me. It always has and it always will. So my conclusion is that teams should do a better job in setting up their bullpens so that they are staffed with pitchers who can get batters of any type out and use closers in a way that most benefits their team, not just in the ninth inning against the other teams 7- 8 and 9 guys. Even a "specialist" can get those guys out!

A word to lefty and righty specialists out there: learn how to pitch to get guys out no matter which batter's box they stand in and let's just play ball!

In early October when I started this blog, Nathan, a reader asked what my opinion was on the use of pitch counts in major league baseball. Sorry for the delay Nathan!This topic, like the use of modern day Bullpens, are both subjects that I definately have an opinion on. Both of these articles show my "Old School" thinking on baseball. I guess you can say that I'm sort of a hybrid baseball thinker. So here it goes...

It is my opinion that there is a good use for pitch counts in major league baseball, but only in certain circumstances. To use them across the board like teams do these days is a bit too extreme if you ask me! I think it is an intelligent practice when used for pitchers that have arm or shoulder problems, are in spring training, are older or are in rehab assignments. I understand that with player's salaries the way they are today, that ownership wants to protect their investments by proecting their pitchers. One way of doing this is by implementing this method of using pitch counts. Even given this understanding, I still don't agree with the over use of this method. Teams are not optimizing their talent, but instead are being overprotected of all of their pitchers, not just the stars of their pitching staffs.

For example, I have no problem using pitch counts if a player is coming off arm or shoulder surgery of any kind (rotator cuff, Tommy John, etc.). I think that the use of pitch count in limiting a pitcher's duration in a game in this situation is a wise move. Pitchers are prideful creatures that would rather have their arm fall off than be taken out of a game in the middle of an inning (for the most part). In this situation, if you don't use pitch counts, you chance the player re-injuring the sugically repaired arm or shoulder. Other good times to use this method are with rookies who have yet to pitch in a 162 game season or in aging players who are struggling to stay healthy over the same 162 games that use to NOT cause them a problem in years past. For an example of this, see Roger Clemens, this is why he hasn't started until around May the past few years. Although he is a shoe in for a first ballot Hall of Fame selection, his body just hasn't allowed him to play a full season without giving up on him in August or September when it counts the most! All other use of this method, in my opinion, is overkill!

To the best of my knowledge, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but what happens when this method is adopted is that pitchers (in general) no longer throw on the side, in warm ups or at any other times like they use to in years past. American pitchers simply do not throw enough!. In order to get their arms to full strength and possibly to even strengthen them, you have to throw. Don't just take my word on it, he's what some men currently in the game professionally have said concerning the use of pitch counts.

In Japan, they approach things a little differently. Here is part of an article I found last off season where Tom Verducci, in the Sports Economist (from 8/7/07), asked former major league manager Bobby Valentine, naow a manager in Japan for a number of years, about how they handle pitchers over in the Japanesse Baseball League.

Valentine ... admits that he too coddled pitchers in the majors, though it took understanding the Japanese throwing philosophy for him to see the error of that ccepted practice. "The Japanese pitchers have superior mechanics," Valentine says. "They also have wonderful balance and core and foundation strength. They work the small muscle groups, and [Americans] work the large ones. The large ones make you look better. Valentine allows most of his starters to throw 200 bullpen pitches a day in the spring. "They have been doing it forever and have not broken down," he says. On the day before a starter takes the mound, he'll throw 90 pitches in the pen and, Valentine says, "have [his] best fastball in the ninth inning" the next day.

It is my hope that Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Boston Red Sox can help drill this Japanesse approach into our American minds & help change the way that teams in the MLB use pitch counts. He can influence a change in approach by keeping up with his routine while being a very effective major league pitcher.

In an article from USA Today's My Wire on 9/17/04, then Atlanta Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone had this to say about pitch counts and he's still one of the most respected (yet "Old School") pitching coaches in the game today.

"We pay attention to pitch counts, but there are a bunch of priorities ahead of pitch counts," says Atlanta's Leo Mazzone, one of the best pitching coaches. "You use common sense. What if a guy's out there, he's got a hundred pitches and he isn't tired? There might be a time when a guy has less than 90 pitches and is shot. A guy's face, his mound presence, his mechanics are going to tell me much more than any pitch count."

**For anyone who disagrees with me on this, please chime in & if enough people do so, I'll publish those comments outside of the comment section as a later post or as an extention of this post (at the bottom).**

It's time to give the set-up men their own statistic again. Let's reinstate the Major League Hold. After all, ESPN still lists it in their box scores. Seriously though, something needs to be done, statistically speaking, to differentiate a set-up man from a specialist (in just to face one batter). In some cases, a Hold can be even more important than a save (in my opinion). Look at it this way, what situation would you rather have your best reliever pitch in? A ninth inning against a team's 7-8-9 hitters or in the 7th or 8th inning of a close game with the 3-4-5 hitters due up? Which scenario is more important? Unless you're facing the 2008 (don't laugh, wait until it gets warmer) Tigers, Indians or Yankees; I'd rather bring in my best RP to face the 3-4-5 hitters and then throw my second or third best RP for 9th inning clean up duty.

