Today's WTF?! Moment: How Much is He Getting Paid?

I've decided to try to blog daily now. And by blogging daily I mean pretty much writing two sentences and I'm done. It'll just be my reaction to some story in a feature that I call "Today's WTF?! Moment." Enjoy.

How much are the Mets paying for Oliver Perez? Is that really $36 million? Really?

That's the deal Perez got. Three years, $36 million for a guy with a losing career record and an inflated ERA. Talk about desperate times in Flushing.

The Padres really should be counting their lucky stars. The deal Jake Peavy signed a few years back was for $52 million. And no, the difference between Peavy's talent leven and Perez's talent level is not $16 million. I'd say it's about $160 million.

I'm Ready for the Climax

People love the baseball analogy for sex, so I'm going to go in reverse for this one.

The playoffs, in Major League Baseball, is the orgasm or the climax to the season. There are only eight teams left and at any moment, with one swing or one pitch, drama can rain down (such is the beauty of the game).

The month-long climax begins tomorrow, when the Division Series for both Leagues starts.

What does that make the regular season then? The foreplay. And sometimes it's really awesome and you may even get off before you hit the real thing, and sometimes it's really boring, turning you off before you even think about the playoffs.

The latter was true for this year's baseball season. Sure, there were some "exciting moments," but those instances occur in every year.

The trade deadline is always exciting, and this one saw a pitching arms-race between two division rivals, the Cubs and Brewers. We all saw one whacko traded from Boston to Los Angeles (welcome home Manny Ramirez, Venice Beach should suit you well).

There were a couple of no-hitters, Francisco Rodriguez broke the single-season saves record, the Rays made the playoffs, Milwaukee tastes the postseason and, as of right now, the White Sox and Twins are battling for the final playoff spot.

But other than that, this season didn't have much oomph. It probably didn't help that my team, the hapless and batting-impotent Padres, finished in last place out in the NL West.

But even then, there have been plenty of shitty Padres seasons, but baseball has always piqued my interest.

So, why was this season so dull? Well, the Angels and Cubs had huge leads in their respective divisions, though the Cubs looked like they wanted to give that up at the end.

The Rays were a feel good story, but when even their own home town fans don't go to games, it's hard to get excited over them. We knew that the Mets were going to choke it all away again. And really, the Phillies in the playoffs? Boring.

It was nice to see the Yankees truly suck for once, but that took away from the most overhyped rivalry in sports. It also didn't help that the Red Sox owned New York this year.

And the NL West was the NL Worst once again. C'mon guys.

And the biggest buzz coming into the year was the Detroit Tigers and their uber-team that they assembled. Uhm, what happened there?

So, this season was a letdown. Kind of like that hot girl at the bar, only to...yeah.

But we're all at the climax. Let's hope the playoffs are more memorable than the regular season.

Yost Toast in Milwaukee

Desperate times calls for desperate measures, I guess.

Today, the Milwaukee Brewers parted ways with manager Ned Yost, as the team tries to get out of a slump that saw it lose 11 of its last 14 games.

The thing is, the Brewers, which haven't been to the playoffs since 1982, still held the lead in for the National League Wild Card, though it being very slim.

It's kind of ridiculous to put this on the club's manager. Not even the Boss himself, George Steinbrenner, has done anything so bold. Does Milwaukee's suits really think that this is going to help the team get out of its slump and into the playoffs?

If you asked me, it may even worsen the situation. Why? Because now there's added turmoil on the team. There's an extra layer of drama that's not needed. And, hanging like an albatross around the Brewers' collective necks, there is the question of whether or not firing Yost was the right thing to do.

Last year, after a poor start to the Premiership season, Chelsea got rid of Jose Mourinho because team officials thought that he hadn't taken the club far enough (and with that kind of talent, I agree). But Roman Abramovich's decision to replace Mourinho came pretty early in the year for Chelsea, giving Avram Grant enough to time to enact real change to save the Blues' season.

Is two weeks really enough time to save the Brewers' season? Yeah, I guess so, with the team still clinging onto the Wild Card.

But maybe it wasn't really Yost's fault, and for the most part, I've always held that it isn't the coach or manager's fault for a failing team. Most of these guys have the same kind of knowledge of the sport. What's a new coach or manager going to do with the same talentless players or some unmotivated players? About the same.

Yost here is just the fall guy. He was the scapegoat.

I think the ultimate reason why the Brewers got rid of Yost was to light a fire under the players' asses. The team was probably complacent with it's huge lead in the Wild Card. Part of that might have been Yost's fault.

But, managers and coaches don't play the games. Too bad one was sent out to pasture because his players were in a rut.

A World Without the Yankees or Red Sox

To the headline I say, "If only. We can dream. We can hope. Yes we can, just one month left."

With the calendar turning from August to September and as we enter the final month of baseball, there is a huge possibility that the two mightiest of evils may be left out of October for the first time in a very long time.

As I write this post, Boston trails Tampa Bay by 5.5 games with 26 games left for the Red Sox (including tonight's tilt with Baltimore). New York is 12 games back of the Rays, with 25 games left to play in the season.

Boston, however, does own the wild card right now, leading Minnesota by 2.5 games.

So, there is that possibility and oh how I and many others are rejoicing the fact that the Sox and the Yanks may not see the postseason in 2008.

Many may say that I'm just jealous. And, yes, I am, because these have been two of the most successful franchises in all of professional sport in the last 15 years (and maybe all time). But so is the rest of the country, especially people out here on the west coast.

We're tired of the New York/Boston-bias (let's get this straight. When we say "east coast bias," we really mean the bias the national media puts on the New York and New England sports teams).

We're tired of getting Yanks/Sox shoved down our throats. We're tired of having to watch the Yankees and Red Sox on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball everytime New York and Boston has a series ending on a Sunday.

We're tired of the 15-minute segments devoted to the Yankees and the 15-minute segments devoted to the Red Sox on SportsCenter.

We're tired of Jeter, Posada, A-Rod and Mariano. We're tired of Varitek, Big Papi, Beckett and Schilling.

We're tired of 26 World Series championships. We're tired of 86 years. We don't care about a fucking bloody sock.

We're just tired of the Yankees and Red Sox.

It will be refreshing to see a playoffs without one of the two and a little weird. So much attention has been put on these two teams once October 1 comes around, and yes, I'll admit it, if both teams don't make it, it will feel like something is missing.

But baseball has survived before. And baseball will continue to thrive, even without the Yanks and Sox. And I argue that it's healthy for baseball--to get away from the Yankees and Red Sox. There's plenty of drama out there besides these two spotlight-stealing, headline-whoring ball clubs.

So, I'm wishing for every Red Sox loss and Yankees defeat. I'm wishing for a postseason free of the corporatized Boston and New York markets.

Let's hope for an un-adulterated postseason.

Everyone's been talking about change lately. Let's also see some change in the world of baseball.