The Blue Workhorse

Ten years ago, there was no Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays feel good story in the American League East. No, on this day 10 years ago, the Devil Rays were a mere 45 games back with a 61-91 record.

There wasn’t even a pennant race as everything had already been signed, sealed, and delivered at the top of the division. The Red Sox had a respectable record (86-66), which would be good enough for a five game deficit this season. However, in 1998? Five game deficit? Try 20!

That’s right. Boston was 20 games out of first place September 18, 1998 even with 86 wins.

How?

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Every season there are a handful of players that come out of no where to surprise us and become instant stars. We touched on some players who jumped out to incredible starts after the first couple of weeks of the baseball season.

However, there are also a handful of players that play no where near what was expected of them. At the midway point of the season and in lieu of the recent trend of teams demoting established players (Phillies’ starter Brett Myers, Indians’ closer Joe Borowski, and young Braves’ slugger Jeff Francouer — even though Francouer has scored 40 runs, hit 8 HR, and driven in 41 RBI), we examine those players who have failed to meet expectations and would be well deserving of a demotion:

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Earlier today, Major League Baseball announced the rosters for the 79th All-Star Game being held at Yankee Stadium, which is only appropriate since this is the final season for the historic ballpark.

The starters were determined solely by the fan vote once again, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, we wanted to do what we hadn’t seen anywhere else and break down the selections team-by-team, so that you could easily see who was selected from your favorite team (starters are in bold):

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In the Sunday Sports Selection series, we showcase a sports-related product (gadget, book, film, equipment, etc.) that we have enjoyed and think you may find of interest as well.

For half of the baseball fans that come across this post, they are going to hate that I featured these shirts that they would find despicable. For the other half? Well, they probably are going to think these shirts are great ideas.

This is because half of baseball fans are either Boston Red Sox fans or New York Yankees fans (or at least it seems that way), and if you are a baseball fan, you typically either are a fan of one of those two teams or hate both of those teams.

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After Thursday night’s melee in Boston between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays, Red Sox centerfielder Coco Crisp called out his Rays’ outfield counterpart in a post game interview.

The basis of Crisp’s assessment of the bench-clearing brawl was that Carl Crawford employed some less than masculine tactics when the teams went down to the ground duke it out on the pitchers mound.

The Boston/Tampa brawl can be seen here: RedLasso.

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For the past two seasons, there have been concerns about a couple of the most known and dominant closers in the game. Last season, it was New York Yankees’ stopper Mariano Rivera after he got off to a rough start. This season the troubles are in the other league, on the other coast as Trevor Hoffman, the man who enters to “Hell’s Bells,” has left without the lead, or a save, already twice in the early stages this season.

After week one of the MLB season, there have been several teams, including the Padres, that have already run into bullpen issues, particularly on Opening Day, so we decided to examine each of the 30 major league teams bullpen performances thus far and see which teams should really be concerned with their bullpen.

Opening Day is one of the most glorious days in sports, despite the fact that MLB tried to ruin it by having an opening series in Japan and then by having a one game series (yea, that’s not even possible Major League Baseball - a series means multiple) in Washington.

Now that all the teams and players have each put on the uniform for the first official games of the season, and to honor the first true day of the MLB schedule, we make initial observations on every team about what we saw on Opening Day after watching some games and examining boxscores:

The Red Sox, with two World Series titles in the last four years, are one of the favorites again this year. While the Red Sox are looking for championship titles, other division rivals have other goals: the Toronto Blue Jays are looking to move pass either the Red Sox or Yankees and get back into the top two in the division. However, they may have to hold off the upstart Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays just to keep the #3 slot. The Rays first goal will be to finish above .500 for the first time in team history, but greater goals are just beyond the horizon.