Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:57:26 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Tim Marchman :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Tim+Marchman istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/despite-alleged-collapse-mets-are-very-much-alive/86139/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Before beating Washington last night, they were losing mostly by small margins, mostly to bad teams, and mostly because their best hitters stopped hitting just as the wretched state of their bullpen was fully exposed. It's no wonder so many scented the stink of death on the Mets. They were losing ugly. Curiously, though, given the apocalyptic feel of the situation, they weren't losing that much. On September 4, the Mets held a three-game lead over Philadelphia in the National League East. A... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/much-of-k-rods-value-is-derived-from-context/85730/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST As soon as this coming week, 26-year-old Francisco Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Angels, wunderkind of the 2002 playoffs and the American League's career leader in strikeouts per inning, will become the first pitcher ever to save 60 games. Going into last night's game against Seattle, he had 56 saves, one shy of the record Bobby Thigpen set with the Chicago White Sox in 1990. Thigpen set his record in the 159th game his team played that year; last night's game was the Angels' 146th. If things go... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/thanks-to-manuel-minaya-likely-will-keep-his-job/85626/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Whether or not the Mets make the playoffs, in one important sense this year has already been a raging success: It's fun to root for the team again. This may not be a hard criterion like wins or revenue, but in a way it's just as important. The heavy despair that settled in over the franchise last fall wasn't caused just by the team's collapse and failure, after all, but also by the joyless nature of it. To lose is one thing; to lose with a Hall of Fame pitcher tossing balls into short left... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/mets-fans-should-embrace-the-suffering/86777/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The Mets, according to a survey Siena College conducted earlier this year, are the favorite team of 12% of New Yorkers, a population that, broadly defined, counts 18.75 million people. We can thus suppose that there are about 2.37 million Mets fans in the metropolitan area. If team owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon and general manager Omar Minaya were to apologize personally to them all 10 at a time, and if each of these apologies lasted a minute, it would take 164 1/2 days of round-the-clock... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/the-amazing-yet-unnoticed-feats-of-2008/86603/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST You can do great things in baseball without anyone much noticing. A season takes in so many games, so many players, and so many teams that most of what goes on just disappears into a hazily remembered blur. Do something really unusual, and baseball nation will probably pay some mind, but there's always a chance it won't and that the attention you should be getting will instead be paid the burning question of whether Ryan Howard or Carlos Delgado are better than Albert Pujols. (The answer is... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/deserving-or-not-minaya-is-rewarded/86505/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Shea Stadium and environs have been an accountability-free zone for years, one of baseball's closer analogues to the sort of municipal agency where a dead man can draw overtime for years at a clip without anyone noticing. So it was no surprise at all last night when ESPN's Buster Olney reported, just minutes before the first pitch of the most important game the Mets have yet played this year, that general manager Omar Minaya had agreed to a four-year contract extension. Minaya, his many other... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/met-bullpen-actually-may-be-worse-than-it-appears/86374/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Sometimes, things are as bad as they seem to be. Sometimes, they're worse. For most of this season, the Mets' bullpen has been the former; for three weeks now, it's been the latter. It may not end up costing them a playoff spot, but if it doesn't, it will almost certainly consign them to a status as token victims of a brutal thrashing in the playoffs. If there's anything worse than a lousy bullpen, after all, it's a lousy bullpen that's been burned out. The Mets are burnt to a crisp. From... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/life-cycle-of-stadium-could-lead-to-brighter/86334/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Earlier this year, at the height of their power, before the slow decline of age and injury had fully set in, the Yankees were valued by Forbes magazine at $1.3 billion, on the back of an estimated 2007 revenue of $327 million. This is another way of saying for every $40,000 of American GDP, one dollar came into the team's hands, which is another way of saying that for all the attention they draw as the richest team in the richest city in the richest nation in the world, the Yankees are — judged... