A real good article here on the chances of individual baseball teams going bankrupt in the next few years. It was written by Doug Pappas, a lawyer and SABR member. Just catching Bud in another falsehood. Please vote for the Twins and Expos on the all-star ballot and send a message to this liar of a commissioner.

Did you look at the scores in this series? Giants won the first two games by scores of 7-3 and 1-0. Arizona won the last two games, 7-3 and 1-0. Coincidence? I think so. But still, you have to love when things like this happen. I'm sure Jayson Stark is asking some research to find out the last time this happened in a four games series.

Hey, come on! The Twins and Expos aren't doing well on the all-star ballots (except for the players who are actually very good). Let's get the vote out. I'm even watching the Twins game, and they show a fan ballot, and it doesn't even have all the Twins on it. To quote Arlo Guthrie, "If you want to end the war, you have to sing loud." Get on the web site. Get out to Subway. Vote, vote, vote.

There's been a lot of news about steriods lately. I haven't wanted to comment on this, because I felt the whole story wasn't out yet. Now we get this from Caminiti on ESPN radio:

''It's no secret what's going on in baseball. At least half the guys are using steroids. They talk about it. They joke about it with each other," Caminiti told Sports Illustrated.

However, Caminiti told Patrick on Thursday that he "has no idea what percent is taking it." He said steroids barely even came up in the initial in-depth interview with SI.

"I know a couple of guys who took steroids but it's mostly a clean sport," he told Patrick.

"I didn't mean it to go like this at all. I just want to live my life. All of a sudden I'm just getting bombarded now."

Sports Illustrated spokesman Rick McCabe said the magazine stands by its story, which set off a furor around major league baseball this week.

1. SI did the interview.


2. The editor saw the steriods comment and decided that was the lead.


3. The media has suspected this for years, and now they have an excuse to go full bore on the subject.


4. Old-timers can't stand the fact that hitting records are falling like leaves in November.


5. They get Curt Schilling (who loves to shoot his mouth off) to confirm the abuse.

Sportswriters/broadcasters know nothing about science. In 1999, ESPN was going to do a story about creatine. I was in on the story idea meeting. I didn't know what creatine was, but it was being pitched as a "this is awful, this should be exposed." But the more questions I asked about it, the clearer it was that creatine was simply protein. When ingested, it gets digested just like any protein. I don't know if any of you have ever put protein in pH 0 acid, but when you do that, you destroy the protein. Creatine is food. It's concentrated protein, but it's just food. If you don't drink enough water, you bind up, but that's it. I tried to point this out to them, but they were convinced it was something bad, so they did a story that was wrong. If you work out and take lots of creatine, you get big muscles. If you do that and take steriods, your muscles heal faster, so you can work out more and build more muscle. So don't believe the claims about steroids unless you examine the facts yourself.

For example, I found this on the web (emphasis mine):

Anabolic steroid abuse has been associated with a wide range of adverse side effects ranging from some that are physically unattractive, such as acne and breast development in men, to others that are life threatening, such as heart attacks and liver cancer. Most are reversible if the abuser stops taking the drugs, but some are permanent.

Most data on the long-term effects of anabolic steroids on humans come from case reports rather than formal epidemiological studies. From the case reports, the incidence of life-threatening effects appears to be low, but serious adverse effects may be under-recognized or under-reported. Data from animal studies seem to support this possibility. One study found that exposing male mice for one-fifth of their lifespan to steroid doses comparable to those taken by human athletes caused a high percentage of premature deaths.

In other words, the health effect of long term steroid use hasn't been studied. What if you used them just for a winter to build muscle mass?

There was an article on ESPN.com this morning that I can't find now. I'll paraphrase. The author was noting that players were more concerned with working out than with drinking. I'm sorry, that's a positive. I'm sure alcohol abuse has ruined more careers than steriod use ever will. My mother has been on steriods for a long time, and I've seen what they've done to her. But my guess is, if you use them for the winter, bulk yourself up, you really don't need them that often to maintain your muscle power. In that case, there may be no long term effects. So there may be a silver lining here; players are developing better work habits because they need to train so much.

