at the ballpark

first semi-long blog in a while, but a convo with Anthro has compelled me to do a post on America's favorite past time ...

-congrats to Derek Jeter for becoming the all-time Yankees hits leader ... not that the media hasn't done it enough, but to put things in perspective his accomplishment is nothing short of extraordinary, considering all of the legends that have donned the Yankee pinstripes ... and in "the asterisk era" with all these 'roided up cheaters (ie. A-Rod, ManRam, Bonds, Big Mac), it's nice to see a guy who played the game clean standing on top ...

-as for the Toronto Blue Jays ... 11K for a ballgame at the Dome ... pathetic! ... the natural inclination at this juncture is to call for the firing of J.P. Fraud-ciardi (what I've been saying for years), but even if they did now, it's 4 years late in my opinion ... the damage he's done to the organization will take at least another "5 years" to undo and fix ... among his most idiotic moves: letting go of Carlos Delgado and Chris Carpenter for nothing and the signing of Frank Thomas ... Roy Halladay has every reason to want out ...

-speaking of which ... who's the best pitcher in baseball? ... Anthro argues to the death for one of his man-loves Roy Halladay, plus he likes to rub in his "I called it from day one" ... don't get me wrong, Halladay is great, I'm a fan, but I'd have to give the nod to Johan Santana ... in my opinion, Santana's just got better "stuff" ... is it his fault that the Mets have been injury depleted the entire year? ... the Halladay argument that I hear all the time is that he's winning on a bad team ... but for people who ACTUALLY KNOW SOMETHING about the game, my question is then "what the hell was Santana doing on the Twins for years?" ... the proof is in the pudding, he was racking up wins on a mediocre team at best ... and last time I checked, they've always had a smaller payroll than the Jays, but Santana still got them into the post season four times (so the low budget, can't compete with the Yankees and Red Sox excuse doesn't work here) ...

-and there's more to being a great pitcher aside from wins ... it's also about stepping up big, in big games ... Game 7 of the World Series, I'd take a prime Randy Johnson, any day of the week, twice on Sunday ... others: Dave Stewart and Curt Schilling ... and another thing, Cy's don't lie ... that's why I don't think the Atlanta Braves' pitching staff of the 90's, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz, will ever be touched, 7 Cy Young awards between them ... what's even more impressive is that these guys (with the exception of Smoltz) didn't do it by over-powering guys ... Glavine and Maddux, two of the best control and pure pitchers in history, period! ... getting back to Santana vs. Halladay, last time I checked Santana has 2 Cy's (on the Twins), Halladay only 1 ...

-can't end this without a mention of my all-time favorite players ... I'll name the top 3 ... 2A and 2B are Jeter and Delgado ... Jeter, because he's the textbook definition of a 5-tool player ... Delgado, because he's the only power hitter of the asterisk era with legit stats, a threat for 40 HR and 120 RBI on the yearly, I just think of all the honors he was robbed of, which will likely end up costing him a spot in the Hall of Fame ... number 1 on my list is definitely Joe Carter ...

~J-Smooth~