Sports Then and Now

The addition of Curtis Granderson will help the New York Yankees retain their title in the American League East.

February is here and I have the countdown widget on my Windows Vista desktop that counts down the days until pitchers and catchers report – it’s 15 days, by the way.  Spring training is the time of a thousand story lines – everyone’s a contender and every player who reports is a potential star.

Without further ado, here are 10 things that are could (or should) happen this year in Major League Baseball.

10.     Only one team from the AL East will make the playoffs.

The Yankees were stacked last year.  The additions of Curtis Granderson and Javier Vasquez only add to that.  They dropped the ball (no pun intended) when they opted for Randy Winn over resigning Johnny Damon.  They know it, too, as evidenced by the fact that he’s not listed on their website’s transaction list.  That point notwithstanding,  the Yanks  are going to be insanely hard to overcome, even for the Red Sox.  If the Yankees take the division, they should be the only AL East entrant.

9.     The Tigers will not sign Johnny Damon, mostly because Scott Boras is a liar.

On my list of “People I’d Like to See Slapped,” Scott Boras is pretty high up.  But in this instance he is just absolutely full of bologna.  Sporting News reports that Boras is trying to convince the Tigers that they need Damon.  He’s quoted as saying,  “[Damon] batted .363 at Comerica Park, he has a .412 on-base percentage at Comerica.”  Really?  When was that?  Last year (according to baseball-reference.com) Johnny Damon batted .231 with and on-base percentage of .286 and he only slugged .308 in 14 at-bats.  The numbers Boras is quoting as Damon’s career numbers at Comerica and no one (well, except for Boras) thinks that the Johnny Damon that is currently seeking work is the same one that the Yankees thought they bought in 2006. Read the rest of this entry →