2003 Season

I should have known better than to utter those fateful draft day words, "I love this team". It’s the kiss of death. I might as well have guaranteed that the Devil Rays would finish above .500, or not finish last, or whatever nonsense Crazy Lou promised in Spring Training.

And now? I hate the collection of stiffs. They’re non-descript. They’re boring. None are chasing history. There’s noone having a career year. It’s a bunch of Average Joes having average years, or in many cases below average years. Yawn….

Grab Bag....

From the Cliffy Claven archive of little known facts, in 1989 Robert Heuer won the New York State lottery of $2.25 million by using the uniform numbers of his 6 favorite players. 5 (Joe D), 16 (Whitey Ford), 24 (Mays), 27 (Marichal), 37 (Stengel), and 44 (McCovey). Thought you’d like to know.

Dick Stuart, he of the atrocious fielding, nicknamed Dr. Strangeglove, once stood up at a postseason awards banquet and proclaimed, "Behind every successful man stands a woman". To which a member of the crowd stood up and shouted, "And if she’s standing behind you, she’d better be wearing a first baseman’s mitt."

Steroid Use. I, along with I think most, wasn’t thinking about the effect the "ban" might have on pitchers. Certainly it seems a few have lost a few mph and also the ability to pitch in consecutive nights. Joe Borowski comes to mind. What a great pick he would have been in the 14th round. Too bad the Chiefs spent a 9th rounder on him.

Good thing BT and I made such a big stink about Encarnacion. Season pts: 151, Active pts: 14.

I’m counting on Paul Wilson, Jerome Williams and Kaz Ishii as my 3-5 starters. Let that soak in for a moment.

I think The Trip has taken the place of Draft Day as my favorite day of the year. Yes, I know, The Trip is more than one day. Deal with it.

	The Trip	Draft Day
Hot	San Diego	Omaha?
Not	Absolutely nothing	Taking Millwood in the 4^th round
Lowlight	Having to pay $5 for a drink on the airplane	Not being able to see 5 feet in front of the car due to heavy rains
Highlight	An entire weekend of baseball, stadium food and beverages, and good friends	Watching SloPay and U-Bob paddle the Camry down the I-80 median
Big Decision	Bloody Mary or Screwdriver on 10:30 am flight	Back-up catcher
Bad Decision	Side trip to Tijuana with Itchie for bulk rate Viagra and "professionals"	Have I mentioned Kevin Millwood?
Golden Rule	What happens in San Diego stays in San Diego	Teams that don’t suck win championships

Petco Park

Off the Beaten Path

Wow, could the Lakers have looked any more disinterested in the NBA Championship Series? Phil got completely out-coached, and player for player up and down the rosters the Pistons out-hustled and out-played the sLAcKERS. I’m not a big NBA fan, but I desperately wanted to see the Lakers get throttled. My dream came true. Now if Borowski would just go back on the juice.

The History of Omaha pullout in last Sunday’s OWH was interesting reading if anyone is wavering on whether to actually leaf through it.

Note to self: Never send Skipper an email and expect that the rest of the league won’t eventually see it.

Additional note to self: Never share commuting woes and demons of self-medication with Skipper. He doesn’t give a rat’s arz.

Go Chiefs! Or more appropriately, Wake Up Chiefs!

BT and Screech

Top Hitters

1.	Barry Bonds	322
2.	Scott Rolen	313
3.	Vladimir Guerrero	310
4.	Carlos Guillen	294
5.	Manny Ramirez	292
6.	Lance Berkman	287
7.	Bobby Abreu	284
8.	Michael Young	278
9.	Sean Casey	277
10.	Albert Pujols	275
11.	Melvin Mora	273
12.	Frank Thomas	264
13.	Jeff Kent	263
(T)	A-Rod	263
15.	Adam Dunn	260

