 FUNNY
GAMES
"You shouldn't forget the importance
of entertainment."
—Peter, from Michael Haneke's Funny
Games
Thank God for Opening Day. Baseball,
the game on the field, has finally replaced the
simmering political theater that was at its turgid
best this last winter, specifically Wednesday,
February 13. By now every baseball fan knows that
in Washington, D.C., in room 2154 of the Rayburn
Building, Roger Clemens, arguably the greatest
pitcher in the modern era, tried to defend himself
against charges of steroid use, using tremendous
bluster. Our elected representatives, Democrats
and Republicans both, bellowed right back, trying
to elbow their way into the day's newscasts with
their fiery rhetoric or mumbled questions (there
was plenty of both). Cameras whirred, pencils
scratched upon pads, and only if great velvet
curtains had come crashing down would this theater
have ended on a more thrilling note.
Frankly, I don't know what to think
of this whole circus, except that I often times
keep wondering why it is that something I love
as much as baseball can make me feel disgusted
as often as it does. When I saw Clemens there
in front of the cameras, my feelings were definitely
mixed. It's not as though I like the guy—in
fact, on many occasions he bugged the crap out
of me. But he's a hell of a pitcher, and as I
thought back on his career and simultaneously
looked forward to this season, I wondered: do
we really care if Clemens is right or wrong, an
honest man or a liar? Does it matter if baseball
is riddled with steroid users? What's the point?
And then I thought of Michael Haneke's
Funny Games. This is an edgy film, about
a pair of young men who terrorize an innocent
family at their vacation home. The movie is relentless,
and hardly entertaining, yet you cannot take your
eyes from the screen. In the end, perhaps the
greatest horror is learning that this family's
torture was done for our benefit, for the fun
of the moviegoer. We were as culpable as the marauders.
And this is pretty much how I'd sum up these hearings
and the steroid mess in general.
Although I
am on record as having an opinion as to whether
Roger Clemens is a doper or not, I have no
interest whatsoever in pointing fingers at him,
in part because that would be like shouting into
the maw of a storm. We can argue all we want about
whether or not Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are
the worst human beings since Pol Pot roamed the
earth, but the fact remains that, for at least
the last twenty years, baseball players have been
shooting up. Probably quite a few. Furthermore,
I think it's safe to say that we cannot in any
way determine who shot up.
Doesn't this bother you? It bothers
me. The not knowing, that is. Yes, we know Andy
Pettitte shot up because he's said as much. We
know Jose Canseco shot up, and we will know from
those who admit the truth and those few who fail
drug tests. But we don't know if Clemens shot
up, not really. And if the Mitchell report is
correct that baseball players have been indulging
in PEDs since the late 80s, then we can never
truly find out who imbibed. Can we know whether
David Wells, he who has recently spouted off on
the subject, used drugs to keep him plowing through
season after season? I don't and neither do you.
In my mind, anybody who sets to moralizing like
he's doing makes me feel that perhaps he's trying
to ease a guilty conscience. Did Cal Ripken Jr.
take steroids to stay healthy and keep his streak
alive? You might choke on your Pabst reading that,
but we don't have any way to check out guys like
Ripken, Jack Morris, Dave Winfield and other players
for whom longevity was one of their strengths.
And we never will.
There have been many suggestions,
from Congress, from the union, from Major League
Baseball, from fans and pundits, as to what to
do about this steroid mess. That wonderful gadfly
Jim Bouton
suggests the most draconian solution: that we
take annual samples of every players blood, keep
it on file, and every time a new performance enhancing
drug is found, we test all the blood. Should this
substance be found, that player gets a lifetime
ban, much like Pete Rose. (Bouton opines, "Call
me Kenesaw Bouton Landis".) Much as I love
Bouton, his solution seems like utter madness.
From all I've read (not a lot, but some, notably
Game of Shadows and Will Carroll's The
Juice), for every test there's a new drug
out there that will avoid detection.
Here's my own attempt at fixing
this mess: The only solution as I see it is for
Major Leage Baseball to grant total and absolute
immunity to every player in the past, and declare
this era one of steroid—no court of public
opinion, no testifying, and no asterisks, just
a simple shrug, admitting that the culture of
professional athletics, the one that we fans foster,
is to blame. We move on and let the past settle
into itself, trying to figure out a way to utterly
remove steroids (unlikely) or accept them as part
of the game.
