Hey All! We've reached the traditional halfway point of the baseball season. The 80th All-Star game is upon us. This past week coming into the break was a a wild one around the major leagues. The Angels swept the Yankees, the Phillies unloaded on the Reds, winning a 22-1 laugher, and the Giants' Jonathan Sanchez threw a no-hitter v. the Padres. It was a pretty wild week in the Longball League too. Let's look at the standings.
The San Pedro Sea Monkeys are back in first place this week. The Monkeys' combo of Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols is on fire right now. Pujols is set up nicely to be the star of the All-Star festivities this week in front of the home folks in St. Louis.
The Vacuous Vipers and the SoCal Capuchins are tied for second place at 255 points. Justin Morneau's one point week is what let the Caps catch up to Vipers.
It's no fluke, folks. The Keen Koalas are holding firm onto fourth place and have even widened the gap over the fifth place Invisible Hands. Adrian Gonzalez is continuing to just hurt the Hands with his poor June and July.
Sitting in last place are those Sierra Vista Coachwhips. However, they are now playing with a full team again as they've just gotten Raul Ibanez back from the DL.
Trivia: Since the 80th All-Star game is upon us, I thought I'd look back at the 50th All-Star game, held in 1979 at the Kingdome, in Seattle. The National League won the game, 7-6. Lee Mazilli of the Mets was the late inning hero for the NL with a solo homer to tie the game in the 8th off Jim Kern of the Rangers. Then in the top of the 9th, Mazilli drew a bases loaded walk off Yankee Ron Guidry to put the NL up for good. The game marked the only time the Kingdome would host the midsummer classic.
Baseball Card of the Week: Dave Parker's 1979 Topps issue is this week's pick. Why? Because you can't talk about the 1979 all-star game without mentioning Dave "The Cobra" Parker. He was the MVP of the game and had two of the most memorable assists in all-star history. In the third inning he threw out Boston's Jim Rice with an absolute frozen rope from right field. Then a couple of innings later, he nailed Brian Downing of the Angels at the plate with an even more impressive throw. Oh what an arm, the Cobra had.
Okay folks, until next week, keep hitting 'em where they ain't.
-The Comissioner