Top Pitchers

1.	Mariano Rivera	288
2.	Armanda Benitez	278
3.	Randy Johnson	277
4.	Tom Glavine	255
5.	Roger Clemens	250
6.	Danny Graves	235
7.	Carlos Zambrano	233
8.	Ben Sheets	231
9.	Mark Mulder	230
(T)	Curt Schilling	230
11.	Jason Schmidt	225
12.	Francisco Rodriguez	223
13.	Keith Foulke	218
14.	Matt Clement	212
(T)	Akinori Otsuka	212

Standings thru Week 10, June 13, 2004

1.	Wahoos	3962.0
2.	Skipjacks	3752.0
3.	Irates	3671.0
4.	Tigers	3663.5
5.	Senators	3592.5
6.	Redbirds	3521.5
7.	Reds	3457.0
8.	Bombers	3338.5
9.	Cubs*	3331.5
10.	Chiefs	3300.0
11.	Blues	3209.0
12.	Tribe	2683.0

Week 10 Point Totals

1.	Irates	470.0
2.	Wahoos	452.0
3.	Redbirds	415.0
4.	Senators	396.5
5.	Skipjacks	392.0
6.	Reds	350.0
7.	Chiefs	345.5
8.	Tribe	325.0
9.	Blues	321.0
10.	Cubs	305.5
11.	Bombers	288.5
12.	Tigers	284.5

Skip’s Blips

°	I was sorry to see the Rocket get shelled the other day and absorb his first loss. How cool would it have been to see a 40-something Roger Clemens go 25-and-0 for the season? The guy’s incredible.
°	And speaking of incredible 40-year-olds, if Randy Johnson stays healthy for the season, and keeps pitching the way he’s been pitching, he is a lock to win 20 games and contend for another Cy Young award, to go along with his perfect game. Although he is a ways off, don’t count him out as a possible 300-game winner, which would surely make him a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
°	So is it the Rocket or the Big Unit for the NL Cy Young? Or if they fade, maybe my main man, Tom Glavine?
°	I watched Greg Maddux pitch his 295th career win the other night against the ’Stros. In classic Maddux style, the Professor was driving the hitters crazy, nibbling away at the corners, walking none and striking out five. First ballot, for sure.
°	And on that subject, take a look at Barry Bonds’ current on-base percentage (.629) and slugging percentage (.833). If he keeps up his current pace, Bonds will set new records in on-base percentage and threaten his own record on slugging percentage, and will also be the first player to be walked 200 times in a single season. Could there possibly be a seventh MVP in his future? At age 40? Preposterous.
°	Speaking of preposterous, how is it that shortstop Carlos Guillen is now the fourth leading scorer in our fantasy league? How does a career .250 hitter suddenly start hitting .325 with a slugging percentage of .573? Better check the BALKO client list.
°	It figures that Itchie’s drafting of Junior would be the spark that he needed to jump-start his career path to the Hall of Fame. No such luck for me last year when I drafted the slug in the fifth round, and he did his best impersonation of the Tin Man.
°	Is Screech really so busy that he can’t get his publication in to Linda on time, or is it a case of pure apathy begat by his 10th-place standing? At least Magpie had a bona fide excuse.
°	Has anybody seen Mark Remlinger on TV lately? Father Time has not been kind to him. If you saw him playing on an under-50 men’s softball team, you would think that he looked out of place.
°	The legend of Buddy Groom continues. So far, he has pitched in a total of 23 games this year, with an ERA of 3.66, while being absolutely invisible to the outside world.
°	Since we didn’t have the benefit of Magpie’s writing last week, I didn’t get to point out that during Week 9 the Senators chalked up a total of 306 points during the first three days of the week, in a week in which my main starters were each supposed to pitch twice. Then Halladay got put on the DL, Pujols and Jeter pulled up lame, Sheets and Glavine missed a start for some unknown reason, and I finished the week not with the 700 points that I had projected for myself and richly deserved, but 368.5 points, good for only 5th best in the league. Go on, tell me that life’s fair.
°	Enough said? Talk at you next week.

Skipper