Listen, I hate steroids as much
as the next guy. The thought of guys shooting
up to get their muscles bulging sickens me...
but lots of things about professional sports leaves
a bad taste in my mouth. The problem as I see
it is that we—the fans—have helped
create a culture where, if you are on the edge
as a player, if a few more dingers or a bit better
batting average means a cup of coffee (and it's
attendant millions), you'd be silly not to shoot
up. You cannot pay mediocre baseball players forty
million dollars and expect them to avoid grabbing
whatever edge they can.We accept as fans the strange
justice of average players making money hand over
fist, so we have to live with the consequences,
one of which is steroid use.
I hope kids don't shoot up, but
then I also wouldn't necessarily want my kid to
do any number of things we condone in America,
including becoming a rich baseball player with
the habits of professional athletes. Or wealthy
owners who seem to think they ought to plunder
public coffers. I'm not going to argue whether
or not this is an issue worth pursuing, whether
or not steroids are the worst thing to happen
to baseball since the Black Sox scandal, etc.
and ad infinitum. But I will say that I, for one,
am totally unconvinced that we would ever truly
know who is on the drug and who isn't, no matter
what we do. Do you really think it's fair to vilify
Roger Clemens when any number of great players
from the late 80s to the present went off Scott
free? If so, why do you feel that way?
Look, if Roger Clemens and Barry
Bonds shot up, they shot up, and we need to leave
it at that. Because we also don't know how many
pitchers Bonds faced who were shooting up, and
vise-versa for Clemens. We have no way of knowing
how many players were on the dope, how level or
uneven was this playing field. If somehow we can
stop steroid use—a tricky goal that I doubt
will ever be attainable—then we close this
book and state that the last two decades are the
Steroid Era, as off balance in the record books
as the 19th century, with pitchers logging 60
wins a season. Or the first half of the 20th century,
when some players hit .400, Ruth blasted 60 home
runs in a year, 714 total, and DiMaggio had his
56 game hitting streak. Those are all anomalies,
stats that would certainly not exist had the leagues
been integrated with the best talent in the country—yet
another tainted era that began to close with the
signing of Jackie Robinson in 1947.
You might argue that this solution
isn't fair to those players who didn't shoot up.
Well, I ask you to turn to the case of Bucky Harris.
Harris, as you may well know, was one of the Chicago
White Sox players banned for life for his knowledge
of the Black Sox scandal. The argument, which
many of us believe is valid and has been hallowed
by time, is that Harris deserves to be banned
because he did nothing to stop the scandal which
threatened to ruin the sport, and did in fact
ruin a World Series. We all know he did not participate
in throwing games. But he knew, and did nothing,
and that was enough to damn him for eternity.
Do you really believe, in the close-knit
world of professional athletics, that these guys
didn't know their fellow ballplayers were on steroids?
That David Wells and Curt Schilling—two
men who have taken to proselytizing on this subject—had
no clue about the culture of drugs? I think that's
utter bullshit. They knew, and I think everybody
knew. And if we're so dead-set on calling this
a scandal, as bad as the Black Sox affair, then
let's take this to its logical conclusion.
But I don't see it happening. Because
this isn't as big a deal as people are making
it. If it was a big deal, we would really be up
in arms, we'd stay away from baseball, and the
sport would lose money, and then you'd see real
action. Don't forget, the owners only responded
to the 1919 Black Sox scandal because they thought
they'd lose their shirts, and for no other reason.
Steroids? Not so much. These are funny games,
pure entertainment. So what are we going to do?
I don't know about you, but I'm going to sit back
on opening day and let the parade march on by,
just as I have every season. —Peter
Schilling Jr.
LETTER FROM
TOKYO: MANNY HITS, OKAJIMA DAZZLES TOKYO DOME
It was the other Japanese guy.
Aided by timely hitting from Manny
Ramirez, Hideki Okajima pitched an inning of relief
to win the first game of a two-game series for
the defending World Series champion Boston Red
Sox over the Oakland Athletics in Tokyo.
Ramirez's second two-run double
in the top of the tenth broke a 4-4 tie and closer
Jonathan Papelbon hung on to send the Red Sox
and their new Japanese fans home happy with a
6-5 win in spite of a shaky performance from this
week's talk-of-the-town, Daisuke Matsuzaka.
