>>>Congratulations Tamar. You got your wish. Oswalt pitched a very nice game.
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>>Oswalt has not been himself for much of this season due to injuries. Fortunately for the overly fortunate ($$$) Phillies they have three of the best starters in baseball to keep the boat afloat. Lately they have been making mincemeat of the Brewers and Cardinals, two of the most prominent also-rans in the NL. IMO they are the best team in baseball with very little question. Of course, that is no guarantee they will win the World Series.
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>True. As trite as it is to say, it really is true that anything can happen in a seven game series. Look at the Jays. Just finished beating Boston three out of four and then on to the Yankees to beat NY two out of three. Who knew?
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>>Scanning yesterday's scores on espn.com was pure pleasure. The Brewers won again in Cincinnati and the Cardinals lost to the Phillies. The magic number is down to 7. Ryan Braun went 3 for 5 with 4 RBI. He now leads the NL in batting average and is close to the top in homers, RBI, stolen bases, slugging percentage, and OBS. Prince Fielder has had a great year, too, but I think Braun has all but locked up his first Most Valuable Player award.
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>I think so too. He's having a standout year. In the AL, I don't care what anybody says and I don't care that there is a Cy Young award, if Verlander doesn't win the MVP there is something extremely wrong with the system. With him, they clinched the division title today. Without him they are basically a .500 club. How much more valuable does he need to be?
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>>The other baseball story that made me feel good happened right there in Toronto, Mariano Rivera tying the lifetime saves record against the Blue Jays. He has not been a player I have followed with passion, since he plays for the stinking Yankees, but as a fan you can only admire what he has done. More so, how he has done it. He's like a machine. He goes out there placidly, same thing every time, and puts the other team down. He doesn't yell and gesture like some of those wild guys on the Reds used to do. Just a man doing his job, nearly flawlessly. We are fortunate to have seen him play. Even after the game yesterday he didn't like the attention being on him. He focuses relentlessly on the job at hand. In the old days of sportswriting he probably would have been dubbed the Panamanian Sleep Artist ;-)
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>Sure, but we did mess him up badly earlier this season. Although, great is great. You've got to give him his due even when he beats up on your team.

I agree with you about Verlander, but don't expect it to happen. Many MVP voters believe the award should not go to pitchers, period. It has happened but only rarely, the last time being Roger Clemens back in the 1980s IIRC. As one centerfielder (Andy Van Slyke?) said, that's why we have a Cy Young award, so those guys who don't play every day and sit out in the bullpen chewing sunflower seeds and having attendance pools every day, they can have their own award ;-)

The only sillier award tradition I can think of is college football's Heisman Trophy. There is an unwritten rule that the winner has to be a quarterback or running back.