Baseball

The regular season is wrapping up this weekend, and hardly anyone is noticing. It's been a season marked once again by parity (read: mediocrity) of teams, but there have been some outstanding individual performances.

It's my obligation to this blog to review my prediction performance.

I did have the Rays as the answer to the WSJ preview game question,
"Which team will improve its record by the most games?".
Generally, though, my performance on it looks pretty weak (I'd fallen
in love with the Reds', Tigers', Rockies' starters--they were not
worthy of it). I did have Mets & Phillies in the playoffs, and
Phillies-BoTox in the Series, and those picks look as good as any
other at this point, but I lacked a coherent scenario.

I think the negative story of Yanks '08 is secondary in the big
picture (as was that of Mets '07), with the primary one being the
feel-good parity stories of the Rays/Cubs in '08 and the Rockies in
'07, and the strategic issue of the superiority of the AL. And Barry
Bonds as the player story of the year--last's year's Cliff Lee, but
more offbeat.

Even the Yanks are entitled to an off-year once or twice a decade. I'm
not worried they won't be back.

My bummer of the year award goes to Aaron Harang. It's because of him that the Reds tanked early, bailed ineffectively, and are back to the drawing board. Five more years!