How Was Your Summer? MLB

 The Year of the Pitcher

Dub it the year of the pitcher to spin this season in Major League Baseball in a polite fashion. Call it the year of the pitcher even though it's really just an average year in baseball without steroids.

The playing field is leveled and the change is enormous. Power hitters are once again coveted commodities with only one player in each league with 30 homers to date. It wasn't that long ago there were ten players with 30 before the All-Star break. Can you really imagine someone hitting 70+ home runs in a season? Did that really happen?

So far this season there have been five no-hitters, two of which were perfect games. And if Jim Joyce doesn't make the worst call in my lifetime, there would be three perfect games and six no-hitters. These aren't exactly household names either. Dallas Braden? Really? The guy has a losing record.

Doesn't matter.

The point is baseball has been cured of a terrible affliction. Once again hitting .300 with 30 homers and 100 RBIs is a terrific achievement worthy of MVP praise. Getting rid of steroids has enabled the San Diego Padres to post the best record in the NL with one of the worst offenses. Pitching, defense, base running, and execution are the ingredients to winning baseball, not four guys in the lineup with over 40 home runs.

 A-Rod Hits 600

Speaking of steroids...Alex Rodriguez recently joined what was once the most exclusive club in baseball after hitting his 600th career home run. For 30 years Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Willy Mays were the only members of the 600 club. In the last eight years Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., and now Rodriguez joined the party.

A sport that has spent over a hundred years of stat worshiping has been irreparably damaged to the point that no one cares A-Rod became the youngest player to hit 600.

So how should we feel about A-Rod? Should we throw out all of his accomplishments or ignore his admitted steroid use? I must admit I have mixed emotions. For as many dumb things that he has done and said, A-Rod has never bothered me the way he bothers most. He seems to be the focal point of so much anger that I tend to pull for him. He is sort of like that song you will only listen to if you're by yourself in the car. It's really not cool to be an A-Rod fan so you just don't admit it.

My disgust for steroids and steroid use is well documented, but I don't find A-Rod's use more appalling than any other player. I see it akin to Bonds' use. He was a Hall of Famer before steroids, he just bloated his stats and prolonged his career by cheating. Rodriguez has continued to be one of the best in the game after he was outed.

I hear people complain that he didn't need to take steroids. Neither did Bonds or Mark McGwire. For my money, players like Jose Canseco and Sammy Sosa are worse than A-Rod because they would have been average to below average without the steroids. Shouldn't A-Rod get the same pass that Andy Petite got? He's not spending time and money denying he did it. Yeah. He lied about it. They all lied about it.

Does that mean the number is tarnished? Of course it does, but 600 was tarnished the day Bonds joined the club. Once Sosa found his way there, home run stats had been cheapened forever. Nobody cared before A-Rod even got close to the number.  His fate was sealed.

Rodriguez is the most over analyzed player I have ever watched play, and often it seems unfair to me. Sports writers like to play psychologist every time they write about him. *Newsflash* An arrogant baseball player is nothing new and there are many players as full of themselves as Rodriguez. Some are just much better at hiding it from the media.

One thing that has to be admitted when talking about Rodriguez is that he has been incredible before, during, and after steroids. His steroid use has cheapened his stats and will most likely keep him out of the Hall of Fame which is a just punishment. But he is in a unique position to continue playing beyond the PED's. The careers of most steroid users ended when they couldn't continue using. A-Rod still has some good years which means more records to break without the aid of steroids. It is very hard to discredit his entire career when the majority of it was played clean.

 The NL Snaps a 13 Year All-Star Drought

For over a decade baseball fans and analysts have called the National League inferior to the American League. For over a decade the All-Star game has backed up that assertion. But just like any sports streak, the AL dominance over the All-Star game was snapped this year. The win gives the NL World Series representative home field advantage for the first time since that policy was implemented.

An accurate snapshot of the season, the NL won the game on pitching and defense. Does that mean that the NL is now superior to the AL? It might. While you have higher payrolls in the AL, there seems to be a greater distribution of premium players in the NL. Pitching is much more important than sluggers when determining a dominant league these days.  The NL has the upper hand, and if you need a tie breaker, I submit Albert Pujols.

Don't be surprised if the NL goes on a streak of their own. With free agency, anything can happen, but the All-Star game is no stranger to streaks. From 1963-1982, the NL was 19-1, followed shortly by a six year run for the AL.