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http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/re...oRvLYF?gid=310928101

BALTIMORE (AP)—The Boston Red Sox completed their September collapse in horrific and historic fashion, falling out of the playoff chase by allowing two ninth-inning runs in a 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night.



The Red Sox held a nine-game lead in the AL wild-card race after Sept. 3, but a 7-19 swoon left them tied with Tampa Bay entering the final day of the regular season.

Only minutes after this game ended, the Rays completed their comeback from a 7-0 deficit with an 8-7 win over the

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...ife-gets-complicated


"His real name is Juan Carlos Oviedo," Miami Herald reporter Frances Robles tells NPR's Lynn Neary. "And when he was 17, he assumed a friend's identity, who was 16 — because the teams pay so much more money for 16-year-olds."

http://content.usatoday.com/sp...ll/mlb/salaries/team



TEAM TOTAL PAYROLL AVG SALARY MEDIAN STD DEV
New York Yankees $ 202,689,028 $ 6,756,300 $ 2,100,000 $ 8,468,058
Philadelphia Phillies $ 172,976,379 $ 5,765,879 $ 2,625,000 $ 6,227,550
Boston Red Sox $ 161,762,475 $ 5,991,202 $ 5,500,000 $ 5,576,432
Los Angeles Angels $ 138,543,166 $ 4,469,134 $ 2,000,000 $ 6,048,494
Chicago White Sox $ 127,789,000 $ 4,732,925 $ 2,750,000 $ 4,810,687
Chicago Cubs $ 125,047,329 $ 5,001,893 $ 1,600,000 $ 6,194,469
New York Mets $ 118,847,309 $ 4,401,752 $ 900,000 $ 6,693,551
San Francisco Giants $ 118,198,333 $ 4,377,716 $ 2,200,000 $ 4,877,657
Minnesota Twins $ 112,737,000 $ 4,509,480 $ 3,000,000 $ 5,536,653
Detroit Tigers $ 105,700,231 $ 3,914,823 $ 1,300,000 $ 5,259,443
St. Louis Cardinals $ 105,433,572 $ 3,904,947 $ 1,000,000 $ 5,027,807
Los Angeles Dodgers $ 104,188,999 $ 3,472,966 $ 2,142,838 $ 3,631,806
Texas Rangers $ 92,299,264 $ 3,182,733 $ 1,251,000 $ 4,027,146
Colorado Rockies $ 88,148,071 $ 3,390,310 $ 2,318,750 $ 4,398,021
Atlanta Braves $ 87,002,692 $ 3,346,257 $ 1,275,000 $ 4,279,462
Seattle Mariners $ 86,524,600 $ 2,884,153 $ 825,000 $ 4,414,418
Milwaukee Brewers $ 85,497,333 $ 2,849,911 $ 1,050,000 $ 3,869,134
Baltimore Orioles $ 85,304,038 $ 3,280,924 $ 1,425,000 $ 3,237,465
Cincinnati Reds $ 75,947,134 $ 2,531,571 $ 825,000 $ 3,357,823
Houston Astros $ 70,694,000 $ 2,437,724 $ 467,000 $ 3,960,818
Oakland Athletics $ 66,536,500 $ 2,376,303 $ 1,400,000 $ 2,073,296
Washington Nationals $ 63,856,928 $ 2,201,963 $ 1,050,000 $ 2,783,056
Toronto Blue Jays $ 62,567,800 $ 2,018,316 $ 1,200,000 $ 1,906,416
Florida Marlins $ 56,944,000 $ 2,190,153 $ 545,000 $ 2,877,071
Arizona Diamondbacks $ 53,639,833 $ 1,986,660 $ 1,000,000 $ 1,854,261
Cleveland Indians $ 49,190,566 $ 1,639,685 $ 484,200 $ 2,763,453
San Diego Padres $ 45,869,140 $ 1,479,649 $ 468,800 $ 1,858,830
Pittsburgh Pirates $ 45,047,000 $ 1,553,344 $ 450,000 $ 1,880,199
Tampa Bay Rays $ 41,053,571 $ 1,578,983 $ 907,750 $ 1,570,206
Kansas City Royals $ 36,126,000 $ 1,338,000 $ 850,000 $ 1,143,503

If you use the link provided it might be easier to understand.


If you like to root for the underdog this was your day.
The 202 million dollar Yankees were eliminated by
the 105 million dollar Detroit Tigers.

**One of the positives that the Yankees bring is they do enable all-star players that would never reach the playoff on a small market team to make it into the playoffs team. They are basically an All-Star team against all the other teams.

And tomorrow the:

172 million dollar Phillies face the
105 million dollar Cardinals

And Finally the:

85 million dollar Milwaukee Brewers face the
53 million dollar Diamondbacks.

