The Smudge and Preseason Picks

By now, you’ve probably heard about the smudge Kenny Rogers had on his hand in Game 2 of the World Series. My view on this mimics others I’ve heard and it is simple. It was there. It was probably pine tar or something equally illegal and if the Cardinals had wanted, they probably could have had Rogers tossed. They chose not to make a big fuss about it. Some have said that LaRussa made a huge mistake and should have made a big stink about it, because he could have had the Tigers’ best pitcher in the playoffs tossed.

I say you have to ask yourself why didn’t LaRussa have Kenny Rogers inspected, and potentially tossed? It wasn’t because he didn’t want to embarrass him; I can almost guarantee you that. There is a reason, though, and you can be sure that reason has something to do with LaRussa figuring the positives and negatives of taking that action were uncertain. Two examples I will put out there as to why he may have been hesitant to make a big stink are 1) he didn’t figure the pine tar made much of a difference, and 2) he didn’t want Leyland looking too hard at his pitchers for similar substances. I heard that Keith Olberman brought up this point on the Dan Patrick Show. Leyland was in the Cardinals organization as late as last year. He very well may know who to point out, and maybe he figures losing one of his starters would hurt more than losing Rogers would have hurt the Tigers at that point. My final point on this matter is that while all these media members are going off on the significance of this, do you know what important group I haven’t heard complain? The players.

That’s all I want to say about it because I think too much has been said already. The only reason I even brought it up is because I figured if you’ve been reading this blog all season, you might want to read what I think of it.

Since I can’t think of anything else to talk about after the off day (the real reason I talked about the smudge), I will revisit my preseason predictions.

In the AL, I said the East would go: Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Devil Rays, Orioles.
The Central: Indians, White Sox, Twins, Tigers, Royals.
The West: A’s, Angels, Rangers, Mariners.

In the NL, I said the East would go: Braves, Mets, Phillies, Nationals, Marlins.
The Central: Cardinals, Brewers, Astros, Pirates, Cubs, Reds.
The West: Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks, Rockies.

The actual results were AL East: Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Orioles, Devil Rays.
The Central: Twins, Tigers, White Sox, Indians, Royals.
The West: A’s, Angels, Rangers, Mariners.

NL East: Mets, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Nationals.
The Central: Cardinals, Astros, Reds, Brewers, Pirates, Cubs.
The West: Padres, Dodger, Giants, Diamondbacks, Rockies.

So in the American League, I placed only the Yankees, Royals and the entire West in the correct position. In the National League, I picked only the Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Rockies in the correct positions. That’s nine teams out of thirty and three of the six division winners. I hope you’re not reading this blog for its prognostication skills, because mine pretty much suck.