BERIGAN

Had neck surgery! http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/6839415/colorado-rockies-pitcher-juan-nicasio-neck-surgery-hit

Happy Birthday, hope L.A. is treating you well! Hey, have you had a chance to go to Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee yet??? http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_13254853

Professional football players often die young. RIP. gregmo yes, sadly very true...66 is an old former football player...Rest in Peace...

Cards have a great offense, and have improved their defense with Furcal....but the Brewers may be starting to pull away...I keep wondering if the Reds have a run in them....they really have way too much talent to be this far back...

Actually CNN, Huffington Post, and Fox reported on the story, and no one seemed to take the original story from a Chinese paper seriously...want me to dig up fake stories from CNN and the NYT and move this to the political section, or do we want to stay on the topic at hand???

Big Unit & Shilling did alright in 2001, even with a flakey closer. Had to look him up, forgot all about that guy...nope, everyone else is going to have to look him up too! Ok Quincy, how do you feel about trading 2 good starters away??? Will the team be better with the prospects you got back???

Very exclusive club! Well, part of me really wanted to see the Braves get Hunter Pence, (and she Jason Heyward relearn to hit in AAA) but Michael Bourne is arguably the best leadoff hitter in the game right now, and about the best base stealer in baseball (at least the most consistent) So, braves have solved their leadoff hole that has existed since Furcal left...So both teams addressed their biggest problems...still don't think we can catch your team though....

It's great to see them adding this time of year rather than selling. While not featuring the best records both Central divisions have the most interesting races. And the Pirates have picked up Derrek Lee...Remind me again how many of us were predicting the Pirates and Indians being buyers at the deadline??? At least for now, the Rich Harden deal is off http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/07/red-sox-closing-in-on-deal-for-rich-harden.html

Both the Yankees and Red Sox might have starter issues...braves somehow have an embarrassment of starters on the club and in the minors...but such a weak offense, (beyond bad when Brian McCann is on the DL, Chipper is always hurt and Jason Heyward has gone from looking like the Next Hank Aaron to the next Joe Charboneau) makes the playoffs look like a moot point, or another one and gone playoff series. But hey, instead of Pence, or Carlos Quentin, we will have 4 swell pitching prospects we don't have any room for in the rotation!

It's gonna be a wild NL central!

I saw nothing wrong with the play, nothing at all! Actually, as someone that saw innings 10 thru 19, I really didn't want to see the game end that way...especially for a pirates team that is in a pennant race. I also think if that "blown" call(well, Honestly, it did look like he missed with that sweep tag in real time, so it wasn't as bad as the blown perfect game call) hadn't happened, they would still be playing...Both managers really weren't thinking either...any time you get that late in a game, you will have starters pitching, but nope, they were willing to blown out a long reliever's arm or blow the game than have some starter pitch a few innings, weird.

Man, I knew the Giants offense sucked, but not this badly! From Espn around 7 pm Tuesday...

Hughes outing tonight makes it much more likely that the Yanks will have to do something significant before the deadline. You can't go into the playoffs with one reliable starter. CC Sabathia* 30 14 5 .737 2.62 A.J. Burnett 34 8 7 .533 4.19 Freddy Garcia 34 8 7 .533 3.21 Bartolo Colon 38 6 6 .500 3.34 Ivan Nova 24 8 4 .667 4.12 I know that no one outside of C.C. is going to scare teams, and how you'd naturally like to get another 1-2 type of starter, but that group doesn't look like just one reliable starter to me...

Was just thinking about that when I saw her age. Very sad. Also never understand why "People" find such humor in the fact someone is an uncontrolled addict...

I'm amazed he's been successful as a closer. Braves had him last year, and seemed so dicey, so close to imploding at any moment...but tampa is 7.5 games back right now...can't really see the Yankees and Red Sox imploding...

What was his pitch count? Hey may still be alive! Someone should ask him... Also, they may want to find out if that game played a part in him not pitching the majors after 1945 http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/muellle01.shtml

Well, don't forget, several of their contemporaries that have put up stout numbers at 1st have been shown to use steroids. Rafael Palmeiro, Ortiz, Giambi, off the top of my head. Albert Bell, well, I guess he was an outfielder, but you know with his anger issues, he had to been on roids...I don't know...have the rules changed??? Do guys only get judged by their peers?? (and since many of their peers were cheating...)or by others that have played the position, that are in the hall???

Perhaps the BAMM stores near you are more remainder outlets, but I worked at one from 04-05 and I wouldn't say they were remainder stores, 20-30% of the inventory was maybe??? Not near the "variety and Depth" as Borders used to say, of Borders. You wouldn't find untranslated French, Labor studies, or Urban planning at BAMM... of course Borders may have dropped those sections years ago, I don't know...

The thousands of people who will lose their jobs in a terrible economy are pretty pissed off too, I imagine.

