1 reply to this topic

[Mike D boy]

Tomorrow is the 85th annual MLB All-star game in Kansas City, in the Royals' home turf of Kauffmann Stadium in Independence, Missouri.

Despite the Royals' lack of winning seasons in over 25 years (the 1985 World Series championship defeating cross-state rivals the St. Louis Cardinals), there's a high turnout of seasonal average game attendance by Royals fans than most of the MLB's 30 teams in the remodeled ballpark facility. The other pro sports team, the Chiefs in the NFL is a crowd-pleaser, so I believe Kansas City is the ideal place for the All-Star game. Today is the 5th Civil Rights game, a special honorary baseball show held across the Southeast states, is held in Atlanta for the 2nd time and will return to New Orleans next year. They played in Birmingham, Alabama; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Memphis, Tennessee.

Currently in the half of the season, the best winning records are:
American League - 1. Texas Rangers (West) in their 3rd straight sensational season, 2. New York Yankees (East), 3. Los Angeles Angels (West-if the season ended, my fave team is a wild card!) thanks to Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, and 4. Chicago White Sox (Central) which is the fave team of president Barack Obama. The worst team overall with a 20 games behind score is the Astros in the NL expected to switch leagues next year is the polar opposite of their cross-state rival. Then the Padres down in San Diego, the Rockies, and Chicago Cubs.

National League - 1. Washington Nationals (east) due to phenomenal pitching staff like Steven Strausburg, 2. Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants (West-tied, cross-state rivalry), 3. Pittsburgh Pirates and 4. Cincinnati Reds (Central) with the Pirates' hope to return into the playoffs after their long postseason drought, but they have to rob the Reds, as well the blue Dodgers or black Giants of the golden state: the Pirates' gold and black represent steel, gold and oil of Pittsburgh's economic might.

Washington D.C. with the other winning season team the Baltimore Orioles 40 miles away would like to see the Nationals' first post-season appearance, but Strausburg and the team roster have to work hard and prove their point of what makes American competition...work (hard!) and I'm keeping an eye out on the Braves and New York Mets, as well the Cleveland Indians. Anything can happen in the 2nd half of the season, and I really hope the Angels continue their way up to enter the first round, advance the second round, and by luck the world series.

(Oh no here we go, another new temporary name: The 4 California League teams of the Inland Empire region-includes the Palm Springs area. All were affiliates of the Angels-Palm Springs was a member from 1985 to 1993 and Riverside had a team in 1988-1990, or the L.A. Dodgers and San Diego Padres).

Edited by Quake Storm Maverick 66er, 10 July 2012 - 02:05 AM.

[Mike D boy]

I was a pen pal for two major leaguers: Don Baylor, first manager of the Colorado Rockies and current pitching coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks; and Bert Blyleven of the Angels (and the Minnesota Twins) in the' 80s owned a sports cafe in Villa Park not far from Anaheim Stadium in the early 1990's. Baylor lived in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs and I was a then teenage boy interested to meet (er, write to) a baseball team manager at the time.

I'm again looking at the standings to find the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins slumped in their quest to represent Florida in the postseason. Last year the Rays lost to the Red Sox in the postseason makeup case, and early this year the Marlins reorganization effort was affected by manager Ozzie Guillen's sympathetic Fidel Castro comments offended the heavily anti-Castro fan base of the Cuban exile community in Miami (some called him to get fired). Guillen's alma mater the world series champion Cardinals are ahead of the Marlins above the .500 mark which determines who's a winning team.