In both the Washington Post and ESPN, writers have been talking about the embarrassing rate at which the AL has been beating the NL in interleague games. According to these folks, the AL has a winnig percentage of .629 against the NL. At first I thought, "Well, that's distubing." But then I thought, "Hold on one moment... all these teams have playing interleague games...and before ther interleague contests all of the teams in the NL West were hovering around .500. After interleague play has finished...all of the NL West teams are hovering around .500. In fact, only one team is below .500, that being the Diamondbacks." So I looked into the numbers a little deeper and found an interesting fact. The AL has a .533 winning percentage against the NL West and a whopping .685 percentage against the rest of the NL. Yeah, that's a big disparity. Two NL West teams (Giants, Rockies) have winning records against the AL, and another is 7-8 (Padres). The Dodgers and D-backs have been the stinkers for the NL West. The point is, the NL West is the strongest division by far and has been for the entire year. I would also like to point out that the NL West has been going toe-to-toe with the AL West, who happens to have 3 out of 4 teams currently above .500, so it's not as if the NL West was beating teams from a slouchy division. This means that the rest of the NL is absolutely freaking horrible, which is shown in the standing. Look at the shambles that is the NL East. Did anyone really think that those teams could compete with the high-spending beheamouths in the AL East? The Central only has two teams above .500. The Cardinals recent struggles against the AL Central make you wonder if their pretty record is only due to the lousy teams in the their division. The NL West is the only consistent division in the NL and it did pretty decent against the AL considering the huge flop job the rest of the league pulled. Of course, to most writers leagues are strictly the eastern teams, so the follies and messes of the east represent the rest of the league. To the devil with the west.
The recent series of the Padres and Giants is pretty typical of how the Western teams have been playing each other. 4 games, 2-2 split, Pads take first two, Giants last two, tough games all decided in the 7th inning or later. Good baseball. I would like to throw in a plug for Mr. Hennessey who in a spot start on Sat. evening gave up only 1 run in a crisp six innings (this RAISED his ERA people! To 2.45! Yeah, try giving up one run and having your ERA go up. Matt Cain should be learning from this he who alternates betweens gems and stinkbombs). B. Hennessey is the man, but Felipe will never learn, oh no he'll never learn. I just hope they don't try and trade him before the deadline and make a mess of things. I'm sure a team like the Cardinals would love to have him.
Other notes: France beating Brazil in the World Cup is like BYU beating Miami in 1990. Take that! The old crafty Frenchmen advance. Brazil seems like the Jordan-era Bulls: They're good, so they get the benefit of the doubt from the refs. I hate that. Refs shouldn't ever be biased based on athletic talent. Anywho, it's always nice to see the Frenchies do well. They earned it. The English on the other hand, played poorly and stupidly. They had the chances and couldn't finish, the most galling being the man who had a wide open shot and managed to kick the ball into his other leg, sending the ball careening over the crossbar. If you can't finish the job, Meester, you don't belong in the semis. End of story. Or so it would seem...
I think this should end the sports rant for the evening. I'm dying to hear the new Guster album as allmusic.com claims it's a piece of art or something like that (and yet they are so stingy with their stars for Guster...as Roger Ebert wrote about his original review for the Good the Bad and the Ugly, "I gave three stars to a movie I described as four in the review" Sounds like allmusic has the same problem with Guster...I was proud of them for giving Wire Post to Wire four and a half stars. That was gutsy. It's a wonderfully complex album and it got the critical acclaim it deserved. Beautiful stuff) My mother-in-law wanted to watch the G the B and the U last night, so we did. It's a great movie, with some beautiful scenes. The graveyard scene with Tuco running around looking at all the graves is just great. Good lines:
"There are two types of people in this world: Those with loaded guns and those who dig"
"There are two types of people in this world: Those who have the ropes around their necks and those who do the cutting"
"There are two types of people with spurs in this world: Those who come through the door and those who come in through the window"
"There are two types of people in the world: Those who are rich and those who have friends"
"If you're going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk"
"It's 70 mile back to town. I think if you save your breath, a man like you might be able to manage it"
"1000 dollars...a tidy sum"
I think I'll use the last line the most...well, the tidy sum part.
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