MLB All-Star break

Its been an interesting MLB season so far. How else would you characterize a season in which the Devil Rays are leading the Yankees by 5.5 games at the break! The Rays - thats apparently their new name and I am sure some morons think they are winning only because they removed the "Devil" from their name, could have led the AL East if not for their 7 game losing streak going into the break. They turned over the lead to the Red Sox because of that.

The Yanks seem to be still playing decent ball amidst all the Madonna-A-Rod rumors and his divorce proceedings. Baseball seems to be least relevant topic when you talk about the Yankees these days. I hope the Rays hang in there and don't let these Devils from New York get back into the race. I am still far away from my dream of both the Yankees and the Red Sox missing the playoffs, but I never thought the Rays of all the teams would be my only hope for achieving at least 50% of that dream this season.

In the West, I am disappointed with both my NL and AL teams. The D-Backs, after a hot start, are slipping and are leading the division with a sub-500 record. It still looks and feels like it's their division to lose, but they should be running away with it by 15 games right now. Instead, they are leading Joe Torre's Dodgers by a game and even the Giants with one legitimate talent in the baby-faced Tim Licecum are just 7 games behind. This division has been real bad a couple of times over the last few years, but this was not supposed to happen this year with 2 playoffs teams returning from last year. Hope the D-Backs get it done in the second half. Right now the NL is all about the Cubs who are sending like 80 players to the all-star roster!

In AL, the A's are over-achieving, but are not able to keep up with the Angels. They are now 6 behind and Billy just traded Rich Harden. It looks like Billy desperately wants to make it tougher and tougher for his team to win and they still keep winning ! He keeps increasing the degree of difficulty with these "rebuilding" trades. But he always gets good players in return and the team keeps it interesting. They desperately need the new yard. They can't be in this eternal rebuilding mode, though half of MLB is in this state except for the wealthy few.

Anyways, now onto Chris Berman's annoying "back, back, back" squeals during the home run derby.