In the shadow of fellow countryman
Matsuzaka for most of last year, the left-handed
Okajima received a standing ovation from the Tokyo
Dome crowd of 44,628 when he entered in the top
of the ninth.
As the crowd filed out of the stadium
and into the crisp night air, the buzz was about
Okajima, who enjoyed an eleven-year career with
Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants. "Up until
Ramirez's first double, the crowd was pretty
quiet," said Kenji Ayao, 30 an A's
fan. "But once Okajima entered the voltage
went through the roof. The number of flashbulbs
popping as he released each pitch was amazing."
After winning 15 games in his rookie
campaign, this week was Matsuzaka's homecoming.
The right-hander rose to stardom as a member of
the Pacific League's Seibu Lions, whose
home dome in Tokorozawa is a one-hour train ride
from downtown Tokyo.
News crews relentlessly hounded
the star all week. At a welcoming party last Friday,
shutters clicked as Athletics catcher Kurt Suzuki,
whose grandparents were born in Japan, and Matsuzaka
cracked open a wood sake barrel with baseball
bats in a traditional kagamiwari kickoff ceremony.
As trains crisscrossed Tokyo during
Tuesday's evening rush hour, the hometown
fans, who did not engage in the rhythmic cheering
that is standard at Japanese games, saw Matsuzaka
struggle from the outset. In the first inning,
Mark Ellis slugged a home run to left center and
the Athletics pushed across one more to take a
2-0 lead. He exited after five innings having
walked five and given up two runs.
After Boston took a 6-4 lead in
the top of the tenth, a one-out RBI double by
Emil Brown brought the A's within one, but
Papelbon got Suzuki to ground out with two runners
on base to end it.
Matsuzaka's appearance is
certainly the highlight of the week. At a ticket
shop in a downtown shopping district, 12,000-yen
($120) seats for Matsuzaka's start were
selling for 30,000 yen. For the concluding game
tomorrow, when Rich Harden and Jon Lester will
take the mound, tickets were fetching merely face
value.
On Monday excitement was slightly
dampened after the rabidly popular Giants and
Hanshin Tigers had been swept by the major league
teams in four weekend exhibition games. The one
scoreless inning tossed by Okajima on Sunday against
the Giants stood as one of the bright spots, likely
leaving the fans under the puffy white roof of
the dome wondering just which set of teams might
be suffering from jet-lag.
The Japanese media searched for
positives. Monday's cover of the Tokyo tabloid
Sports Hochi featured photos of the five Red Sox
batters set down on strikes by Giants southpaw
Tetsuya Utsumi during his two brilliant innings
of relief work. Inside, Okajima's appearance
was given a full story under a headline in bold
kanji script that read: "I'm back."
The front of Daily Sports, a publication based
in the Hanshin stronghold of Kobe, featured multiple
frames of a sliding catch by Tigers outfielder
Lou Ford in the third inning of Saturday's
game against Boston.
Strict television scheduling was
another reminder that unless Matsuzaka is taking
the ball nothing else can be too important. With
the Athletics-Giants contest tied at two in the
sixth inning on Saturday, Nippon Television sent
fans scrambling for their radio knobs after it
killed its broadcast at 9 p.m. in favor of a weather
report and variety show. The match-up between
the Tigers and A's on Sunday was not broadcast
live, and with Nippon Television again upholding
its 9 p.m. curfew, viewers were just barely able
to see J.D. Drew's grand slam in the sixth
but not Julian Tavarez's recording of the
final out in the ninth.
After a tour through the streets
of Tokyo, however, it would be a mistake to conclude
that Matsuzaka mania had swept over everyone in
the metropolis. On Monday evening at Kanda Dome,
a baseball-themed restaurant in Tokyo's
Chiyoda Ward where diners can chow down on fried
noodles beneath a curved, dome-like ceiling and
wall-mounted jerseys of Mark McGwire and Sammy
Sosa, the general feeling was that Matsuzaka has
moved on and so should everyone else.
"He is like a little boy,
a high school boy," says manager Kayoko
Takeshita, 77, of the tattered and heavily taped
poster near the register that shows Matsuzaka
in his powder blue Lions uniform. "But now
that he is a man I hardly recognize him."