I'm a Cub fan. Winning is overrated. Futility builds character.

I loved to see the Yanks go down. While I have a ton of respect for some of their players, the payroll disparency always troubles me. We're going to have to deal with it unless MLB actually instills some sort of revenue sharing, which isn't likely to happen.

I'm pulling for the Rangers; I'm a huge Hamilton fan.

RightSaidFred, did you catch ESPN's special about Steve Bartman the other day? It was about scapegoats. That poor guy did exactly what every one of us would have done.

quote:

did you catch ESPN's special about Steve Bartman

Saw parts of it. They showed a still photograph of Bartman reaching for the ball and you could see five other people reaching for it too!

Have some great friends who are Cubs and Red Sox fans. They are also great people, but when it comes to baseball they need intensive therapy for the rest of their lives.
They also seem to drink much more booze than any of my other friends.
Lately i have been hangin' with a Red Sox fan and he seems proud of the fact that they worry all the time about their team collapsing.
His mind set is if you don't feel this way you are not a true Boston Red Sox fan.
Am guessing the Cub fans feel the same way.

Both have die hard fans, which I can appreciate. The Cubs haven't had a monumental collapse since the curse of the Billy goat in the 40s, however. They have just been lackluster for what seems like forever. Maybe the Cubs fans should be mad at Mr. Wrigley, since he's the one that caused the curse, ha.

At least Boston reversed their curses a few years ago, both the Buckner billy goat curse and the curse of the Bambino. Maybe they didn't do a good enough of exorcising one of them however, and one of them resurrected itself this season.

America's pastime, it's beautiful.

quote:

RightSaidFred, did you catch ESPN's special about Steve Bartman the other day? It was about scapegoats. That poor guy did exactly what every one of us would have done.

Yes. I did see the special on Bartman. I was watching the game when it happened and really didn't think much of it. Even when the wheels came off I never thought there would be that kind of backlash against Bartman. The special did a good job of showing how the media fanned the flames and made the situation much worse than it should have been.

I really don't understand why the guy has never cashed in. I hope that when the Cubs DO go to the world series (the law of averages is immutable) they let Bartman throw out the first pitch in the first home game. Never has one person been so severely victimized by such a group of ignorant sports fans. That episode really made Chicago look like a bunch of "Dikka" worshipping rubes.

PS: My grandfather was a rabid Cub fan. When he got older he had three wrecks as the result of being distracted by Cub games on the radio. By court order, as a condition to be allowed to keep his license, he could not drive a car with a radio in it. I'm not kidding.

quote:

PS: My grandfather was a rabid Cub fan. When he got older he had three wrecks as the result of being distracted by Cub games on the radio. By court order, as a condition to be allowed to keep his license, he could not drive a car with a radio in it. I'm not kidding.

quote:

PS: My grandfather was a rabid Cub fan. When he got older he had three wrecks as the result of being distracted by Cub games on the radio. By court order, as a condition to be allowed to keep his license, he could not drive a car with a radio in it. I'm not kidding.

Hoping your grandfather wasn't seriously hurt when I say this, that story is awesome. It reminds me of my grandfather; we'd sit in his garage every day listening to the Royals on the radio when I was real young. It was in the 80s, so they were actually good then. He'd get so frustrated and sit there tossing a baseball back and forth with me. I think of him everytime I listen to the Royals games on the radio now. Sometimes I prefer it even if they are on television, solely for that reason.

I liked the part of the show when Buckner was allowed to throw out the first pitch when the Sox made the series. The ovation the fans game him was sincere, and you could tell how much he appreciated it.

Looks like that Georgie fella is sittin pretty, Rupe. Cards better quit pitching to Napoli like TX quit throwing to big Al.

Consider this one over.

quote:

Cards better quit pitching to Napoli like TX quit throwing to big Al.

They weren't going to, but thanks to those rude Texas fans, who wouldn't shoosh while La Russa was trying to phone up the bullpen, Napoli dinked/crushed one into the gap. Two runs scored and the game was iced.

Skip was asking for Motte to get warm, but the bull pen coach couldn't hear him at all the first time. On the second call he thought La Russa asked for Lance Lynn to get warm. "Jason Motte" and "Lance Lynn" sound so similar that anyone could have made that mistake... even though Lynn was listed as unavailable due to his over worked arm.

I think that MLB should impose a one run "fan loudness" penalty on Texas for game six, and the game score should start out 1-0 Cards.

Plus, Napoli knew that the Cards didn't mean to pitch to him, so he shouldn't have taken advantage of the situation. He should have to sit for one game due to bad sportsmanship. I don't think that's the manner of play that any of want to see in professional baseball.

Two words Tony - "text message".

Baseball Trivia:


I attended the most important game for the Cardinals this year.
Which game?