By now, some of you might be asking, "What on God's green earth is a Hold anyway?". Well, according to Baseball Prospectus, "A Hold is credited any time a relief pitcher enters a game in a Save Situation, records at least one out, and leaves the game never having relinquished the lead." (as found in their Glossary; also seen as "HOLD", "H" or "Hld").

Others, after reading that definition, might then be led to ask, "Ok, not I know what a HOLD is, but can you clarify what a save opportunity is while you're at it?" Sure, but this time we'll look to ESPN's MLB Statistics Glossary which states, "A Save opportunity is when a pitcher 1) enters the game with a lead of three or fewer runs and pitches at least one inning, 2) enters the game with the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on deck, or 3) pitches three or more innings with a lead and is credited with a save by the official scorer". Does that help? Good! Now let's move on.

This is where guys like San Diego's Heath Bell, the Dodger's Jonathan Broxton, Boston's Hideki Okajima, the D'Back's Brandon Lyon, Washington's Jon Rauch and the Indian's Rafael Betancourt stand out above the rest. This will probably mean higher salaries for these men, but it may just be worth it. They may start getting close to "closer" type money if this happens.Another option, written about by ESPN's Jason Stark last year entitled, "Time to amend the save stat" (look for it in his archives, Here) would call for the tweaking of the Hold and calling it a STOP, but I tend to like calling it a Hold. I also do not agree with most of what Mr. Stark writes in this article, but it did get me thinking on the topic, which is a good thing. I do, however, think that the Hold stat, as it is currently, could be improved upon.



Another good piece, this time written on the "Save", also led to me writing this article. "Evolving the Save Rule" by then Baseball Prospectus author David Pinto was written back on August 8, 2007 in his weekly spot called, "The Big Picture". David Pinto's Baseball Prospectus archives can be found by clicking Here. He now writes periodically for The Sporting News Online, Here as well as on his own blog, Baseball Musings.

*As always, please share your thoughts or concerns on this topic in the comments section below.*

The first firing of the 2008 season was Reds GM Wayne Krivsky back in April. Then in June we have seen the firing of Seattle GM Bill Bavasi and Mets Manager Willie Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach Tom Nieto. Now there's rumors swelling around that Seattle is going to release 1B Richie Sexton outright.

What or Who's Next?



Could Padres manager Bud Black be the next manager on the chopping block? After falling out of the Wild Card spot in a one game playoff game last year and the unexpectedly horrid start to the 2008 season up to mid-June you'd have to wonder. Maybe their recent rise out of last place has kept his job alive for a while longer, but if they don't make a run at first place, he may be next.

Will Griffey or Adam Dunn finish the season as a member of the Reds? Will the Yankees come back to challenge the Rays and the Red Sox for fist place in the AL East?

What do you think?

Grady's Ladies must be proud of their guy (that's Indian's CF Grady Sizemore, not Grady Little) after this past week's performance as he topped this week's list of Top 10 MLB hitters for week 11. On second though, I think that his being on top of this list is probably icing on the cake as far as these ladies are concerned. They love him no matter what! But with 8 runs scored, 5 HRs, 9 RBIs, and a stolen base done while hitting for a BA over .300 with an OBP close to .400, I'm sure Indian's manager Eric Wedge is quite fond of Grady, too.

The Yankee's 3B Alex Rodriguez finally find his way onto this leader board but was barely held off the top spot by Sizemore. A-Rod had 10 RBIs while hitting .462 with an OBP of .588.

Remaining on his June hot streak is Boston's RF J.D. Drew with 4 more homers and 10 runs scored this week, hitting .348 with an OBP of .500 in the absent slot of David Ortiz (DL).

Back on this list is after a long absence is Diamondbacks 3B Mark Reynolds who had 4 homers of his own this week with 9 RBIs and runs scored.

The next two guys on this list are named Ryan. The first is the 1B of the Phillies (Howard) while the other is the C of the Pirates (Doumit). Howard knocked in 13 RBIs AND had a stolen base while Doumit found his stroke after a short drought upon returning from the DL. Doumit had 4 homers while hitting over .400 in both BA and OBP.

Rounding out the top 10 hitters from this past week are the Met's CF Carlos Beltran, the Twin's DH Jason Kubel, KC OF Jose Guillen and Cardinals OF Ryan Ludwick.

You can see all 10 player's stats that I used for this ordering below. Date range is always Monday to Sunday of every week.

Who's the Hottest?