Most of the middle-aged diners in
Kanda Dome were unaware that the former Lions
hero was set to pitch the following day; instead
they were occupied with the 80th National High
School Baseball Invitational Tournament ongoing
at Koshien Stadium in Osaka.
Seeking equal billing to the opening
series was Friday's Pacific League opener,
and it proved to be a dazzler. Valentine's
Chiba Lotte Marines were shut out 1-0 by Nippon
Ham Fighters right-hander Yu Darvish. The lanky
21-year-old's four-hit, ten-strikeout performance
further strengthened the argument of experts who
think he will soon follow Matsuzaka across the
Pacific.
Such predictions rekindle worries
that Nippon Pro Baseball is simply becoming a
minor league. Masayuki Tamaki, a noted baseball
writer, believes that the high salaries found
in the U.S. - as evidenced by the $52 million
contract Matsuzaka signed before last season -
are not the only reason players have left Japan.
He points out that ownership only concerns itself
with the profit of the parent company - which
could be a drink manufacturer or candy company
- and not with properly managing teams or investing
in top-of-the-line facilities. "In America,"
he says, "the players can concentrate on
baseball only."
This year Kosuke Fukudome, the two-time
Central League batting champ for the Chunichi
Dragons, will patrol right field for the Chicago
Cubs and Hiroki Kuroda, formerly of the Hiroshima
Carp, will be slotted into the rotation of the
Los Angeles Dodgers. Right-handed pitchers Kenshin
Kawakami of the Dragons and the Koji Uehara of
the Giants are expected to make similar moves
overseas in 2009.
Tamaki believes that the old-school
NPB world is still wallowing in the glory of its
history and lacks any kind of vision of the future.
"In Japan," the journalist explains,
"there are former players, veteran journalists,
and front office management who want to be seen
as sempai (mentors) to the current players, but
in truth they are like annoying flies." —Brett
Bull
Reprinted from Brett's fabulous
Tokyo
Reporter.
 Horseshoe
Sense and Good Deeds
Three-time All-Star righthander
Gerry
Staley is in the Hall of Fame . . . as a horseshoe
pitcher. I forgot to mention: it's the Washington
State Horseshoe Pitchers Hall of Fame. I could
be very wrong, but I've never heard of a former
major league pitcher becoming a Hall of Fame horseshoe
pitcher. "He had to have something to pitch,"
his son, Brian, told reporters, "after baseball."
Twice an All-Star as an effective
St. Louis Cardinals starter, once as an effective
Chicago White Sox reliever, Staley died 2 January
at 87, of natural causes, at his Vancouver, Washington
home, his son said. Staley's daughter also
survives him.
A junkballer whose signature pitches
were a sinker and a knuckleball, Staley was a
key man out of the bullpen for the White Sox's
1959 World Series team, going 8-5 with fourteen
saves, and leading the American League in appearances,
in the regular season; and, taking the loss in
Game Four but racking one save and a 2.16 ERA
in the Series, which the Go-Go Sox lost in six
to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
He made his third All-Star team
the following season, amidst a 13-8/ten save 1960
for the White Sox. He didn't pitch in the
1952 and 1953 All-Star Games, though he was picked
for the National League, but he appeared in the
second of two 1960 All-Star Games. (Two games
were played in each season from 1959-1962, in
part to raise money for the players' pension
fund.)
Relieving teammate Early Wynn, Staley
pitched two innings and surrendered two hits,
one a two-out, solo bomb by his former Cardinal
teammate Stan Musial in the top of the seventh,
en route a 6-0 National League win. The decisions
went to a pair of Cy Young Award winners, Pittsburgh's
Vernon Law (the eventual 1960 Cy Young winner),
got the win; and, future Hall of Famer Whitey
Ford (the next season's Cy Young
winner; they gave one award across the board from
1956-66), took the loss.
After his baseball career ended,
Staley—who won 134 games in his career,
including 54 with the Cardinals from 1951-53 (he
also pitched for Cincinnati, the Yankees, the
Kansas City Athletics, and the Detroit Tigers,
before retiring after the 1961 season)—superintended
the Clark County (Washington) parks and recreation
department, eventually retiring to become a fisherman
and horseshoe player.
He was realistic about his baseball
career, even if he wasn't necessarily discriminating.
