NL Central

Dorothy “Dottie” Kamenshek was the Babe Ruth, so to speak, of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the only women’s professional baseball league in baseball history. 

She passed away on May 17, 2010 at age 84.  The Gina Davis character in A League of Their Own was named after Dottie and loosely based on her.

The AAGPBL lasted 12 seasons from 1943 through 1954.  At its inception, the “girls” played a game that was closer to fast-pitch softball than what we think of as baseball. 

The Cardinals and Reds are neck and neck in the NL Central standings with no dark horse in sight. They will stay that way unless a key player gets injured or one of these two teams make a move before the July 31 trade deadline.

Coming out of Cypress High School (Anaheim, CA), Josh Vitters was considered one of the most polished high school hitters in the 2007 draft.

His arm strength was excellent and considered his best defensive tool, but defense was his weakness. He had no range, was a below average fielder, and had no running speed.

Still, the Cubs selected him as their No. 1 pick in 2007, and Baseball America currently lists him as the No. 3 prospect in their organization.

On Monday afternoon, Chicago Cubs GM Jim Hendry announced that starting/relief/not-really pitcher Carlos Zambrano would enter some form of treatment program and would be placed on baseball's "restricted list" until after the All-Star break.

Restricted? Does he have to trade his boxers for briefs for the next three weeks?

As a result of Carlos Zambrano’s tirade on Friday, the Chicago Cubs have placed Zambrano on the restricted list. So what exactly does that mean?

The restricted list is a list of players to whom certain teams have contractual obligations, but are currently not a part of the team and may not play in an MLB game. Players on the restricted list do not count towards a team’s 25-man or 40-man roster.

If the New Red machine needed servicing, vis-à-vis   an oil change, they got it at the right time.

Fresh (or shall I say stale) from a sweep at the hands of the lowly Seattle Mariners, the Reds borrowed the broom from the M's and took it to Oakland with them.

They swept the A's salvaging a split of the six game road trip.

When you are an uber-obsessed fan like me, who watches the majority of the games, you pick up on a few nuances along the way.  Obviously, we don't really know these guys, and who they are as people, but for me, Brandon Phillips has always been a guy with a megawatt smile who built up his career after nearly tearing it apart, but displaying some annoying, almost diva-like tendencies at the same time.

"It was unacceptable," said Cubs manager Lou Piniella of pitcher Carlos Zambrano's dugout fireworks after the first inning of Friday's 6-0 loss to the crosstown rival White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field.

"His conduct was not acceptable," said general manager Jim Hendry, echoing Piniella's sentiments while announcing Zambrano's indefinite suspension from the team.

2010 has not gone at all like the Milwaukee Brewers and their fans were hoping for. Several offseason free agent pitching signings gave hope to a staff that ranked as one of the worst in baseball in 2009.

Unfortunately, the pitching has been only slightly better, and the Brewers are 33-40, only good enough for a distant third place in the NL Central.

On a positive note, the Brewers have won five in a row, and the starting pitching seems to be producing the way GM Doug Melvin had expected since being very active over the winter.