Things to Make You Wonder

Ever wonder just how poorly the National League is doing in Interleague play this season? Well, heading into Saturday's games the AL had a 122-101 advantage. Only the Florida Marlins were doing especially well in the NL at 10-5. The World Champ Phillies were a woeful 4-11 with two games left. (Note: They DID win 10-0 on Saturday--the stats I cite here do not include Saturday or Sunday's final interleague games. The Astros are 4-8 into their second game with Detroit.

Over in the AL four teams had won ten or more interleague games. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are tops at 11-4.

So why does the AL have the NL's number. Forget the use of the DH since both sides use it whenever in AL cities. It may be nothing more than during the current baseball cycle the AL has more good teams. Remember this has no bearing on who wins the World Series. The NL has held its own when pitting league champs. But the depth of good teams in the AL is certainly evident right now. The National League used to be like that in the 50s and 60s, yet the Yankees won a lot of World Series.

ASTROS BAD ROAD DRAW
While the Astros home attendance won't likely hit the three million mark this season a goal of 2.5 million is still within range. That will keep the club in the upper ranges of baseball. So why are they such a bad draw on the road? Through Friday's games the average Astro crowd on the road is only 25,896. That is the worst in the National League and third worst in all of major league baseball. Only the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals attract fewer fans on the road. Now part of the reason for the Astros low position is the number of games they have played in Pittsburgh. The Pirates have the lowest home attendance average in all of baseball at just 18,075. The Astros don't play anymore games in Pittsburgh and have a bunch left in Chicago and St. Louis. Their low road standing won't last.

LANCE ISN'T THAT FAR OFF
Astro first baseman Lance Berkman is not having a typical Berkman season. His average is only .251. But he really isn't as far off track as one might think. His home run and RBI totals of 16 and 42 respectively put him on a pace to hit more than 30 and drive in over 100 again. And while his average is a career low for this point of the season it has been on a steady, but very slow climb for several weeks. In recent games Lance has hit more balls hard including his two opposite field home runs on Thursday. During Berkman's career his post 70 game production has been better than the first 70 in four of his previous eight seasons. In each of those improvement years he had slow starts just like 2009.

HOF VOTERS IN QUANDRY
When all the star plays who were accussed of, suspected of, or proven to have actually used performance enhancing drugs are eligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame the voters will have to make some tough decisions. More and more may be leaning toward recognizing "The Steroid Era" and not holding use of PEDs against the players.

A recent OP-Ed piece in the New York Times suggested as much. Contributor Zev Chafets pointed out that players have used whatever they could get to enhance performance since the early years of the game. According to Chafets as far back as 1889 pitcher Pud Galvin ingested monkey testosterone. Other players used alcohol in excess to calm nerves. In fact, during prohibition pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander was often inebriated on the mound and none less than Bill Veeck claimed that Alexander was a better pitcher when drunk according to the piece.

The point that Chafets makes...and more and more are agreeing with-- is that it is folly to arbitrarily ban some from the Hall. That what the players were doing--while possibly illegal and/or immoral -was nothing new. The two players cited above are full members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, by the way.

There have been many other examples. Better to just recognize the era we recently passed through as the "dead ball era", "lively ball era" and now "lively body--or steroid era"