Fan News

The San Francisco Giants enter the last week before the Major League Baseball trade deadline three games behind the San Diego Padres in the National League West. The Giants have so far won on the heels of their tremendous starting rotation, but there are other pieces needed if the Giants are to return to the postseason. Those pieces? Bats.

The American League expanded from eight to 10 teams in 1961 when the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators were created. A year later, the National League added the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets.

In 1962, the Mets were a joke. In 1969, they were the World Champions.

George Weiss was the Mets' first general manager, and Casey Stengel was their first manager. Weiss had built the Yankees' dynasty after World War II, while Stengel managed them to seven World Championships, including the all-time record of five in a row from 1949-1953.

Generally, I am not one to blame managers for a team's performance.  Mets fans have wanted Jerry Manuel's head since he was hired in 2008.  

His even-keeled, sometimes humorous attitude about the ebbs and flows of a Major League season is, quite frankly, the way a manager ought to perceive the marathon that is a baseball season, but it has often rubbed Mets' fans, who live and die with every pitch, the wrong way.

New York Yankees slugger-queen Alex Rodriguez is on the brink of a tremendous achievement.

The third baseman with the orange face and perfect hair is one homerun away from 600 for his career. Performance-enhancing drugs notwithstanding, he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer and every statistical milestone he surpasses simply cements that argument.

The Major League Baseball draft is well on its way to becoming similar to the NFL draft. There is no off-season.

And in the case of most of these players, that's the actual truth.

Frank "The Original" Thomas was a fine hitter and versatile defensive player whose career spanned the 1950s and 1960s. Frank was on the National League All-Star team three times.

Doc Friend: Mr. Thomas, you made your major league debut in 1951. What is the most significant difference between the game in the 1950s and the game today?

Frank Thomas: Money.

It should be noted, as the Reds are seven games into the second half of their season, that division races are rather tense affairs.  Why do I point this out?  Simply put, we Reds fans aren't used to this.

In years past, as we approached this time of year, I'd start thinking about the Bengals. That, or just flat out question why I'm still watching every Reds games when .500 is out of reach, and they are 10-15 games back.

Last week, Yankee captain Derek Jeter honored the recently deceased Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and announcer Bob Sheppard.

For that minute-long speech, it was hard not to think back to Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" speech, as Jeter's statements drew an explosion of applause.

These are the type of moments that transform this player into a captain, this shortstop into a winner, this Yankee into a legend.

Let's take a look at the other moments that have made Derek Jeter seem impeccable.

My four kids, like most all kids, hate doing chores at home. Over the past couple of seasons, the Diamondbacks have been much like my kids and doing chores, they just don’t get the job done. In the case of Arizona, the chore they have struggled at is getting the sweeping done.

According to Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star (via Twitter), the Kansas City Royals have traded Alberto Callaspo to the Los Angeles Angels for RHP Sean O’Sullivan and minor league LHP Will Smith.  Let’s take a quick look at the winners from the deal: