A Small Ray Of Sunshine Amid The Rain From The Natural Disasters

• Mets 7-Cubs 6:

Just another ho-hum night in the lives of the New York Mets; trying desperately to screw

up their entire season with another late September swoon; getting stunning contributions from such ne'er-do-wells (or rare-do-wells) like Ramon Martinez and Robinson Cancel; having Daniel Murphy miss a sign, bunt with two strikes and strike out (which emitted a rare show of emotion from stoic manager Jerry Manuel); Ryan Church's bizarre, unintentional end-around slide that looked like the dance

John Belushi was doing at the end of Animal House; and coming back from a 6-3 eighth inning deficit to win on a Carlos Beltran single in the bottom of the ninth.
The Mets are playing with fire just about every night now; usually it's with the bullpen, but now it's become clear that Pedro Martinez is no longer able to provide anything more than six innings and (if they're lucky) four runs. It's like throwing darts at a dartboard to see which reliever to use and Manuel guessed right tonight with Joe Smith (who's usually reliable anyway). As for the appearance of the 35-year-old Ramon Martinez in the starting lineup----why not? He couldn't be any worse than Luis Castillo's been over the last month and the bloom is off the rose from the "find" made by the Mets stat-guys in Argenis Reyes. (There are generally reasons why players are relegated to the minor leagues for the majority of their careers.) There's no point in quibbling with anything as long as they win. Whatever works is going to be seen as the correct move and with the way the team is patched together with pitchers 3-14 on the staff, a win is a win is a win.

• Brewers 5-Pirates 1:

The game just ended about a minute-and-a-half ago and the Pirates are rotten. Just plain awful. The Brewers relievers did an above-and-beyond the call of duty job by keeping the game

close (admittedly against a Pirates lineup that would never be confused with the 1927 Yankees; or the 1627 Yankees----and I know they didn't exist then, that's the joke), but like the Mets, a win is a win is a win.
The problem the Brewers now have is that they have no choice but to pitch Jeff Suppan tomorrow night against the Cubs and play while the Mets are likely to get rained out. The Cubs, while resting their regulars periodically in the Mets series, didn't use Carlos Marmol last night or tonight and will undoubtedly be looking to get him some work in the Brewers series; they'll also want to make sure to play the games to win just as they did against the Mets. After the way this last month has gone, I'm not even going to speculate on what might happen this weekend with either the Brewers, Mets or Phillies. Anything can happen and I wouldn't be surprised to see a playoff game on Monday or even playoff games on Monday and Tuesday if all three end up tied----a realistic possibility.

• The incoherent Sarah Palin:

I generally don't indulge in capricious ridicule, but I'm trying to figure out what the John McCain campaign is trying to pull with Gov. Sarah Palin. They've kept her in a cocoon for a

month now, only letting her do select interviews with select reporters; keeping her under tight constraints and hoping to use her attractiveness and extreme right wing views as a shield for the fact that she's not only unqualified to be vice president, but she's incoherent, ludicrous and offensive to those that are able to look past their own agendas to accept what is best for the country.
For those that are still defending her after the video of her in church with a pastor whose sermons are far more frightening than anything Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor ever said, how is it possible to watch the two interviews that played today and still entertain the notion that she would be able to handle potentially being president of the United States in January? The brief time she spent at the podium following her tour of the World Trade Center site this afternoon showed her sticking to the basic, non-specific

talking points of "taking the fight to the terrorists over there" rather than risking another attack. That was bad enough, but the interview with Katie Couric in which Gov. Palin sounded like a twelve-year-old taking an oral exam and trying to say a whole load of nonsensical stuff in the desperate attempt to hit on a couple of the answers to the questions and score some points was inexplicable. Palin was quite literally making no sense whatsoever in her ramble about how Alaska is close to both Russia and Canada and how Russia utilizes Alaskan airspace, etc. And Katie Couric ain't exactly Mike Wallace when it comes to interviewing. At best Palin sounded incoherent and unprepared; at worst she sounded imbecilic.
Normally, this wouldn't be such a problem, but the circumstances surrounding this election make the Palin choice so dangerous that there's no way to know whether or not her blatant stupidity is going to result in a win for Obama. For all the polls that show Obama to be leading, there is always that possibility that people are saying one thing with the intention of doing another when they enter the voting booth. It may be because they're embarrassed, don't want to be seen as racist or whatever. Obama is so new, so different that it's hard to believe the polls wholeheartedly. Add in that Sen. John McCain is 72-years-old; not in the greatest of health and is evidently so desperate to get elected that he'll do and say anything to achieve that end, and this is a recipe for a dangerous disaster.
It takes a lot to frighten me, but the very idea of Sarah Palin as the president of the United

States is terrifying. She's not just inexperienced anymore; every time she opens her mouth, she's proving herself to be woefully unprepared and bottom-line uninformed and unintelligent. The incoherence of her answers in every interview she does would normally disqualify her and by proxy, the man who picked her as his running mate. I have to believe that enough secular republicans are going to look at the situation and realize that the risk is too great and vote for Obama with an eye on 2012, but that's not necessarily what's going to happen. I've made it clear that I'm not a supporter of McCain (I liked him in 2000 and this isn't the same guy), but I could live with him as president if he'd picked Mitt Romney or someone who would be a competent president. That is not the case with Sarah Palin and I can only hope that people watch the interview and put personal beliefs aside and send her back to Alaska because she's completely inept and a true danger to us all.

The Greatness Of Ben Sheets/The Risk Of Ben Sheets

• Mets 4-Brewers 2; why Ben Sheets is baseball's biggest free agent prize/risk:

The biggest risk this off-season won't be made by whichever team signs the likes of C.C.

Sabathia or the likely free agent A.J. Burnett; the biggest risk/reward will be made by the team that signs Ben Sheets of the Brewers. Yesterday's game was a microcosm of Sheets's career as he was unhittable for five innings against the Mets, using his Greg Maddux-level control along with a mid-90s fastball and a wicked curve to make the Mets look like they were an inning away from waving their hands at the field, shaking their heads, putting their bats away and going back to the hotel. Then after the fifth inning, Sheets was removed for a pinch-hitter because of tightness in his groin, the latest in a long line of injuries to just about every single part of his body going back the entire length of his career. The Mets eventually capitalized on the Brewers bullpen weakness to win the game.
Teams that are in the market for a starting pitcher after this season and have the money to pay for a pitcher of Sheets's caliber are going to have to think long and hard about whether or not to take the risk of $100+ million on a pitcher who has that ability but medical history. It's a positive that Sheets has made 27 starts this season after making a maximum of 24 in the past three years, but that can be accounted for by his impending free agency and a desire to prove that he's durable enough to make such a massive investment.
Are the Yankees going to be willing to roll the dice on another high-end talent just as they're getting out from under Carl Pavano's contract? Are the Mets going to want another $100 million pitcher in their rotation? There's been talk of Roy Oswalt openly recruiting Sheets to come to the Astros; and there are always the Angels, Red Sox and Dodgers who have the money to spend. The teams to watch are the ones who lose out on Sabathia because it would drastically increase Sheets's paycheck if a team is desperate to add starting pitching and Sheets is the only big name left on the market.
The biggest problem with Sheets is that he's got that incredible potential and is only thirty-years old, so if he goes to that new team and suddenly finds some durability, he could be a perennial Cy Young Award contender, but again it goes back to the historical problems with his entire musculature. The reason he's so tough to hit is that he has that great control

with all of his pitches; the hitters have to start hacking at the first thing upon which they think they have a chance of making solid contact, but it's still a pitcher's pitch; then they're going to keep Sheets's pitch count down because they can't take pitches because he's not going to walk anyone. When he was removed from yesterday's game, he'd only thrown 54 pitches in five innings, so he was going to go at least until the eighth inning and would likely have pitched a complete game (that's if the Mets didn't just go back to the hotel). Someone's going to write Sheets a big check after this season, then they're going to hold their breath to see if they're going to get a Cy Young contender or a guy that's going to spend a chunk of that multi-year deal on the disabled list.

• Yankees 13-Tigers 9:

The Yankees problems this year in a nutshell: they scored thirteen runs yesterday and were about one or two Tigers hits from having to use Mariano Rivera to close the game.

• John McCain's VP pick goes from bad to worse:

Since John McCain referenced Gov. Sarah Palin's experience as a member of the Alaska

PTA as a reason for her being qualified to be vice president, it made me think that my mother is also qualified to be vice president. In fact, she was president of the PTA, which, common sense dictates would mean executive experience. It's somewhat frightening that Gov. Palin is running a state whose population is roughly one-quarter the size of Brooklyn and was picked to be the running mate of a man who's 72-years-old and is looking increasingly detached by the day. Just looking at the way the job of the presidency aged both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush should give people pause from taking the gamble of voting for McCain, but his VP pick should make it out of the question. The argument being proffered that people "don't vote for vice presidents" makes sense if the president isn't someone who's at an age where he could, let's be blunt, get sick or drop dead at any moment. This is not a normal year in presidential elections. Even with all of that, the new revelations are adding to the confounding nature of the pick.
Gov. Palin was chosen to placate the evangelical base of the Republican party, but what does it say about her qualifications as a "family values" candidate as she has a 17-year-old

daughter who got pregnant outside of marriage? I'm not going to comment on the personal life Gov. Palin and her family, but the fact that they made it a point to cover her daughter with a blanket holding her baby sister to keep the pregnancy a secret makes me wonder what they were thinking about. It was like they were going day-by-day with the pick and would worry about what happened when the story leaked (it got out three days later) and try to spin their way out of it.
The reactions of the conservative commentators were laughable. Imagine if it were one of Barack Obama's daughters who got pregnant; what would have been said in public (condescending and insulting) and in private (overtly racist) about him and his family? Just as much of the conservatives were trying to find ways to tout Gov. Palin's qualifications while backtracking or twisting their comments on Sen. Obama's lack of experience, they're hit with this scandal. The Christian right would have had a field day if it were a candidate that wasn't someone who they deemed appropriate and she's still the choice of a man who's 72-years-old.
The selection of Sarah Palin appeared to have been done without much thought and based

on little more than a "gut feeling" on the part of Sen. McCain, which should add more questions about his judgment than to his reputation as a maverick who does things his own way. The obvious and smart pick for McCain was Mitt Romney despite any personal enmity between the two (even though those feelings seem to have cooled). Romney, despite his flip-flopping on issues is: the Republican former governor of a large, liberal state; has experience and grand success in business; and has run an almost impossible entity in the Olympic Games. Despite the contentious campaign, Romney is clearly a decent man who would be able to handle taking over as president if necessary. This isn't to imply that there's anything wrong with Sarah Palin or her family because her daughter made a mistake, but how was this not seen to be a problem when she was selected specifically because of her family values and beliefs?
The hypocrisy of the right wingers is absurd because the same people who would be lambasting Sen. Obama were he in the same position; and wanted Bill Clinton thrown out of office and into jail for perjury are defending the subterfuge of the blanket at the introductory press conference and are saying that it's a "private family matter; they were also the ones who said that Scooter Libby shouldn't have gotten any jail time for committing what was the same crime as Clinton was accused of committing. They leave out that it's a bit different to out an undercover CIA operative based on political motives and a guy lying about a sexual liaison; that it's a bit different when the conservative governor of a very small state is having the problems that a churchgoing, religious family is designed to avoid.
I'm no leftist loon either; I've voted for republicans and democrats. In fact, I was decidedly not a part of the 70% of New York State residents who voted for Gov. Eliot Spitzer; I couldn't

tell you the name of the republican candidate, nor do I know anything about his platform or beliefs and I knew he was going to lose. Technically, I voted for the candidate, but in reality I was voting against Spitzer because I thought there was something creepy and disingenuous about him; and personally I don't care if he goes to hookers, but it's the smug sanctimoniousness and creepiness that I can't abide. After the Black Sox scandal of his own making, it turns out my instincts about him were right and I believe that they're right about this republican ticket. Vote for it at your and the United States' own peril.

