And the Living Is Easy

This is the first week that the marine layer creating the "June Gloom" effect on early-morning L.A. has dissipated, signalling the true beginning of summer. So for a while I will succumb to the mental sloth of a vacation period--even if I reside in Vacation Central--and loll in the midsummer traditions of baseball and popcorn movies. Today's primary entertainment feature is the Major League All-Star Game. Tonight HBO is airing a special about Mickey Mantle. This is as close as the nation comes to saluting the erstwhile National Pastime, and while it has about 1 per cent of the cachet of Super Bowl Sunday, it's enough to justify my self-indulgence in my mid-season baseball musings.

The All Star Game is like a porno movie in that it's intriguing to watch the blended rosters play alongside rather than against each other for a few innings; then a certain tedium sets in. The gimmick added recently by Bud Selig to hype the game by giving the winning league the "home field advantage" in the series is pretty bogus; the last two years it was applied there was no seventh game for it to matter. I do enjoy seeing the American League on its streak, after having to endure outrageous domination by the NLers for three decades.

My pennant predictions have been a mixed bag. The Angels, Cards and Padres are doing well, and ought to outlast any opposition. The Padres are in an enfeebled division, with no Barry Bonds to liven the Giants, and Arizona as their closest competitors. This should give them an easy path to the play-offs. The Cardinals are exhibiting capable professionalism, especially with a consistent pitching staff, and the National Central is otherwise a jumble of overachievers and underachievers hovering in the .500 range. The NL East, with Atlanta recovering from its usual early-season slump, will probably end up as it has the last thirteen years, though I'm hoping Washington, with its great closer Chad Cordero, can sneak into the Wild Card.

The Angels, though slipping as of late, should fend off the Rangers. The AL Central has the best future of the divisions, with three teams improving to join the Twins, but this year the chips have fallen pleasantly for the Chisox, and their fundamental balance and pitching maturity should help them glide into October. Both Cleveland and Detroit are building good teams, especially the Indians, who have duplicated the feat of the early '90s in amassing a cadre of future All Stars like Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner and Coco Crisp who will contend for many seasons to come. In the AL East, it seems likely the Red Sox will pull away, especially with the return of Schilling and perhaps a healthier Wade Miller bolstering their pitching. Relief is still a problem, though. The Orioles, as I foresaw, have been competitive, but their age and shaky mound corps will see them fade in August and September.

Then of course there are the Yankees, my reluctant, rote pre-season choice. They have never been so bipolar as this year, lapsing into comatose streaks of futility in which they'd be swept by Tampa Bay and Kansas City, then recovering to pound the Cubs and the Indians. Brian Cashman has relented to the call of youth by promoting three young players, pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, or whatever; infielder Robinson Cano and center fielder Melki Cabrera. Wang has been a success, moreso than any of the other starters brought in over the winter, including disappointing Tall Ugly Lefty Randy Johnson. Cano has been lively and energetic, but Cabrera is still too green to take over comfortably from rapidly aging Bernie Williams. A surprising resurgence by Jason Giambi, whose body seems finally to have purged itself from the kickback effects of steriod deprivation, along with contributions by the excellent Matsui and mercurial Arod, always gives this seem potential to surge. But their aged and fragile pitchers will probably not provide enough support to overcome the Red Sox or any one of several teams that will vie for the Wild Card. My guess for the AL Wild Card team this year? The Indians.

And finally a word about the Bronx Cheers, my Rotisserie club. I thought I'd be obsessing tediously in these blogs about my team, to the indifference of everyone but "Kevin", but the fact is there's little to say when a team has been this successful, and gloating is both unseemly and karmacally hazardous. We are twelve-and-a-half points in first place, leading a group of squads bunched in the center. We share roughly the same position as the White Sox and Cardinals, which is a good place to be. Of course we have been very lucky with injuries, not having been victimized by absurd twisted ankles and broken shin bones and dislocated shoulders that have disabled other star players on competing teams. The second half of the season may see that situation change, and we could suffer. But for now, thanks Chad Cordero, whose obscurity enabled us to purchase your skills so cheaply; likewise Chris Capuano, another unknown hurler who's won 10 games for Milwaukee; a salute to David Ortiz, Hank Blalock, Paul Konerko and Frank Thomas, whose legs can barely carry them around the bases but who have been generous with the dingers. Stay off your feet, guys, as long as you can!