Also, I'm tired of all these players or ex-players who say steriod use is high, but never name anyone. Okay Curt Schilling, who's using steroids on the DBacks? Brian McRae, you say you know guys who go down to Mexico and get them. Who are they? Or are you just trying to keep your seat on BBTN by being controversial? Benji Gil says players get them while in winter league ball in Mexico. But they don't name names. I hope Canseco does name names. People will say he has not credibility, but if he does this, we'll have a better handle on how many actually use it.

I don't think this is a big deal. Baseball players for years thought that weight lifting hurt their performance. Once is was discovered that you could bulk up and hit a ball farther, everyone was going to do it. Steroids aren't destroying the record book. Better training is. If you want to clean it up, let's have the law enforced. Maybe the FBI can look into this, talk to McRae and Schilling and Canseco and Gil and Caminiti and get names and sources and arrest some people. Wait, they are too busy trying to keep us getting blown up by terrorists.

Never mind.

Don Malcolm has an article in which he purports to find correlations between counting stats and on-base+slugging. When he does the comparison against RBI, here's what he believes he finds:

There are 34 players who’ve averaged 100 RBIs a year over the past three seasons. Amazing to think that Richie Sexson has more RBIs in that span than Barry Bonds, isn’t it? (Keep in mind that Barry missed 60 games in 1999; a better version of this stat would be RBI/G, but that doesn’t get the same knee-jerk reaction from guys who live to gnash their teeth…)

Most astonishing name on this list: Tony Batista. Next most astonishing: Garret Anderson.

In any event, only four of the 34 players on this list have an OPS below .850. That’s a lot better than the hits, doubles, and triples lists, and extremely close to the homer list. The fixation amongst statheads on RBI guys who are bums obscures the fact that very few RBI guys actually are bums.

The basic belief among people who Don refers to as statheads is that RBI are influenced by two things; the power of the batter (usually measured by slugging percentage) and the number of baserunners on in front of him. Now, really good players, those that have high OBA's and high slugging percentages usually bat 3rd or 4th. On a normal team, they are batting behind the leadoff hitters, who usually have the ability to get on base. So you would expect the best hitters to have a lot of RBI, because they are set up to get a lot of rbi!

What we statheads complain about is the beatification of players like Joe Carter, for no other reason than their RBI. Joe was a good player, and he drove in a lot of runs, but he used an awful lot of outs doing that. And Joe always had tons of people on base in front of him. In 1990, he probably could have driven in 100 runs bunting.

We don't think RBI men are bums. We think that players who are low dimensional and drive in runs are bums.

A researcher has found two more walks for Ted Williams, as Rob Neyer reports. What he doesn't say, is what pitcher gets the two more walks added to his total?

I wish I had stayed up to watch the DBacks-Giants game last night. Both starters went 9 shutout innings. I love pitching duels, especially over the last few years when they have become rare.

Pete Walker is making his first start tonight. It's against Pedro Martinez, and that's a rough assignment to give anyone the first time as a starter. But so far, Pete is pitching like Pedro. Through the first two innings, Walker has K'd 5 and walked 1, while Pedro gave up 2 runs in the first inning. He only had 4 K in 13.2 IP coming into tonight, so you wonder if he's going to wear himself out quickly.

Jeff Weaver and Derek Lowe are the only two ERA title qualifiers that have not given up a HR. Weaver is pitching against the Indians tonight. This is a real improvement for him. He usually gives up about 1 HR per 9 IP. You can see it in his ERA this year, 2.92 coming into the game. Interestingly, he seems to be a first half pitcher, so this could just be another good start. Maybe with his thin frame, he tires late in the year. Look especially at his IP and HR allowed:

                ERA   W   L  Sv SvOp  G  GS     IP    H    R   ER  HR  TBB   SO

Pre-All Star   3.94  22  25   0   0  61  60  400.0  393  194  175  35  119  264

Post-All Star  5.08  15  23   0   0  43  42  264.0  291  157  149  37   75  177

Peter Gammons has an article on the fall of the Indians and A's. There are some interesting things in the article:

The Indians, meanwhile, have let it be known they will entertain inquiries on a number of their veterans -- Bartolo Colon, Jim Thome, Ricardo Rincon, Travis Fryman -- as they attempt to restock their franchise with young corner players and hope that they are ready to restore themselves to the top of the AL Central by 2004.

