This Week in Baseball

I'm baa-aaack.

You thought that I was going to leave you in the dust, baseball fans, didn't you? Sure, we have the Crimson Sports Wire now (temporarily, actually, so if you like it, tell us!), and all you thought that I was going to leave you, right?

Well like it or not, no. Without further ado, I bring the second installment of the Major League Baseball Recap. Games are through Saturday, except for yesterday's Mariners- Orioles game, which I will explain later.

Last week I said that Tony La Russa would have a hernia by August.

Well, with the way things are going with the Atlanta Braves, manager Bobby Cox will have his third by then.

Atlanta won 13 of their first 14 games and faster than skip Caray could say "161-1", the choppers go ttthhhhbbbpppttt. Well, that may be a little harsh (and I wouldn't do that, right?) but they did lose two to the Cards and Pirates.

Speaking of the Braves, or at least ex-Braves, let the bidding commence!

That is, if you want star outfielder Ron Gant with a broken leg due to reckless mountain biking. Anyway, his injury happened just after he signed a unguaranteed contract with Atlanta. So the Cost-conscious Braves (owned by Ted Turner) cut him from the roster.

And now the 'ol leg is healing and a couple teams are thinking hard about signing the invalid up. Boston seemed to be thinking about it, since Gant's old Atlanta friend, Otis Nixon, is the Sox' center fielder. But the front office wants a multi year deal.

The Astros have made an offer, and the Giants are mulling over the though of doing so, too.

Now that we got that out of the way, I can tell you what the deal with the Seattle-Baltimore game is. Seems that the O's were up 6-1 yesterday, but were victims of a Mariner onslaught that was capped by Ken Griffey Jr. Homer off of Brad Pennington that traveled over 400 feet.

Anyway, one of the sports Cube writers down here is Mike Ginberg, who is also a big Orioles fan. Anyway, upon seeing the score, Mike threw a fit, "Damn Mariners!" he yelled ."I'm going to throw my [Orioles] hat somewhere..."

Back to baseball. The National League Central division is turning out to be a very close division as everyone predicted. Only two games separate the Reds Cards, Astros and Pirates.

Meanwhile the Cubs are at 4-11 and sucking as usual.

Annoyingly, the Mets still remain in second place in the NL East, due to some good pitching and Jeff Kent's league-leading eight homers and 403 average.

In West the Giants are still on top, even with their despicable offense, who hit .198 before Saturday's 10 run outburst against the Mets.

Wow, the AL West is really bad! All teams are below .500, and the leading Angels have lost their last two games and are still in first.

The White Sox are in front in the Central thanks to some awesome starting pitching and a 4-0 wilson Alvarez. Eight homers from Frank Thomas doesn't hurt, either.

Guess who is tied with Toronto for the lead in the AL East? That's rights, Boston! The Red Sox are hot since they replaced Scott Fletcher at second base with Tim Naehring.

The Yanks, meanwhile, are talking about not playing free agent pickup Luis Polonia every day, which will cause to annoy him, and thus lead to friction on the team.

And you know what that means, George Steinbrenner--get those pink slips ready cuz' you fire him by July!