Opinion

What young sports fan didn't love going to get a pack of baseball cards after a long school or summer day for a very cheap price?

I certainly did and I believe you all did to.  Cards had a big impact on my life as a kid; for example, when I got a sweet insert or jersey-piece of my favorite player I would go crazy.  I loved to get the latest issues of Beckket Sports Card Monthly to check the price of the card I had just received.

Several Mets players are participating in winter baseball this year, and Josh Thole and Lance Broadway are in Venezuela where there is incredible political unrest.

Johan Santana is from Venezuela, but does not want to participate in winter ball and Francisco Rodriguez is expected to begin play there in a few weeks.

Baseball related injuries are, to a certain extent, accepted during the games and workouts. However, putting players in a war torn country or hostile political environment for baseball activities is not acceptable .

What is the best way to measure a pitcher’s skill?

Is it his strikeout rate, demonstrating the pitcher’s ability to prevent batters from hitting the ball? Is it innings pitched, showing his durability? Is it WHIP, the talent to keep runners off the base paths?

J.A. Happ was the favorite to win the National League Rookie of the Year, however that wasn’t the case when the award was announced on Monday afternoon.

Florida Marlins outfielder Chris Coghlan beat out the Phillies left-hander by receiving 17 first place votes compared to Happ’s ten first place votes.

Final count: 105-94.

Coghlan hit .321 with nine home runs and 47 RBI in 128 games during his first season in the big leagues. After the All-Star break, the 24-year-old hit .370 with a MLB-leading 113 hits.

Tim Lincecum has taken the baseball world by storm over the past two-and-a-half seasons. Depending on who you ask, he is at or near the top when asked to name the best pitchers in the game.

Lincecum won the Cy Young Award in 2008, and he put himself in a position to win another in 2009 with an even better year. Regardless of the outcome of this year's ballot, he will face a landscape in 2010 that he has never before dealt with in his life.

Seeing how it is award season now, with the Rookie of the Year awards coming within the next hour, I thought it'd be good to look at this past decade as a whole and name my awards.

While it will be difficult to name the Rookie of the Year as a decade (you'll see what I'll do there), I'm throwing in a new category and replacing an old.

No more Most Valuable Player. We're talking Player of the Decade for each league, and let us not forget the franchise of the decade for both leagues.

Forward, march!

It’s no secret that the Phillies are in need of another reliable starting pitcher, because you can’t count on Cliff Lee being as great as he was down the stretch and carry the entire pitching staff throughout a full season.

We all can hope that Cole Hamels finds a way to focus on baseball rather than the off-the-field issues and prove to everyone that last year was just a hiccup in what will turn out to be a brilliant career.

As the head of a major sports league, you’re the person fans, players, and officials depend on to make the big decisions. Unfortunately, sometimes those big decisions backfire, and the backlash is so great, the embarrassment seems insurmountable.

However, sometimes you make majorly stupid decisions that define your career. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Major League Baseball and their commissioner, Bud Selig. What follows are five reasons I believe that Bud Selig will go down in history as the worst commissioner in sports:

Today, the Pittsburgh Pirates were rumored to be trying to trade their catcher Ryan Doumit. Teams mentioned were the Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants, and Seattle Mariners.

The Detroit Tigers are coming off of a heart-breaking finish to their 2009 season. After squandering away the division lead to the Minnesota Twins, they lost a one-game playoff to them and missed the playoffs entirely.

The Tigers now seem focused on shredding payroll heading into the 2010 season. Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson have both been mentioned as possibly being on the move to lower a payroll that already sits at well over $100 million between just 10 players.