What it demonstrates should be obvious. In both cases, unless one is in the revenue upper class, it is practically impossible to compete for a prolonged time period (and while the Braves are in the top six or seven in payrolls, it is still remarkable they have maintained their excellence for 12 straight seasons). Oakland is trying to make do with the second smallest payroll in the league, less than one-third that of the Yankees, 37 percent of that of Boston. Cleveland is coping with the evolutionary reality that ballpark revenues alone do not make a rich franchise, and as the Indians -- remember, they haven't won a postseason series since 1998 and with the exception of the 2000 White Sox had been playing in the league's weakest division since they rose to power -- got old, had to be reobstructed and had to downsize and the luster came off The Jake.

A good article from the Denver Post about the success of the Rockies under Clint Hurdle. The most impressive thing is that the team seems to be very mature about the whole thing. Here's a quote from Juan Pierre:

"We are heading in the right direction. But we aren't going to get overjoyed," center fielder Juan Pierre said. "Part of winning is knowing how to deal with it. We haven't accomplished anything yet."

The Rockies are 20-8 under Hurdle. What's most impressive is that the team has a 2.79 ERA at home since he's taken over. A Rockies team that can pitch is going to be hard to beat. Maybe those properly stored baseballs are working.

I was just doing some research for my old friends at STATS, and I found this very interesting, so click here to see how fielding percentage doesn't tell you everything.

In yesterday's Yankees-Red Sox game, the Sox got the leadoff man on in the 8th, and then bunted. Stanton fielded the ball and threw to second. They probably would of had the runner, but the throw hit Jeter's glove and then the ground. It was like the World Series all over again. Why do pitchers try to make this play? Even if it's a bad bunt, you always rush the throw to 2nd. Take your time, and make the play to first. The runner on second won't score if you get the remaining two batters out.

The only pitcher I can think of who can make this play is Pettitte. Andy never rushes his throws to any base.

Shawn Green set a major league record with 7 HR in 3 games. The four HR game was pretty amazing by itself, and the three he's added since are sure to make him player of the week. I was sitting with a Yankee fan when the Green trade to the Dodgers was announced. He was very disappointed the Yankees didn't get Shawn. I'm not sure Dodger fans really appreciated him, but I think from this point forward they will.

I've been busy at a conference the last few days, but I was shocked tonight when I saw on the ESPN bottom line that Jeremy Giambi had been traded for John Mabry. Clearly, this is salary dumping, and unlike last year, the A's look like they are giving up. That's real sad. I still think they have one of the best organizations in baseball. We'll see what happens, but I think there is going to be tension between Beane and ownership over this. Does Beane want to rebuild from scratch again? How fast can he do it? Or will he move on to greener pastures? Stay tuned.

Isaac points out to me a web site, urging people to vote an all Twins-Expos all-star team. The author makes a great point:

I realize some of these players are not All-Star caliber,
but the All Star Game is about the fans, NOT the players and owners. This is
the one time of year baseball gives fans a voice. Lets use it!!!!

I'm away on business, so won't be blogging for a few days. I can't get over how many HR the Yankees are hitting. They've actually been a good HR team over the last few years, but they seldom had a stand out slugger. Ventura sure likes his new home.

I notice the Angels have a pretty good record, 5th best in the AL entering Friday. They've outscored their opponents 216-161, which seems about right for their .579 winning percentage. But in looking at the overall stats for the team, I don't see what they are doing that well. For example, their Beane Count is 41, third worst in the AL. So what are they doing well? They are hitting with men on base (.305 BA with men on, .306 with them in scoring position). The pitchers, with the third best ERA in the league, despite issuing a lot of walks and allowing a good number of HR, are only allowing a .229 BA with men in scoring position. I don't believe in clutch performance long term, but the Halo's certainly have been a clutch team this year.

David de la Fuente points out the catcher I was talking about below was Bob Melvin, which is what I sort of remembered but didn't have time to research. Thanks, David. He also comes up with this bit of interest:

This was from a USA Today story in April:

A great sight: Roger Craig is in a big-league dugout.

Roger is one of the gentlemen in the game, also a refreshingly candid
man.

He was a good manager with San Francisco.

Now he is a roving instructor with Arizona, invited by manager Bob
Brenly. Craig, 72, groomed Brenly, his former catcher, to be a manager.
He did the same for yet another Giants catcher, Bob Melvin, now one of
Brenly's coaches. Craig also saw Dusty Baker become a fine manager
after serving as his coach.

The speculation in this article is that Tony Pena will be the new manager of the Royals.

