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2006 Season |
Edition No. 27 |
September 6, 2006 |
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With roughly 25 games to go, the HSL race is shaping up as historic, with a number of franchises chasing this year’s crown with all the intensity and fervor of Shamu wreaking havoc at the West Des Moines Old Country Buffet on “All You Can Eat for a Buck Night.”
Despite a long history of leading many HSL pennant races for most of the season, only to fall short at the end due to a variety of random factors (’87—Julio Franco opts out for a short jazz career; ’88 – Orel Hershiser sets an MLB record with 59 consecutive scoreless innings; 2001—the first of two home run limit disasters; 2004—the second “home run limit” hose job year), the ‘Hoos hold out hope that justice will be served. They also expect to win the lottery, discovery the cure for the common cold, and peace to break out in the Middle East all before October 1. Not. Injuries, a paucity of save ops down the stretch, and the cosmic synchronicity that is “Da Bears” (Could a team be hotter? Could more pieces of the puzzle be falling into place? Can Karma, Mojo, Momentum, and Manifest Destiny leverage off each other in such a perfect way? If I am Denny, I am buying every last lottery ticket I can find. JT should pay Denny to sit in his lap at the Ameristar Black Jack tables – the mojo is just PALPABLE.).
The reality is that Ryan Howard is the swing vote that will vault the Blue States past the Red States. 2006 will be remembered for “HowardGate,” but also as a season when an inordinately large number of exceptional young hitting talent broke through to make the year a wild and fun one – Utley, Hanley Ramirez, Joe Mauer, and many many more young players are at the cusp of changing the face of MLB and the HSL for the rest of the decade and beyond. The next few HSL drafts will be interesting to be sure—better than ever.
Given 2006 seems to be a sea change year, I thought I would offer my all time HSL all star team – the players that in my opinion are the best to have played during the 1985-2006 history of the HSL:
Your opinions regarding this list are welcome and solicited. In my opinion, all are HOF caliber players (Brett and Eck are already in, the rest will be).
The next list is MY favorite players of the HSL era. These may not necessarily be the best players of our league’s history, but are just those that I have enjoyed the most over the past 21 years:
There a lot of other guys that could have made the list, but these are my Most Fun to Watch list.
Given the rise of so many excellent young players, I offer a best guess as to the best players of 2009:
Finally, my best 10 baseball experiences or moments, the things I like best about the game:
Separate Category – Any HSL Draft. Matching wits with 11 of the most fun people on the planet. The best six hours of the year.
Max and I were fortunate enough to catch the Bench Sox against the Jays twice last weekend. First trip to Fenway since fall of 2001 (when I caught a BP home run by Cal Ripken on his penultimate trip to the Fens). Henry and his team have totally spruced up the park. It is the best park in baseball, hands down. Intimate, historic, the best, most patient, most passionate, most savvy fans in baseball. The food is so-so, but everything else is beyond compare. We had pavilion seats Friday night (front row, top of the roof, directly overlooking a spot about 10 feet up the third base line). You could reach out and almost touch hitters in the right hand box at home plate. Saturday – field box seats 15 rows up. You can hear the players talking; AJ Burnett fulfilled the promise he had on the ‘Hoos staff for several years, regularly hitting 98-99 mph and completely shutting down the Sox, except AA call-up David Murphy, who singled sharply up the middle on a 1-2 count in his first major league AB, receiving a long standing O (Sox fans are savvy, appreciative, and these days, desperate for reasons to cheer). The Sox won 2-1 Friday night with a lineup with 3 regulars, lost 5-1 on Saturday with 2 bona fide starting players. Still, it just does not get any better than hanging out at Fenway over the weekend with your son.
This whole technology thing seems to be eluding Counselor Ernst. The pace of technology is changing, and new applications and societal complexity threatens such anachronisms as the written line-up card, the bound scorebook, and the “newspaper.” Information is available, but the widening gap between the tech savvy and the digital underclass seems to bode ill for those unable to learn, process, adapt, and compete. Despite Video Professors, point and click applications, virtual reality, and touchscreen technologies, progress evolves at lightspeed and victims are left in the wake of digital freight train that is Yahoo HSL baseball. Perhaps before next year’s draft we should have a 2 hour tutorial on passwords, cookies, Voice Over IP, retinal recognition systems, Identify Theft, and “How to Make an Income Selling on eBay.” Perhaps the next winning party will have a “Return to Amish Ways” plank that emphasizes crayons, newspapers, and telegraphs as primary modes of communication. Your technology scares me, I am but a simple Caveman Lawyer.
Tracy and I may be the only parents to have a child be on a state championship baseball team, and a daughter on a softball team that goes winless in a season in the same calendar year. DA lost again tonight, and looks to be in jeopardy of running the table in the wrong direction as they are now 0-6 with about 20 games to play. Still, a great bunch of kids who are having a blast. Unlike the HSL, pitching is everything, and DA just does not have it on the hill . . .
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The stretch run should be interesting, to say the least . . . be nice to those you meet, and Keep the Faith. WHW TB
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