Yankees In A Catch-42

• Yankees 2-Blue Jays 1:

Imagine you're Joe Girardi and as you sit in the dugout trying to nursemaid your set-up

men Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez through the eighth inning of a game you must win, you look up at the scoreboard and see that both the Red Sox and Rays are blowing out their respective opponents. Not only that, but the Red Sox happen to be beating up on one of the teams directly in front of the Yankees, the White Sox. With a chance to gain a game on one of the teams you're going to have to pass to get into playoff position and the two direct competitors in your own division winning easily, what do you do?
What do you do as you watch Jose Veras put Carl Pavano's second straight gutty performance (with stuff that could only be classified as mediocre) in jeopardy after Pavano outdueled a pitcher who's on his way to possiby winning 20 games in A.J. Burnett? What do you do, after Veras gives up a hit and a walk and you bring in Ramirez who records an out via strikeout and Joe Inglett, a left-handed contact hitter having a solid year is coming to the plate with one out and the game in the balance?
It's simple you think, I have the greatest closer in baseball history in the bullpen warming up and ready; but bear in mind that the greatest closer in baseball history is going to be 39-years-old later this year; that he's accustomed to only pitching one inning to get his saves; that most of the times he's recorded saves of more than a single inning have been in do-or-die situations; that he's pitched more than one inning six times since August 12th; that he recorded four outs to save another imperative game against the Red Sox just 30 hours before; what do you do?
You think it's an easy decision? Knowing you have to win every game you can? That if you have a 2-1 advantage, you can't simply let Rivera's workload dictate a game's result if losing that game will put you seven games behind the Red Sox and eleven and a half behind the Rays? Do you

even have a choice? Girardi did the right thing in bringing Rivera in and there may be eighth inning help on the way from Joba Chamberlain, but there are going to be other situations like this over the final month because the Yankees cannot afford to lose games like this in which they're in a position to win. If it was a blowout one way or the other, it's a convenient way to give Rivera the days off he needs, but the situation is such that Girardi had no options and he had to put Rivera in for another eighth inning save. It's going to be this way for the final month of the season and even if the Yankees somehow pull off a miracle and make the playoffs, the question is going to have to be asked, is Rivera going to have anything left to give in October?

• Mets 5-Marlins 4:
  

Kevin Gregg is not a very reliable closer and I could almost hear the Phillies cussing and throwing things in Chicago as Carlos Beltran's two-out grand slam sailed into the right field bleachers of Dolphin Stadium.

• Cubs 3-Phillies 2:

Yesterday was my first look at Jeff Samardzija and combining him and his fastball (upwards of 95 mph), with Carlos Marmol (a funky motion and another power fastball) and Kerry Wood will give the Cubs a 2008 version of manager Lou Piniella's famed Nasty Boys from the 1990 Reds; the games are going to be over after the sixth inning, sort of like little league.

• Republican Vice Presidential nominee...Sarah Palin?

This might have been an inspired choice for John McCain if he were ten to fifteen years younger, but in an attempt to appease the religious right/zealot/lunatic fringe of the republican party who cannot stand him, he picked a young woman with almost no experience whatsoever other than a year and

a half as the governor of the almost forgotten state of Alaska. Do McCain and his advisers really believe that Sarah Palin is going to attract the disgruntled voters of Hillary Clinton? Does he think that they're going to look past her stance on abortion (against it in all cases); guns (enthusiastic member of the NRA); and beliefs (she wants to have creationism taught in schools) and vote for a 72-year-old man whose health isn't all that great and whose mental acuity deserts him from time-to-time and run the very real risk that she's going to have to step in and be the president of the United States? Think about it.
If McCain were 62 instead of 72, then appeasing the radical right wing of the party was a good idea; but the Hillary voters who have a problem with Barack Obama are either going to look at their choices and stay home, or shut their eyes when they walk into the booth and vote for Obama; a minuscule number of women are going to vote based on gender. This was a big mistake and a complete turnaround from McCain's image as a maverick because it wasn't

done because he wanted to do it, it was done for political expediency.
I believe deeply that the republicans are throwing McCain to the wolves knowing that they're almost assuredly going to lose in November and are looking toward 2012 when they'll be able to run the likes of Mitt Romney or some other more palatable candidate to the radical base and centrists that they need to win. They were hoping to stay close and maybe capitalize on Obama's newness (in every aspect of his story) and just as they threw Bob Dole in to run against Bill Clinton hoping that the Clinton baggage would allow Dole to win, they're hoping that McCain can somehow pull out a squeaker; this pick makes it clearer than ever that they're desperate to the point of throwing in everything but the kitchen sink and it's not going to work; in fact, it makes things worse.