Opinion

You never know what you’re going to see when you turn up at a Major League Baseball game. Sometimes, what you see can amaze you.

Other times, what you see will leave you shaking your head. For all the wonders baseball can produce, it also produces its share of knuckleheadery.

And when it does, B/R Pop Culture lead writer Gabe Zaldivar and MLB lead writer Zachary D. Rymer are on the case.

Shin-Soo Choo is going to be one of the more underrated free agents on the market this offseason, but that doesn't mean teams won't be lining up for his services.

Could Andy Pettitte be coming back for one more season?

According to Andy McCullough of The Star-Ledger, it certainly seems like a possibility:

The Cleveland Indians are in prime position to make the postseason for the first time since 2007. With just 19 games left in the regular season, the Tribe find themselves 1.5 games back of the fifth and final playoff spot.

In addition to that final playoff spot being within reach, the Indians have an outside chance at grabbing the top wild-card spot if they can make up the five-game difference separating them and the Texas Rangers. The AL playoff picture is a crowded one, featuring nine teams within four games of some sort of playoff spot.

Not all playoff teams are created equal. Some years, there will be a lot of depth and parity throughout both the American and National League. Other years will be top-heavy, with one or two dominant rosters and the rest fighting to keep up.

But how does this year's group of playoff contenders compare to what we have seen in the recent past? 

You can tell things are getting intense in the AL East when managers are ready to fight over allegedly stealing signs.

That's exactly what happened Monday night in the first inning, when Yankees' manager Joe Girardi went ape crazy over Orioles' third-base coach Bobby Dickerson allegedly stealing signs.

This was the exchange between Girardi and Orioles' manager Buck Showalter:

To give you an idea of how long it's been since the Pittsburgh Pirates posted a winning campaign, take a minute to soak up the landscape of Major League Baseball all the way back in the summer of 1992.

Among the numerous differences in the sport between then and now, the following stand out:

-Each league featured only two divisions, an East and West.

-Wild cards were not part of the postseason landscape.

Even the commissioner of baseball and the powers that be in MLB have nightmares.

While some of us wake up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. because we dreamt that we were falling or being chased by monsters, their nightmares involve a short list of contenders making the playoffs.

There a number of reasons why a team would end up on that list, from a lack of local fan support and the size of their market to being without a genuine superstar that even the most casual of baseball fans is familiar with.

With less than a month to go in the MLB season, there's still a lot to be decided.

Nearly half of the teams in baseball are still reasonably in the playoff hunt, although some have more work to do than others.

Teams like the Braves, Tigers, Dodgers and Red Sox can relax a little as the month goes on. Others know that bad play could result in no playoffs or one of the wild card spots. As we saw last year, that's the last thing any team wants.

For me, for teams to get to where they want to be, it starts with pitching.

The most amazing part, at least to me, of the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates rise to prominence—The quick and seismic shift from "The Pirates finally got over .500!" to "The Pirates are World Series contenders!"

Yes, folks, they are.