"I played in an era when there were a heck
of a lot of good ballplayers," Staley told
a reporter three years ago. "You can't single
out one over all the rest. If you kept the ball
in the park, you were doing a good deed."
—Jeff Kallman
 SWAMI
SEZ: MUDVILLE'S PRESEASON PREDICTIONS SHEET
You can take this one to Vegas, we're sure: Peter
Schilling and Jeff Kallman lock brains to give
you our iron-clad guesses as to who's going to
end up in the winner's circle this October. So
if the mortgage has you down, and your job's nearly
on the fritz, just take what little savings you
have and lay it on the line here. You couldn't
do any better reading tea leaves...
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Central:
1. Cleveland Indians
2. Minnesota Twins
3. Detroit Tigers
4. Chicago White Sox
5. Kansas City Blues
This may look odd, but bear with me for a bit.
I think the Twins, even minus Johan Santana, are
much improved. So much, in fact, that I think
they'll give the division a run. Their pitching
staff could be a mess, but then again, it could
be that guys like Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano,
Livan Hernandez & Co. could gel as the Tigers
did in '06. Probably that won't happen, but if
it does, that and the revamped line up could make
things very interesting in the strong AL Central.
Upon first glance, the team is exciting. Carlos
Gomez's speed could be a real factor, but we'll
see if the guy can get to first, which is essential
to stealing second or racing to third on a sacrifice
bunt. These Twins will score more runs, and have
a vareigated offense, and their youngsters could
be frighteningly good. Liriano still has a good
strikeout to walk ratio in the spring, and Scott
Baker, who threw 15 perfect innings against KC
last season, ought to improve mightily once his
ailments come to an end.
As a long-suffering Tigers fan (and trust me,
that game five meltdown in the World Series only
added to the depression), I cannot bring myself
to jump on the bandwagon that only the Red Sox
are better. The Red Sox are not only better, but
they're a mite bit younger. Jesus, these Tigers
need every single player to be healthy, and already
one of the young guys--Granderson--is out with
an injury. Even if the Tigers make the playoffs,
they seem to be the type of big swingers that
get shut down fairly easily against a talented
pitching staff--much like the Yankees did against
the Tigs in '06. Add to this mess the fact that
the bullpen is a disaster--signing closer Todd
Jones was insane--and the Bengals will reach the
postseason only if everything goes their way.
I can't help but pick a young and still-hungry
Cleveland to win this one. —Schilling
East
1.Boston Red Sox
2. New York Yankees
3. Toronto Blue Jays
4. Tampa Bay Crocodile Hunter Killers
5. Baltimore Orioles
I am now going to rant a bit about how unbelievably
shitty the Baltimore Orioles have become. What
a franchise. These guys aren't going anywhere
soon, which is a shame because Baltimore could
certainly use a winning baseball team. Then again,
I've just been watching The
Wire, HBO's masterful series (it is that
good), and the blight and corruption that is reflected
in that show leaves one's heart aching. Of course,
it saddens me even more that the city of Detroit
is so much worse off that there's almost nothing
left in the city from which to hang a television
series on.
Anyway, I digress. My point is that a baseball
team is so much more than just a collection of
fancy millionaires swinging a bat at a ball. And
that the Orioles management doesn't seem to get
this, or if they do they're certainly squandering
the hopes of a beleaguered populace. For those
of us who have become totally sick of the fact
that this division has been won by the likes of
the Yankees and Red Sox, now nothing more than
a two-headed beast, Baltimore's woes are even
more pressing. The Red Sox, top to bottom, are
the best team in both leagues, hands down, and
the Yankees still have quite a bit of pop, and
a good, young pitching staff to boot (though they
can't beat the Sox). Toronto will be just above
mediocre again (though I'm willing to concede
that if anyone has a chance to be a surprise playoff
contender, it's them), the Rays will excite by
almost reaching .500, and the Orioles will be
yet another background footnote on shows like
The Wire. Oh, the humanity. —Schilling
West
1. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
2. Seattle Mariners
3. Texas Rangers
4. Oakland Athletics
The AL West is still the Angels' to lose.
