Opinion

Is B.J. Upton the next Willie Mays?

I know it sounds crazy, but if you happened to see a couple of his catches this week, you might want to give the idea some thought. 

B.J.'s speed enables him to play a VERY shallow centerfield, which gives him a lot of opportunities to go back on some balls hit directly over his head. Twice this week he has made sensational catches; Both reminded me of Willie Mays.

I had the pleasure of watching Willie play centerfield at Candlestick as a young boy. I'll never forget it.

Now, on to B.J. Upton.

What the (insert explicit term here) happened to Wang?

Three consecutive pitiful outings, and a shaken self-esteem, has done no good for the Yankees thus far.

It appears the ball is up, and his secondary pitches are hanging. The sinker is sinking into the batter's wheelhouse, with the slider and splitter just turning into batting practice fastballs.

It appears to me that Dave Eiland has been stressing this body before the arm thing too much. Look at the photo above, Wang is getting under the ball via this new mechanical philosophy, not on top.

5.3 IP, 34.50 ERA, 23 hits allowed, 23 runs allowed, .622 BAA, six walks, two strikeouts.

Surely this all must be some sort of nightmare for New York Yankees fans.

As of this writing, Yankees sinkerballer Chien-Ming Wang was the primary culprit of the most recent bloodbath at the new Yankee Stadium, surrendering eight runs on eight hits in 1.1 innings of work.

With the way Wang has struggled early on, one can only wonder what the Yankees can do to fix this.

Have the Indians woken up?  After a scoring frenzy in today's game, I would like to assume so. 

Hit after hit, the Indians ran around the bases and racked up the runs.  The last time the Indians had scored 20 runs or more in a game was back in August of 2004—against who?

You got it, the Yankees. 

After a disappointing start by Wang (0-2), Yankees pitching continued to give up runs, which proved to be beneficial to the Cleveland Indians. 

With the first 14 games of the season in the books, the remarkable Toronto Blue Jays are back in the game and sitting on top in the American League East with a record of 9-4. No one could have hoped for a better start.

Through an offseason in whcih financial woes seemed to be on everyone's mind (even MLB GMs), J.P. Ricciardi decided not to make any big moves and did not spend any money.

Some critics tore him a new one, suggesting that this method was the furthest thing from progress the team could possibly get, but what do those critics have to say now?

I know I'm a little behind in the cycle to be writing an article about Harry Kalas, but I definitely feel it is important to write, even if only for myself.

Anyone who reads what I write regularly, you may have noticed that I rarely ever use the word "I" or "me".  I feel like we are all writing our own opinions on here, so why should I make any of my statements about me??

Walking through my old school the other day, I picked up a copy of the school's newspaper. Inside was an opinion article calling for the merging of the two Bay Area teams, the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants.

If you are from the Bay Area then you know what it's like having the A's and Giants stadiums in eye sight. Oakland A's fans are known to be loyal, rowdy, and love the game for what it is. They are the ninth man on the field.

Giants fans have the history, and they are loyal and knowledgeable.

With Gary Sheffield's 500th career home run last night at the new Citi Field, Sheff entered a group that includes only 24 other men - quite a feat considering the hundreds and hundreds that have played major league baseball.

It got us to thinking about what other baseball milestone could be achieved this season. By the way, props to Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye for not only hitting their 300th career home runs but doing it back-to-back. Now that is pretty awesome.

Much has been made about the perception these days of bloggers, tweeters, and everything else in the sports journalism world in this day and age.

Many of you have probably seen the infamous Buzz Bissinger blow up on Will Leitch, Editor and Founder of the satirical sports Web site Deadspin.com.

Andy MacPhail has made no secret of his strategy to rebuild the Baltimore Orioles.

The future isn't now. This season, while not a throwaway year, is a work in progress. A .500 record has been considered a dream for this bunch, while a second straight last-place finish is far more reasonable.

The future, instead, is a couple of years from now. Three years, two years, perhaps next year, if all goes absolutely according to plan, and star pitching prospects mature quickly.