Derek Zumsteg chimes in with a handy, dandy guide to identifying your local sportswriter. Not to be taken internally.
Rickey Henderson has a new challenger for the all-time SB mark…Manny. Ken Griffey’s the missing element in the once-predicted Best Outfield Ever. Charles Nagy getting innings doesn’t bode well for the Padres pitching staff. Plus more and notes out of Boston, Cincinnati, and San Diego.
While at Bank One Ballpark Friday, I filled out my first All-Star ballot
of the year. Well, it was probably my only All-Star ballot of the year; I used
to do a bunch of them—-issuing votes for my favorite players, the best ones,
the guys on my Strat team, the Yankees—-but I feel like one is enough now. It’s
not unlike my change in attitude toward cheesesteaks.
Before I continue, I have to say that filling out an All-Star ballot with
friends is one of the great pleasures of being a baseball fan. The
good-natured debates over what constitutes an All-Star are a key part of
loving the game, and getting to go through this process with Rany and Jonah
last week was a lot of fun. The all-Royals and all-Expos ballots were a little
tough to take, but that’s life in a democracy for you.
Anyway, I’ll run my NL ballot today, AL tomorrow. As always, I consider
All-Stars to be the top players at their position, with current stats running
secondary to established performance.
Once again, go ahead and cringe. Mike Piazza is waiting on an MRI for his strained groin, but it was pushed back due to swelling. You almost never like to see the words “swollen” and “groin” in the same sentence, so if we’re trying to figure out the severity of Piazza’s injury, this…well, this tells us nothing. Short term, Piazza wasn’t expected back anyway, but until the results of the MRI come back, there’s not much in the way of new guidance.
Seeing that Steve Karsay was headed back to the offices of Dr. Jim Andrews should have been the first clue, but Karsay is now officially out for the season. He’ll undergo surgery on Tuesday to determine the problem in his shoulder. The guess is that there is a small tear in his rotator cuff, but the surgery is termed “exploratory.” Some Yanks’ fans will no doubt question why surgery wasn’t performed back in April when Dr. Andrews said surgery wouldn’t be necessary. The chance of someone coming back without surgery often outweighs the pain and problems of injury rehab. Dr. Andrews has become quite conservative about opening up pitchers in the last 18 months, a fact worth knowing.
Eric Hinske hit a nice long one last night, but he’s still experiencing some problems with his wrist. Reports now move away from the earlier tendinitis and focus on a “radiating bruise.” The symptomology still sounds like some sort of impingement, but we’ll continue to monitor this. The worst of this is that even in an organization that ‘gets it’ like the Jays, some are still encouraging the ‘warrior mentality.’