If they can only convince manager Mike Scioscia
that protecting Vlad the Impaler also means protection
from the mound (there's no excuse to keep
letting their biggest bat get plunked into uselessness,
as Guerrero was in the season's final fortnight)
as well as in the lineup (and that's still
a little iffy) and on the rotating DH plan. And,
if the front office can only be convinced it may
not be dumb to offer Francisco Rodriguez a better
longterm proposition. Seattle has improved as
Erik Bedard automatically bumps up the rotation,
especially if Felix Hernandez finally lives all
the way up to his possibilities and innings-eater
Carlos Silva's sinkers don't prove
stinkers to his infielders. But this lineup—all
not named Ichiro—remains too suspect with
Jose Guillen gone to Kansas City as a free agent.
And the team needs to prove they can play up for
more than isolated stretches, while the front
office needs to prove it can do more than just
a Bedard trade that cost them a talented young
outfielder regardless. By default the Mariners
should finish behind the Angels.
The Rangers' offence will keep them out of the
basement, especially with the Milton Bradley bump-up
and the Ian Kinsler extension. But while general
manager Jon Daniels seems to have broken the organisation's
addiction to the quick fix, he still hasn't
broken its addiction to fixing murderous team
ERAs with position players. And how many more
games or beanbrawls do the Rangers stand to lose
because Vicente Padilla can't keep his temper
in check. It's rebuilding time in Oakland,
which could mean a potent club in a season or
two, particularly if prospect acquisitions Carlos
Gonzalez (outfield) and Gio Gonzalez (lefthander)
mature soon enough to equal their reviews.—Kallman
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Central
1. Chicago Cubs
2. Milwaukee Brewers
3. Cincinnati Reds
4. Houston Astros
5. St. Louis Cardinals
6. Pittsburgh Pirates
This one is a toss up in two directions: from
the first to third spots, I'd say this division
is anyone's guess between the Cubs, Brewers and
Reds. Fourth to sixth, same deal, three different
clubs. All three at the top have a nice balance
of the young and old. At the bottom the Pirates
are in their eternal rebuilding process, while
Houston and St. Louis hobble along with their
vets.
Over in Chicago, I think there's reason for genuine
excitement about Kosuke Fukudome, and even without
a leadoff hitter this is a decent club in a weak
division. The Brewers are ready to rumble offensively,
but their pitching is a question mark, and Cincinnati
could be the big surprise--in this case, if their
pitchers connect and their hitters keep blasting
homers and scoring runs, these guys will be good.
If the young arms still need seasoning, next year
will be the one. —Schilling
East
1. New York Mets
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Washington Nationals
5. Florida Marlins
For the Mets it looks too much like this year
or nada—the farm's too thin, which
doesn't bode well for moving into their
new playpen in '09. But watch the trade
deadlines. There could be prospects coming to
begin the farm reconstruction, if Omar Minaya's
still as smart as he looked in waiting out the
Yankees and the Red Sox to land Santana. As for
their main competition, a season ending tie with
the Phillies wouldn't surprise me. I'm
not sure the Phillies' pitching overall
will hold up, especially in that yum-yum hitters'
park they call home. Moving Brett Myers to the
rotation out of the pen looked smart until Brad
Lidge dinged his bad knee, and if he has to miss
significant time this bullpen means big trouble.
They look better than you think; this team can
never be ruled out entirely, under its current
organisational structure and thinking, and if
they find a way to keep Mark Teixiera you can
magnify the foregoing exponentially. John Smoltz
and homecoming Tom Glavine, however, stand to
shepherd the next generation of Atlanta mound
maestros—meaning, again, that '09
could be a Brave new year. For the Nationals,
managerial brains equal division sleepers. The
Nats may not win it, but they'll make it
painful enough for whomever does until their shaky
rotation shows its shakes. —Kallman
West
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
2. Arizona Diamondbacks
3. Colorado Rockies
4. San Diego Padres
5. San Francisco Giants
This team now looks more like the 1996 Yankees
than you might think. And Joe Torre, who managed
those Yankees, can still make pina colatas out
of mere pineapples. Over in Arizona, landing Dan
Haren makes the Diamondbacks tougher than they've
already proven themselves to be. The roster depth
makes them formidable, their brains at the plate
make them a battle. Last year's pennant winning
Rockies have a problem—other than a hole
or two on the pitching staff: the Diamondbacks
are just too good to let the Rocks sneak in through
the wild card again, and the Rocks right now just
don't look like quite a consistent threat
to a smartened-up Dodger formation.—Kallman
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