A couple of years ago, at a SABR meeting in Rhode Island, Ken Ryan was the guest speaker. I asked him something about catchers; I don't remember if it was "Who was your favorite catcher?" or "Did catchers make a difference to you?" but it was something along those lines. He hadn't thought about the question before, but started talking about Tony Pena and the other Sox catcher at that time (his name escapes me). He said that when Pena caught, he would come out to the mound and just tell Ken to throw hard. The other catcher would talk about how to pitch to this batter. By the time he talked it through, Ryan had decided the other guy was the better catcher for him.

So from that monolouge, Pena strikes me as a good cheerleader, but less of a strategist. That's okay, sometimes you need someone to inject a positive attitude. I hope he has a good strategist sitting next to him on the bench, however.

Here's the Indians' offense vs. Lefty and and Righty pitchers this year:

               AVG   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  SB  CS TBB   SO  OBP  SLG

vs. Left      .296  341 ---  101  18  3  17  58   2   4  31   63 .357 .516

vs. Right     .229  866 ---  198  32  6  26  90  15  12 106  162 .319 .370

Clemens just gave up a hit in the third.

Clemens is perfect through 3 with 5 K. He's only thrown 33 pitches. Clemens has been averaging about 16 pitches per inning this year, so he's already saved himself an inning's worth of pitches. This game is moving right along. Nice to see.

Here's the Cubs lineup by batting slot (through Monday's games):

               AVG   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  SB  CS TBB   SO  OBP  SLG

Batting #1    .295  149  20   44   6  2   3  12   8   0   9   20 .346 .423

Batting #2    .211  133  17   28   5  2   2  14   7   0  18   25 .309 .323

Batting #3    .346  127  34   44   4  2  15  23   2   0  29   28 .471 .764

Batting #4    .220  132  11   29   6  1   3  21   0   0  19   20 .316 .348

Batting #5    .210  138  12   29   5  0   4  17   1   1   9   28 .264 .333

Batting #6    .181  127  11   23   5  2   1  13   2   2  18   42 .293 .276

Batting #7    .276  127  13   35   7  0   6  19   1   0  13   25 .343 .472

Batting #8    .198  131   8   26   6  0   2   7   2   0   7   21 .245 .290

Batting #9    .172  116  10   20   3  0   0   5   1   0   5   31 .218 .198

Clemens is pitching, and has struck out 4 of the first 6 batters. It's cold, and he's pitching against Tampa Bay. This may be the no-hitter night for Clemens.

John Moores of the San Diego Padres pens this piece for the Wall Street Journal (link requires subscription). He's making the case for revenue sharing, but I don't agree with a number of points.

A handful of clubs have adopted a fairly rational approach to deal with their revenue disadvantage. Unable to afford high-priced talent, these clubs have traded their veteran ballplayers away and opted for a "youth movement," hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. This is a risky strategy because it is extraordinarily difficult to determine which young talent will mature into competitive players. Furthermore, it's hard to retain the talent you groom. Just look at Jason Giambi, who moved this season from the small-market Oakland Athletics to the powerhouse Yankees.

This handful of clubs sounds like the Royals. Youth movements do work if you evaluate your talent and sign them to long term contracts. That's why Cleveland was able to dominate, and why Oakland will continue to be successful. I have no doubt it costs less to sign a player who might be good to a long term contract than wait until a player is good and sign him as a free agent. If the young player doesn't pan out, you haven't lost that much. If the free agent doesn't work out, you're stuck.

Unlike professional football and basketball, baseball has to bear the substantial expense of a "farm" system. It cost the Padres $18.4 million in 2001 to develop future players. This figure includes the cost of scouting and signing amateur players, the operation of our academy in the Dominican Republic, and many of the operating costs associated with six minor league affiliates. The total revenue received by Major League Baseball in 2001 from the minor leagues was $4,698,459. The Padres' share of this revenue amounted to $156,615.

Oh, boo-hoo. Clubs have to pay for a farm system because they don't want to compete with independent minor league teams. If Moores thinks this is such a problem, then he should lead a movement to free the minor leagues from MLB control. Then clubs and trade or buy up and coming players, rather than develop them.

When the Padres lose money, I provide the capital to cover the losses through personal funds or commercial borrowing. Like most clubs, there is no entity related to the Padres that covers losses or creates business synergies. The Padres have lost over $100 million during the seven years I have owned the club -- and we're at the middle of the pack, with some clubs losing less and some losing more.