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/top-10-excuses-for-another-mets-collapse/86018/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If you're a Mets fan, you're likely, and justifiably, convinced that your team is about to give you every incentive to march on Flushing Meadows with a pitchfork and a flaming torch. As little sympathy as I have for you — letting the Mets get your hopes up is about like letting the Washington Generals do so — I do at least have to commiserate over the lame excuses you'll be offered should your men manage, again, to blow it. Here, then, in the strict interest of preparing you for what you may... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/yost-firing-unprecedented-but-not-necessarily/85925/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It wasn't just the American financial system that melted down this weekend, but also the Milwaukee Brewers. Having woken up Thursday with a four-game lead in the National League wild card race, they went to sleep Sunday with no lead at all, having lost four straight to the Philadelphia Phillies, who tied them with the final win. Today, Milwaukee wakes up with a new manager, as yesterday Ned Yost got the sack. If only Wall Street could do the same. The firing of a manager, who after all was at... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/howards-peculiar-statistics-may-determine-race/85530/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Over the 13 games from August 26 through the start of last night's game, a crucial span during which his team played its top rivals five times and stayed alive in the pennant race by clawing its way to a 7-6 record, Philadelphia first baseman Ryan Howard proved a brutal disappointment. The problem wasn't anything he did; in fact, his massive .353 AVG/.431 OBA/.824 SLG batting line did as much as anything else to keep his Phillies close to the first-place Mets. The problem was what he didn't do... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/wagner-era-likely-over-so-may-be-mets-chances/85436/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST There are injuries and capital-I Injuries, and Mets closer Billy Wagner, who last took the mound August 3, is now down with the latter. Yesterday, the team announced that their man will miss the rest of this year and possibly all of 2009 after undergoing surgery later this week for a comprehensive set of tears in his left arm. At 37, with a shredded ligament in his elbow and flexor in his forearm, there is a real chance Wagner has thrown his last effective pitch for the Mets. With the Mets... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/who-is-the-least-valuable-player/85340/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Since the worst player in the majors plays baseball with more skill and grace than 99 of 100 people do anything at all, it feels rude and boorish to point out that someone has to be that worst player. Still, it's so. Over the rest of the season, while players such as Jose Reyes, Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, and Grady Sizemore demonstrate what it means to be the absolute best in the world at something, other players show what it means to be something less. One of them will wear the anti-crown. He... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/sabathia-is-red-hot-but-history-isnt-on-his-side/85261/ Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST When the Milwaukee Brewers traded for CC Sabathia on July 7, they were four games out of first place in the National League Central. Over their next 50 games, they ran up a .620 winning percentage, which would be good for 100 wins if carried through a full season, and lost half a game in the standings. Such is life for a team that plays in the same division as the Chicago Cubs. Fortunately for the Brewers, first place doesn't count for as much as it once did in baseball. Those same 50 games saw... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/cubs-can-overcome-zambrano-injury/85170/ Thu, 4 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The Chicago Cubs being who they are, it was always a certainty that they would, at some point this year, immolate in impressive fashion. Perhaps press baron Sam Zell would auction off their best players. Perhaps the city's foie gras ban would sap them of their vital power. Any way you figured, it was always clear they would make a friend of epic failure. Whether they're doing so now, or whether their bad week is a mere prelude to the loss of an eight-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 7 of... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/in-a-perfect-world-lincecum-would-win-cy-young/85088/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants is perhaps the most stylistically unique starter to debut since Orlando Hernandez. Just as Jeff Bagwell's batting stance was something like the perfect inverse of everything you'd read in a book on how to hit baseballs, junior high school coaches could use Lincecum's violent delivery as the centerpiece of an instructional video called "How To Pitch Badly and Hurt Yourself." And in a triumph for nonconformity in baseball, Lincecum has been the best... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/missing-the-playoffs-will-benefit-yankees/84984/ Tue, 2 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Unless you're counting their race to beat out Toronto for fourth place, the Yankees' season is over. For the first time in his career, Derek Jeter will have to sit at home this October; for the first time since 1994, Yankee accountants won't have to figure out where to stack up millions of dollars in playoff revenue. And an entire generation of New York fans too young to remember the days of Neon Deion and "Bam-Bam" Meulens is about to learn just how dead a truly meaningless September ballgame... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/replay-first-step-down-a-dark-road/84813/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Thirty-five years ago, at Boston's Fenway Park, Ron Blomberg of the Yankees settled into the batter's box as the first designated hitter in the major leagues, turning a normal ballgame into a historic botch and the otherwise blameless date of April 6 into an eternal day of mourning. In all the years since, through drug scandals and illegal collusion and worse, baseball has offered nothing quite so offensive as the debut of the 10-man baseball team. Tonight, that changes. At Chicago's Wrigley... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/much-to-learn-from-whos-hitting-no-8/84717/ Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Chicago Cubs, who boast baseball's best record, have many strengths, but the key one is a lineup of such breadth and depth that you could slot any of six or seven regulars into the no. 3 spot in the batting order without anything seeming at all amiss. This is how you end up scoring half a run more per game than any other team in the league, as the Cubs have so far this year. When you have that many strong hitters, some of them are going to end up at the bottom of the lineup, and Cubs games... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/much-at-stake-in-bostons-final-visit-to-stadium/84621/ Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Boston Red Sox will play the Yankees in the Bronx not only tonight, but for many years to come. Patrons will take the D train to these games. The louts among them will ring bells, wear obscene T-shirts, and wing batteries at Sox outfielders. The games will count. When the two teams play a year from now, they'll probably do so with a playoff spot on the line. When they play 50 years from now, the stands will be filled with old people extolling the virtues of Derek Jeter and David Ortiz. All... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/all-hope-is-not-lost-on-melky-cabrera/84243/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Poor Melky Cabrera. Last Friday, just days after turning 24, the Yankees center fielder was sent down to the minor leagues, which must have been hard to take, coming as it did in his third full year in the majors. Judging by my in-box, his reputation with the paying customers seems to be nearing the depths reached by Carl Pavano and Jeff Weaver. Worst of all is just how appallingly bad the man was up to the point of his demotion, which may have come as a surprise but was amply justified by his... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/despite-drug-tests-pitch-velocity-is-up/84167/ Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Three years ago, when baseball's players and owners agreed on a new testing program near the height of the great drug hysteria, the smart money was on steroid testing being the least important part of the deal. The November 2005 accord, after all, didn't just lay out a series of new penalties for players dumb enough to get caught using bodybuilding drugs, but also put some force behind the sport's amphetamines ban, which was until then mainly theoretical. This struck many — by which I mean me... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/the-real-santana-is-beginning-to-emerge-for-mets/84070/ Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST It was always going to be hard for Johan Santana to live up to his billing this year. As the finest pitcher of his generation and the best-paid pitcher ever, he could only have met expectations by opening the season with several perfect games. He didn't. By the second week of April he was jeered at Shea Stadium, and despite winding up the first half of the season among the league leaders in earned run average, innings pitched, and strikeouts, he was widely regarded as a mild disappointment. As... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/baseballs-draft-system-is-badly-broken/83971/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST When the clock strikes midnight Friday, the signing deadline for baseball's amateur draft will pass. By then, most if not all of the 10 first-round picks who have yet to sign as of this writing will presumably have done so. That things have gone even as far as they have, though, is a sign of how badly the draft system, which was reformed two years ago for something like the 793rd time in its 43-year history, is broken. The deadline, first introduced last year, is designed to lessen the leverage... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/2009-yankees-may-look-a-lot-like-2008-yankees/83851/ Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST According to legend, at least, after being poisoned, shot, and savagely beaten, Grigori Rasputin refused to die. His killers had to bind him and throw him in a river. You can imagine the terror they felt as they watched him drown, wondering what they'd do if this didn't work. The Yankees, by now, are well into the drowning part of their campaign. Yesterday's loss to the Minnesota Twins left them 8.5 games out of first place and 5.5 games short of the wild card. Cool Standings, which assigns... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/quentin-morneau-alone-fit-criteria-for-al-mvp/83782/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST By this point in a season, nothing is easier to predict than a race for the Most Valuable Player award, which goes not to the best player but to the best player who fulfills a variety of arbitrary criteria. Once you admit that the award is what it actually is, rather than what you think it should be, everything falls right into line. To see how this works, just look at the American League this year. It looks at first to be a race, since no one in the league is having such a great season that... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/dunn-trade-balances-power-out-west/83688/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Adam Dunn is 28 years old, a pending free agent who leads the National League in home runs and ranks second in walks. Yesterday, the Cincinnati Reds paid $2 million for the right to trade him to the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that started the day just 1.5 games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the standings and needed, more than anything, a power hitter with a good on base average. Let no one say that Cincinnati general manager Walt Jocketty isn't a gentleman, or that Arizona GM Josh... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/only-the-fans-want-to-see-bonds-back-in-a-uniform/83595/ Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The public may think that Barry Bonds is a villain, but you wouldn't know it from what happened this weekend. As part of a Saturday celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Giants' move to San Francisco, Bonds stepped on a baseball field for the first time since last September 26, and was greeted like a conquering king returned home. Worse scoundrels such as Pete Rose have been treated just as well, but this was a bit more proof that the government, baseball industry, and press have more... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/20-years-since-wrigley-flipped-the-switch/83468/ Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Twenty years ago today, the lights went on at Chicago's Wrigley Field for the first night game in the old park's history. "Eight, eight, 88," groused a disgusted Mrs. Marchman, a lifelong Cubs fan, when reminded yesterday of the infamous anniversary. The only thing that cheered her was a reminder that 8/8/88 was also the day when God was proved to be a baseball fan, as vicious, torrential downpours ruined the festivities and forced umpires to call the game in the fourth inning. By now, with the... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/the-grisly-truth-about-22-year-old-aces/83373/ Thu, 7 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST As Chicago Cubs fans learned earlier this decade, and as Yankees fans are now discovering, the bad thing about having a 22-year-old ace is having a 22-year-old ace. Injuries to hard-throwing young starters may not be metaphysically certain, but they're about as close as anything in baseball. You can mourn Joba Chamberlain's shoulder injury, which landed him on the disabled list yesterday, but you can't be surprised. Over the last 20 years, a dozen pitchers 22 or younger have started 10 or more... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/wagners-dl-stint-comes-at-right-time-in-schedule/83278/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST When reliever Billy Wagner was officially placed on the 15-day disabled list yesterday after tests confirmed that his strained forearm is strained, it was the latest in a series of injuries that have done as much as anything else to cripple the Mets' chances. Frustrating as they've been, few teams could stand the extended losses of their second baseman, both corner outfielders, and their no. 2 and no. 3 starters. Next to all that, losing a closer while you're third in a three-way scrap for... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/parity-in-baseball-actually-down-this-year/83206/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST This year, even more than in recent years, the key word in baseball has been parity. Just as scientists once believed that planets and stars were suspended in a luminiferous ether, baseball fans and insiders take as a given that teams and players are fixed in parity. A concept that can make sense of everything, from why the American League is better than the National League even though the latter has nearly all the game's best players to why last week's trade deadline was the busiest in many... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/mets-have-problems-but-beltran-isnt-one-of-them/83110/ Mon, 4 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Mets, it is clear, are determined to give their fans heart attacks this year. Yesterday, not a week out of first, they lost the last game of a three-game sweep to the Houston Astros, 4-0, which left them in third place, 2.5 games behind Philadelphia. Closer Billy Wagner, already fighting shoulder woes, was unavailable for the game because of a strained left forearm, and will go in tomorrow for a second MRI test in two weeks. Going from worse to worst, starter John Maine was placed on the... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/ramirez-deal-benefits-all-three-teams-involved/83026/ Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Five years ago, the Boston Red Sox put Manny Ramirez on irrevocable waivers. Any team in baseball willing to pay his contract could have had him for $25,000. In the years since, Ramirez has hit 200 home runs, driven in 636, batted .305 AVG/.406 OBA/.576 SLG, and placed in the top four in MVP voting twice. In 2004, he won the World Series MVP award as Boston brought home its first championship in 86 years; last year, he hit .348/.508/.652 in October as the Sox won again. And for much of that... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/pudge-in-pinstripes-is-a-masterstroke-for-yankees/82935/ Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST There are some things in baseball that you can't appreciate until you've seen them up close, some of them the sorts of things you know you'll tell your grandchildren about. Once you've seen the speed and violence of the break on Mariano Rivera's cutter or the level force of Albert Pujols's swing from field level, you get a visceral sense for just how hard baseball is that nothing else can give you. Watching Ivan Rodriguez warm up his arm before a game, literally snapping off fastballs in the... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/weighing-rays-bats-against-yankees-red-sox/82861/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST If you want to make a short, convincing case that the first-place Tampa Bay Rays will inevitably fall behind the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in the American League East, thus putting right the natural order in baseball, you'll have an easy time of it. Simply point to their offense: It isn't very good. As of the start of play last night, the Rays were 10th in the league in scoring, a quarter of a run per game behind the Yankees and a half-run behind the Red Sox. Since the Rays' pitching and... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/ramirezs-circus-has-no-place-in-pennant-race/82787/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Baseball is filled with inscrutable mysteries. Who will buy the Chicago Cubs? How does anyone hit the knuckleball? Why is it that Barry Bonds is seemingly blacklisted from the majors while Boston outfielder Manny Ramirez plays on? Each question is as unanswerable as the next. Bored as anyone may be by the newest ring in the Ramirez circus, the show still amazes. For the third time in the last four years, the pride of Washington Heights has all but demanded to be traded in the middle of a... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/is-the-metamorphosis-of-perez-pelfrey-for-real/82691/ Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Since Willie Randolph and Rick Peterson were fired as manager and pitching coach of the Mets on June 17, the team has an 11-2 record in the six games started by Oliver Perez and the seven started by Mike Pelfrey, two starters in whose games the team had gone 11-16 before the infamous firing. Not coincidentally, the Mets, who were 34-36 and 6.5 games out at the time of the midnight massacre, are now 57-48, a game up on the second-place Phillies after Johan Santana demonstrated yesterday yet... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/gossages-day-in-the-sun-is-long-overdue/82624/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST When Goose Gossage is officially inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this Sunday, it will be a wonderful afternoon. The baseball writers took nine years to elect the great Yankee reliever, eight more than they really needed, but the wait is finally over, and he can take his rightful place alongside the immortal players enshrined at Cooperstown. Gossage is an icon in New York. Anyone who heard the ovations at the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium last week, when the crowd roared his... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/mets-already-have-outfield-solution-in-house/82554/ Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST What would you say if I told you that the Mets could add Detroit outfielder Magglio Ordonez's bat to their roster for nothing at all? That rather than watching one of a variety of fifth outfielders or converted second basemen flail away at the plate like a medicated Al Leiter, manager Jerry Manuel could pencil a real power hitter into the lineup in left field, at no cost in money or prospects? And that this could happen as soon as today? Assuming you're a Mets fan, this would probably strike... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/much-to-learn-from-bad-predictions/82450/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the best things about the sportswriting racket is the complete lack of accountability the trade offers. In most fields, one's credibility is bound up with the accuracy of one's past predictions. If your accountant advised you that you could get away with claiming tax deductions for seven imaginary children because the IRS doesn't care about small fish, for instance, you'd probably stop paying him. And if a political candidate had spent an entire term in office zealously advocating for a... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/k-rod-may-be-baseballs-first-60-save-man/82368/ Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Francisco Rodriguez helped his Los Angeles Angels polish off a sweep of Boston with his 40th save on Sunday, which is pretty impressive even if you're not the sort to be impressed by any achievement involving the worst statistic in baseball. Having reached the mark in his team's 98th game, Rodriguez not only set a record of sorts, but destroyed the competition — until now, the record was owned by John Smoltz, who in 2002 saved his 40th in Atlanta's 116th game of the year. More notably... