All Star Break Check Up

Well it is that time of year again, the All Star Break. The time when Major League Baseball players go to a city and watch their counterparts hit monster home runs and just have fun playing the game of baseball. It is also the time of year for most baseball fans, bloggers, analysts and anyone else who made picks at the beginning of the season to see how they are doing. I made my picks at the beginning of the season and lets see how I am doing:

American League East:

• My pick: Boston Red Sox
• Actual leader: Boston Red Sox

American League Central:

• My pick: Cleveland Indians
• Actual leader: Detroit Tigers

American League West:

• My pick: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Actual leader: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

National League East:

• My pick: Philadelphia Phillies
• Actual leader: Philadelphia Phillies

National League Central:

• My pick: Chicago Cubs
• Actual leader: St. Louis Cardinals

National League West:

• My pick: Los Angeles Dodgers
• Actual leader: Los Angeles Dodgers

Well it seems that I am not doing all that bad, the Central Division is giving me a hard time but who would have thought the Cleveland Indians would be doing as poorly as they are, Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano are pitching great but the bats are not producing runs and it never helps when your best player gets hurt. Fans of the Chicago Cubs are used to losing but when they are coming off a 97 win season the expected a log more then what they are getting. However, being 3.5 games out at the break with 5 of the best players having the worst of their career is not bad considering everything else.

The second half of the season should be interesting, I am sticking with my Chicago Cubs pick but I am going to change my American League Central pick to the Chicago White Sox. I like the mix of good hitting and their dominate pitching, as long as they can stay healthy they will stay in that race. A few other stories to follow in the second half:

• Roy Halladay will be traded to the Phillies.
• Pedro Martinez will win 8 games for the Phillies and 2 games in the playoffs for them.
• The Rays will continue their charge in the American League East and make the playoffs for the second year in row but this time as the Wild Card.
• Manny Ramirez will end up with 30 plus home runs and 110 plus RBI's.
• Alex Rodriguez will continue to struggle and do nothing for the Yankees to make a run to the playoffs.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates will finish over .500 this year.

Happy Birthday America.... Mr. Davis and Mr. Steinbrenner

On this July 4th our nation celebrates its 232nd birthday while Al Davis celebrates his 80th birthday and George Steinbrenner celebrates his 79th birthday; combined they are 159 years old. All three birthday's that we celebrate today are famous for many reasons in their own way, lets take a look at the top 5 reasons we should celebrate these famous birthday's.

The United States of America:

• Leader of the free world, every country strives to be like the USA but can only hope to duplicate its power.
• One of the toughest military in the world that will never give up.
• We are stubborn because we have fought through a Depression, two World Wars, 9/11 and we'll keep on fighting.
• Families will come together to set off fireworks.
• We are free to do what we want, when we want and how we want.

Al Davis:

• The way he made the NFL a multi-billion dollar organization with the merger of the AFL and NFL.
• Hiring the first black coach in Art Shell and first female CEO in the NFL, Amy Trask.
• Making John Madden the greatest video gamer of all time.
• Knowing all the short cuts between Oakland and Los Angeles to miss all the traffic.
• Knowing that if Hollywood can not find anyone to play Freddy Kruger they can always call on him.

George Steinbrenner:

• Spent money like it was going out of style which led to baseball players making $25 million a year.
• Luxury tax!
• Corporate sponsorships no matter how big a fine the commissioner of baseball gave him.
• Creating the team that everyone loves to hate.
• Building a $1.3 billion stadium that fans can not go to since ticket prices are so high.

Happy Birthday America, Al Davis and George Steinbrenner!