I leave the AL East talk to others, esp. w/ correspondents Paps & Dan. Me, I'm all about the Central Divisions. I'm hoping for an Indian/Pirates World Series! (Barring an offensive explosion out of Seattle of course which takes them to the top. ) Ahh,a Indians/Pirates world series, Fox execs would jump off rooftops! No one would watch! Which is so weird, football, basketball, it wouldn't matter that much in the playoffs for Cinderella teams to make it to the championship game..but in baseball... Now, if its Seattle vs the Pirates, then the rating will be huge!

Quincy, I thought for sure you were going to talk about the Red Sox / Rays game that is still on...wait, just now over!

Wow, did use guys see the home run from Jim Thome today??? 490 + feet, way into the 2nd deck. Also check out Delmon Young's face near the end of the clip on the on deck circle. It must have sounded like something you rarely hear! http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110717&content_id=21906408&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

The only shot is if a bunch of Canadians end up electing players to the Hall. And even then...Given how it looks like it will take a Vets Committee down the line to get Fred McGriff in I don't see Carlos getting in without a struggle. Other the year that Delgado had the massive 145 RBI season he didn't win any other major batting leader titles. He made it to 2 All-Star games (Fred to 5), won 3 Silver Sluggers (Fred the same). McGriff had more top 10 MVP votes (6 to 4 - although Fred neatly was 10th twice for this presentation. ) Face it, 1st base tends to be crammed with sluggers, and in the end he was rarely the best playing there, despite the fact he was an impressive hitter. Winfield's numbers were hurt by playing at Jack Murphy and being right-handed at Yankee. Stargell had to play against the raised mound pitchers of the '60s. Ballparks mostly became more hitter friendly as Delgado played as well as watered down play due to expansion (although the others mentioned had expansion diluted competition too). What??? How dare you question my brilliant analysis sir! I spent at least 30 minutes researching this! According to baseball reference's HOF stats it looks like he's borderline... Hall Of Fame Statistics Player rank in (·) Black Ink Batting - 8 (280), Average HOFer ≈ 27 Gray Ink Batting - 124 (150), Average HOFer ≈ 144 Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 110 (134), Likely HOFer ≈ 100 Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 44 (118), Average HOFer ≈ 50 more from their site... Similarity Scores Explanation of Similarity Scores Similar Batters View Similar Player Links in Pop-up Compare Stats to Similars (added Delgado since they don't seem to have his number listed on this page! ) Carlos Delgado (892) Willie Stargell (892) * Jason Giambi (889) Jeff Bagwell (879) Jose Canseco (860) Fred McGriff (857) Willie McCovey (844) * Jim Edmonds (843) Andres Galarraga (835) Duke Snider (824) * Vladimir Guerrero (817) * - Signifies Hall of Famer Also, Yaz, Winny and Stargell faced a lot more dead armed starters late in games, and less split fingered pitchers...but, whatever. Just seems if you let the Duke Sniders of the world in, you can't leave others out , or judge future players differently. I'd rather see the Crime Dog(McGriff ) in the Hall anyway, he was a good guy and singlehandedly got the braves into the playoffs that year he came over in a trade...

Oh man, don't make me defend Tex! Well, first Carlos Delgado. Don't like him much either. But, He's 50th all time in RBI's with 1512. 30th All time in homers, with 473. Plus injuries at the end of his career robbed him of getting better numbers. He has as good or better career BA/OBP/SLG than Winfield (.283 .353 .475 for Winny) some guy name named Yastrzemski, (.285 .379 .462) Willie Stargell, (.282 .360 .529) or Eddie Murray (.287 .359 .476) They are all in the HOF. For Delgado (. 280 .383 .546 ) Granted, different eras to a degree. Main thing would be was Degado on 'roids??? Hip issue...but if he's clean, won't he likely be elected at some point??? Wait, where was I?? Oh yeah, Tex...I don't give a flying fuck what UZR says...Tex is a great 1st baseman. perhaps the best I have ever seen, right up there with Keith Hernandez. He's driven in 100 RBi's every season save for his rookie year(I'm old enough to still think driving in runs means something, daggumit!) He's hit 30 Homers every year short of his rookie year as well. So if he ends up with 550 HR's 1800 + RBi's, and continues to play stellar defence, how can you keep him out??? Still doesn't mean I have to like the guy....

Dave, I think you already explained it. He's 2nd in baseball in Homers, and 4th in the AL in RBI's. That projects to 45 117. You can't really bash guys putting up those numbers. If he keeps putting up numbers like this, he's easily going to be a HOF'er, but as big Al and I can testify, he seems to put up numbers without hitting like you think he really should. Chances are it's unfair, but all I know is in 2008, pitchers walked Chipper Jones to get to him....Yet in the 103 games he played that year for the braves, he had 20 HR and 78 RBIs on his way to 33 121. And only 8 more losses until they join the Fightin's in the 10K loss club. (Hurry up it's lonely at the bottom.) Can't wait to join that club ! Well, normally, he has the braves number,(reason enough to keep him around! ) but those 5 errors, even he couldn't overcome that... Missed yesterday's game, but see this time the Nats were errorless, and the braves made 2...Braves never have back to back offensive outbursts anymore...