Some pretend that franchise appreciation makes up for operating losses. I purchased the Padres in late 1994 for about $85 million. A former partner and executive, who is considered one of the brightest lights in the game and is no shrinking violet, recently sold his minority interest back to me at a substantial discount from my purchase price. Franchise appreciation is a benefit that is available only to a limited number of high-revenue clubs.

What I find remarkable about this statement is that Moores is implying that the Padres are not worth $85 million right now. I dare anyone out there to offer Moores $85 million for the Padres. He'd laugh you out of his office. Selig would never let a club be sold for that low price right now. If this is true, I'd seriously think of putting together a group to buy this team. They have some good players and they are opening a new stadium. With really good management, $85 million would be a great investment.

Of course, the article ends with a shot at the Yankees:

In 1999, baseball commissioner Bud Selig assembled a blue-ribbon panel of distinguished Americans -- George Mitchell, Paul Volcker, Richard Levin and George Will -- to address the league's problems. After studying the economics of the game, the panel found that increased revenue sharing and a system of payroll regulation are absolutely necessary for the health of the league. Regulation would be in the form of a "payroll zone" with a floor and a ceiling for each ballclub. The payroll zone, which would be enforced by financial disincentives, would deter ballclubs from exorbitant spending to buy a championship but would also increase player payrolls for many ballclubs.

The fans and the media welcomed the recommendations. But the players' union, which must approve any changes to revenue sharing, has refused to sign off. Not surprisingly, the union is opposed to any action that creates even the slightest risk of reducing the rate of inflation in salaries. The union, it seems, prefers to pretend that a ballclub's payroll is not related to on-field success, and that a well-managed but poor ballclub can be quite competitive. Unfortunately, this simply isn't the case. From 1995 to 2001, the league's top payroll teams have won 219 of 224 post-season games; in other words, they're batting nearly 1.000.

There is, of course, some irony in the union's argument about the irrelevance of player salaries and the significance of good management in professional baseball. But pretending that winning in baseball doesn't require great players, and that great players aren't paid more than average ones, is anything but constructive. If that were the case, George Steinbrenner wouldn't be shelling out $120 million to have Mr. Giambi on his team. Mr. Steinbrenner doesn't need to pretend -- he knows the percentages.

50-50 Splits of gates and media money would do the trick just fine. If a team can win and survive with a $20 million dollar payroll, that's fine. But their players will get tired of no fans in the stands. My guess is the players will never accept a cap. So let the teams figure out revenue sharing on their own, then let the players look like bad guys if they don't accept it. The loss of revenue the big clubs will suffer will bring things much more into balance.

I was just looking at the Red Sox team stats, trying to figure out why they are so good, and I was really impressed. If you break the lineup down by batting slot, only one position, the 5th slot is below league average in OBA (AL OBA, .331, Sox #5, .329). And those numbers are despite Tony Clark. If your problem is that your 1st baseman can't hit, however, that's an easy one to solve. Even with Manny out, they have plenty of options for DH/1b with Daubach, Henderson and Offerman. Secondly, the starting pitching has a phenomenal ERA of 2.97. The one weak link looks like the bullpen, with its 4.14 ERA, but if your starters are pitching that well, you don't have to use the bullpen much, although the starters are averaging only 6 IP per start. Some of that is coming from babying Pedro; I think that will change as the season progresses.

Rob Neyer has a neat article on the balls used at Coors Field. The Rockies have started to keep them in a storage room at a humidity similar to the level the factory uses to store balls. The Rockies noticed that balls were drying out, so by controlling the humidity in the storage area, they are hoping the balls won't be as lively. This makes sense, since Denver is a desert. The Rocky Mountains squeeze most of the moisture out of the air by the time in reaches the city. So far, runs are down a bit at Coors this year, but it's still early, and the real drying out doesn't happen until summer.

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately. But my mom is home from the hospital now and doing well. Hope to be writing this weekend. Have you noticed how the real problems in baseball are in the AL? The NL looks pretty competitively balanced, except for the Brewers, who are an AL team anyway. I'm not sure why, but there doesn't appear to be many teams in the NL that are really out of it, while there are a number in the AL that are destined to a season of playing out the string.

