All-Star Break

I don’t write about baseball a lot here, because I may be the only one interested in it.  But I am interested in it so I’m going to write about it.  It’s the All-Star Break and a good time to step back and see how half the season has gone.  The best ball is being played in the NL West.  Only one team has a winning percentage below .500, which gratefully is the San Francisco Giants.  The second-best ball is being played in the AL West, again with only one team losing more than it’s winning (but with one fewer teams in the division, this is less impressive than in the more venerable NL).  The Dodgers and the Padres have been dueling for first place all season and neither team has had any breathing space pretty much the entire season.  Russell Martin is turning into a fine young catcher – the third such to come out of the Dodgers in recent memory.  Maybe they can hang on to this one.  The Milwaukee Brewers, led by Prince Fielder, seem like they can’t lose at home.  The Red Sox are blowing away everyone in the AL East, the Yankees are a hugely disappointing squad with the biggest names in baseball and a .494 record.  In a sign of the impending apocalypse, the Detroit Tigers are looking really good for the second year in a row and I think they will play the Angels for the AL pennant.  But some things never change; the losingest team in baseball is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  While they aren’t the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, they’re still the varsity squad from Glassjaw University.  Barry Bonds has 751 career home runs, still five short of his godfather’s record.  It’s not for lack of opportunity – opposing teams are pitching to him.  It still seems certain that he’ll break the record this year.