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/is-richie-sexson-benefiting-from-the-name-game/82239/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST It's good to be famous: Once enough people know your name, it doesn't much matter what you've done, or what you're likely to do. Even in baseball, which comes as near to being a true meritocracy as any institution in America, having the right name can overwhelm all evidence and reason. The reasons aren't mysterious — man has an evolved bias for the familiar over the strange — but the consequences can be bizarre. Take first baseman Richie Sexson, who signed with the Yankees Friday. On July 10... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/the-midseason-awards/82043/ Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST As part of the All-Star festivities this week, the Javits Center hosted the 2008 DHL All-Star FanFest, which sounded like a marketing horror but was in fact inordinately fun. Along with the sight of Commissioner Bud Selig being completely ignored by thousands of people while doing an interview and a Hall of Fame exhibit filled with such holy relics as a game-worn Rogers Hornsby jersey, one of the highlights was a Tiffany display of baseball trophies given to the winners of the sport's various... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/a-legend-among-all-star-games/82001/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:56:32 EST The American League has, for many years, been in a good way. The last time it lost an All-Star Game, Barack Obama had not yet won elected office and Arizona Diamondbacks right fielder Justin Upton was eight years old. Last night, before 55,632 boisterous fans at Yankee Stadium, all the National League's misery was compressed into a few hours and compounded, infinitely. With home field advantage for the World Series at stake, the AL's best came back from deficits of 2-0 and 3-2, and then... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/moment-worthy-only-of-this-city-and-this-ballpark/81970/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Yesterday, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and several dozen of their fellow Hall of Famers paraded up Sixth Avenue on a red carpet 18 blocks long, celebrating the All-Star Game and saying farewell to Yankee Stadium. Hundreds of thousands cheered them, as well as the modern stars who accompanied them, as if they were royalty. Try to imagine New York blocking off two miles of Midtown Manhattan on a summer day for the benefit of some old-school basketball players saying goodbye to the Garden, and you'll... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/all-stars-slug-at-yankee-stadium/81893/ Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST The All-Star Game is where baseball presents itself as it would like to be seen. In everything from its setting to the player rosters, the game expresses the collective will of fans, players, coaches, and the commissioner's office, an idealized vision of where the sport is and where it's going. Ten years ago, for instance, during the vaunted summer of 1998, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds batted third and fourth for the National League in a game that took place at Colorado's Coors Field. All-Star... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/baseball-takes-a-glance-into-future/81783/ Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Yesterday, on a perfect afternoon for baseball, under a cloudless sky and with a light breeze blowing from right field to left, Yankee Stadium was the ideal park in which to introduce 50 of the best prospects in the game, including Fernando Martinez of the Mets and Jesus Montero of the Yankees. New York may even have been the ideal city, as the capital of baseball was only able to fill about one in five seats for the Futures Game. This gave the kids a good idea both of how nice the majors can... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/mets-finally-show-some-fight/81681/ Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST The Mets are finally playing like a real ballclub. Yesterday's 7-3 win over the miserable San Francisco Giants was their sixth straight win, their eighth in their last 11, and left them just a game and a half behind Philadelphia in the National League East. Two weeks ago, as they entered a stretch of 12 straight games against the Yankees, Cardinals, and Phillies, it was pretty clear they were about to make or break their season. Amazingly — unbelievably, given how they'd been playing for more... TIM MARCHMAN http://www.nysun.com/sports/will-a-healthy-harden-give-cubs-the-edge/81596/ Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST As far as free goods go, ace pitcher Rich Harden is unsurpassed. Having pitched just 200.1 innings from 2005 through 2007, the 26-year-old is no staff anchor, but when fit to take the mound, he's spectacular, as evidenced by his line this year — 77 innings, 92 strikeouts, 31 walks, five home runs, and a tidy 2.34 earned run average. To get him at all would have been a coup for Jim Hendry, who runs the Chicago Cubs, the best team in the National League. To get him for nothing, as he did Tuesday...