All the hype these days have been with second year player for the Texas Rangers, OF Josh Hamilton. Although his is a story that defies the odds, which makes his story the feel good story of the 2008 season so far, and in the NL you can look towards the current NL MVP candidate, Phillies 2B Chase Utley.

But, you'd still be wrong! According to my metrics, the hottest hitter in baseball right now is the Houston Astros 1b Lance Berkman. Berkman has been usually a streaky hitter that year in and year out puts up decent numbers for a corner position player (1B or corner OF position), but nothing that would necessarily stand out above and beyond the rest of the pack. This year, at least so far, that view of Berkman may be changing. Not only is he the best hitter in baseball right now, but unlike him in past years, he has already stolen 10 bases which is already the best total he has had in any given year in the majors (his former high mark was 9 in 2004).

The rest of his line is as follows .374/.459/62/19/56 BA/OBP/R/HR/RBI

Rounding out the MLB top 5 hitters through June 11th, 2008 are Utley and Hamilton (mentioned above), along with the Pirate's OF Nate McLouth, the White Sox young new OF Carlos Quentin.

The next 5, rounding out the top 10 are the Ranger's 2B Ian Kinsler, Padre's 1B (and probably the only hitting Padre at the moment) Adrian Gonzalez, 1B of the Phillies' Ryan Howard, the 2B of the Marlin's Dan Uggla, and the Cub's 1B Derrek Lee.

You can see their numbers below along with the remaining top 25 hitters in MLB up to this point.

Who Will Remain Hot?

I feel almost sorry to say this, but I don't see Berkman staying this hot. His history of being a streaky hitter seems like it will catch up to him and when it does, watch out! He might just hit a terrible slide. If Hamilton can stay healthy, he won't remain at the top of this list, but should remain in the top 10-20. Utley, on the other hand, has the history to back a possible MVP year. Uggla, like Berkman, seems up for a hard fall from the top 5, but his is a smaller sample size so I admit that I may be wrong with Dan. We'll just have to wait and see! I also don't see Kinsler staying in the top 10 either, more like a 15-20 type of guy if you ask me.

Out of the current players currently sitting in the 6-10 slots, I only envision Howard as staying in the top 10 if not higher, but the other 4 may stay in the top 25, especially Gonzalez.

Chipper Jones of the Braves, if he can stay healthy will crack the top 15 and if Boston's human sparkplug, Jacoby Ellsbury can hit closer to .300 he may move up too on account of his possible 50 SB season. I also expect Marlin SS Hanley Ramirez and Mets 3B David Wright to get into the top 10 if not the top 5. I'm actually surprised they're not already there!

Here are the write ups on the writers of this week's link exchange, SABR Neighbor…some sexy baseball insight, taken from their page, Our Lineup.

Game Time

So once again, the game is too long.

But who has a problem with it? This is one of the instances where the media seems to blow things out of proportion. Do they want games that last an hour? Do they want a time limit on baseball? A running clock?

Enters an Elite Club



He did it! I won't hide it anymore, but I am a Ken Griffey Jr. fan. I always have been even though my home team is not Seattle or the Reds. I just think that he has the sweetest swing I have ever seen! He hit a no-doubter over the right field wall off of Marlin's left hander Mark Hendrickson. It was hit in the top of the first inning in front of under 15K fans which is just downright sinful!

Griffey became only the 6th player to reach this plateau. The other 5 are Sammy Sosa, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry*Bonds. Junior will pass Sosa on the list with just 10 more HRs and that feat should be done this year if he stays healthy.

It is my opinion, and other, that if Junior did not have 5 injury plagued years in a row as a member of the Reds, he would have hit well more than Bonds has to date. Just think, 5 healthy years for Griffey would easily mean a minimum of 20 HR/year and that would be an additional 100 HRs so he would have just reached 700 rather than 600 and if he had hit 30 in each of those years like he did last season, he would have around 750 by now at the age of 38 (Bonds, by the way, is 43)!

To me, he is the anti-Bonds, maybe it's his contagious smile or how carefree he is with the media (usually J), but he's just more personable or likeable than Bonds. Because of this factor, I am much more excited, as a baseball fan, of Griffey's 600th HR than I ever was or will be with Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's HR mark.

#1 this week is brought to you by Milton Bradley. Not the board game company, but the Texas Ranger's DH who hit 6 HRs this week with 14 runs scored while knocking in 12 RBIs, swiping 4 bases and hitting .464 with an OBP of .615

That was more than 10 points better than the next big hitter from last week, Joe Crede from the White Sox whom they tried to trade in the off season.

Before there was the DH, all pitchers HAD to hit and there were some greats, if you can remember. I recall someone by the name of Ruth who came up in the Boston organization as a starting pitcher. We all know what happened to George Herman Ruth once he was traded to NY and transitioned into an everyday player in the OF.