I was surprised by the bent of this article. It pretty much ignored the great perfromance by Josh Fogg. Fogg beats Johnson might have been a better title.

Griffey's feelings are hurt again. This is why the Seattle fans were happy to see him go. Griffey strikes me as a very negative person. Any criticism of him is devestating to him and he has to lash out. It's too bad. He has a lot of talent, and people want to root for him, but he makes it difficult. Of course, the biggest insult of all is that the Reds are winning without him. Now, I think the Reds will be a better team with Griffey, but there isn't a lot of evidence for that right now.

While I'm on a Mariners' tear here, Alan Schwarz has an excellent article on John Olerud. He's been one of my favorite players for a number of years, and Schwarz takes a well researched look at John's defense.

A few years ago, BBTN was doing a week from Disney World at the ESPN Club. I had the family down, and my nephew is a big baseball fan, so I got him in to see the show live. I asked the producer where he could sit, and he said, "I thought he could sit with Harold," meaning Harold Reynolds. Well, my nephew was thrilled. Harold took him into the club, talked about playing 2nd and shortstop with him, and sat him down at a table with the guests that night, Greg Vaughn and Mike Cameron, who at the time were with the Cincinnati Reds. They all signed his baseball. In the audience was John Smoltz, who came over to say hi to everyone at the table. He signed the ball also. I said to my nephew afterward, "You have a ball with a 50 HR hitter and a Cy Young winner, that's pretty good." With Cameron's 4 HR last night, I think the ball went way up in value.

This is why I shouldn't criticize anyone. The second I do they hit 2 HR in an inning. I know anything can happen in 100 AB. Next time I'll wait until the end of May.
Do you think Bret reads this blog?

Today's Marlins-Cardinals game strikes me as the kind I don't like to attend. There were 11 pitching changes, 5 for the Marlins, 6 for the Cardinals. At least for Florida, when Penny could only go 2 innings, Torborg brought in a reliever who pitched 3 innings. He then let everyone work 1 innings, and they all pitched well. La Russa pulls his usual over-managing act. Pearce is gone after 4.1, so he brings in Stechschulte to finish the 4th. He gave up a hit but struck one out, so does he come out for the 6th? No, bring in Timlin. He pitches 1 inning, allows 2 baserunners but no runs. Is he strong enough to continue? We'll never know. There's a lefty leading off the 7th, so La Russa has to go to Matthews, to get one out, which he does with a five-pitch K. Righties are 4 for 20 with 4 walks vs. Matthews this year, but he has to come out for Dave Veres. Now Veres has been pitching well, but his ERA looks to me like it should be higher, and he already has 2 losses and a blown save. Veres also gets one out, but gives up 3 runs doing it. Rodriguez gets hammered in his 1/3 of an inning, and finally the ball goes to Hackman, who is allowed to pitch 2 innings trailing (I assume they were out of pitchers at that point).

Now doesn't it make sense, when your starter is knocked out early, to bring in a guy who can pitch a few innings, just in case the guy you want to finish the game stinks today? They had nothing when Veres blew up, because the Cardinals had used their better relievers already. It was easy to manage a bullpen when you had 4 great starters, Honeycutt and Eckersley. La Russa and Duncan were given too much credit for handling that staff.

Last year, one of the most lively points for discussion on BBTN Online was Bret Boone, and whether his season represented a real improvement in his ability, or if it was a fluke. Supporting the real improvement side, Boone didn't let up. Even got better as the season progressed. Also in support of the real side was Boone's increased bulk. On the fluke side was Boone's career, which was basically unremarkable, and the fact he was in a free agent year. Also, supporting the fluke argument was the lack of interest in him as a free agent, although that may have more to do with baseball economics and the labor situation.

Right now, the flukes are winning. Through last night (May 1) Boone is batting .214, with a .270 OBA and a .357 slugging percentage. I wonder how long Lou will stick with him in the #3 slot. I worried last year when Lou started using Boone batting 3rd, thinking he was going to decline. That never happened, but it is now, and the third slot is a bad place to have an unproductive hitter.

Mike Wechsler writes with this bit of trivia:

Manny Ramirez has hit 9 hr's this year, each one in a different inning! In only 24 games. This feat of first 9 hrs in 9 different innings has been accomplished 5 times since 1980, including once by Von Hayes. Wow. When Mac hit 70, none were in 2nd inning.