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Hey, who died a couple days ago?  Because I thought Mother Theresa had already passed away?  I did not recognize that person they were talking about.

Every once in a great while if you live long enough, you may see something you have never seen before.  That has happened to me and that is why I am declaring that I have a new favorite major league baseball player.  I am so impressed by his control and his composure.  I have no understanding as to how or why he was able to keep his cool when many around him were losing theirs.  He truly threw a masterpiece and it was something I had never seen before and probably will never see again.  I am not talking about the first major league game pitched by Stephen Strasburg even though he has already moved onto my favorites list.  What is there not to love about Stasburg.  This amazing pitcher was born in San Diego, went to West Hills High School and then to San Diego State to play for Tony Gwynn another favorite of mine.  Strasburg demonstrates cool under pressure beyond my comprehension.  He throws pitches that experts and former players marvel at.  By all accounts he is unassuming and modest as well as unspoiled by success and his own talent.  Despite all of this, and I wish him the best and a long career, he is not my new favorite player.

My new favorite player is a pitcher as well.  He is a righthander and twenty-eight years old.  He probably will not have a Hall of Fame Career and will one day be an answer to a bizarre trivia question long after his name has been forgotten.  I hope I will not forget the name of Armando Galarraga and the fantastic example of sportsmanship he demonstrated.  You all know the story by now he was robbed of pitching a perfect game and going down in the record books.  It is a funny thing that in sports we seldom hear the word sportsmanship any more.  It is about winners and losers and clutch players and chokers.  Often we like to point out more how one team lost a game than how the other team won it.  We like to find out why a team lost more than why a team won.  I understand that all of sports today is a business but I thank Armando for reminding me that there should still be room for sportsmanship in sports. 

Everyone has seen the replay from many angles and umpire Jim Joyce did miss the call.  I would like to say that it was not as obvious as some had said it was.  At first glance it was close but it looked like Galarraga bobbled the ball.  So even though Joyce missed the call it was close.  My favorite part of the replay was the smile on Armando’s face as he stepped off the bag.  He looked at Joyce and smiled as if to say, sir you got this one wrong.  He did not throw a fit or curse and scream and berate Joyce.  He did not rant and rave to the media that he had been screwed and wronged.  He did not lament the fact that Joyce and his call cost him his best shot at history.  He did not cry out for instant replay and to prevent injustice from befalling some other player.  He did not complain about the age of baseball umpires or go to the players union or have the Tigers petition Major League Baseball.  Instead this man said we all make mistakes and that in this case the umpire made a mistake.  He also said in his heart he knew he threw a perfect game.

What!  This is not what we have come to expect from our professional athletes.  A blown call part of the game?  Galarraga said he felt badly for Joyce because the umpire felt bad about his mistake.  What the heck is going on here?  This could have been an all out war between player and umpire.  The unions could have gone at it and it could have been very ugly and nasty with the insults going back and forth.  Instead we have an umpire being man enough to say he blew a call and cost the kid a perfect game and that he was sorry?  An umpire saying he was sorry my gosh please do not tell me that next week Bobby Knight is going to say he was sorry for some of his past actions.  My heart could not take so much sportsmanship.

Galarraga has shown the utmost in class and should be made into an instructional video for all young athletes to view..  He did get a new car out of it and even then he seemed surprised that he would be rewarded for doing and acting the right way.  Armando is 21-18 with a 4.44 ERA in his four year career.  He currently is 2-1 with a 2.67 ERA this season for the Tigers.  On the Detroit website it had stated that the Tigers were thinking about sending Galarraga down to the minors however that was before his more than perfect game.  I hope they do not send my new favorite Major League Person-Pitcher down.  I hope he has a great season and many more and I hope I do not soon forget that there is still room for sportsmanship.  Thank you Armando.

As a sports fan are you superstitious or do you believe in jinxes or curses?  While I do not consider myself to be such a person I waited to write this entry for one reason.  I believed the Boston Red Sox had a curse on my favorite baseball team, The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  I am an old guy and it is still hard for me to call them the Los Angeles Angels but I have become more used to it.  I used to work for the Angels and was there way back in 1986 when Dave Henderson hit his home run and well let’s not rehash painful history.  The Red Sox also eliminated the Angels in 2004, 2007 and 2008.  It was not just that the Sox beat them it was how they smashed them.  The Angels team that played in those playoffs did not resemble the team that played in the regular season.

So I was very fearful that this year would be a replay of years past.  The Sox had the Angels cursed or the very least they had their number.  I held off writing about the baseball playoffs because I did not want to jinx the Angels against Boston.  There is still a part of me that is not sure this is a good idea but maybe the curse has been lifted (I apologize to all Cub fans when I use the word curse).  I am rooting for a Freeway World Series.  Might as well go for broke and risk the wrath of the Baseball Gods.

Although I was greatly encouraged that the Angels took a two game lead in the series, I was filled with great fear going to Boston.  The game went as expected, Boston had the lead and brought in Paplebon.  Paplebon has a career era of 1.84 and they put up the graphic that he had not allowed an earned run in all of his post season play.  Should be game over lights out let’s regroup and get them next game.  Somehow the Angels overcame the hex and swept the Red Sox in three straight with the last one in Boston!  Reliever Darren Oliver got the win and he hails from nearby Rio Linda up here in Northern Cal. Very Sweet.  The graphics people at TBS were stunned as I noticed they kept getting the score wrong at the end.  They had 7-7, then put up Boston 7 Los Angeles 6 and finally got it right at Los Angeles 7 Boston 6.  So let’s go all the way and root for a Freeway Series.

Angel fans please do not pay any attention to the chatter that will becoming up about how the Angels have a winning record against the Yankees and have…gulp, the Yankees number.  It is not good to believe in a curse working for your team because as the Angels just proved, curses can be broken.

Francisco Rodriguez wants us to believe that before last year, he was just a wide eyed kid, living his dream in the majors, not a care in the world. Then big bad Reagins and Moreno took his innocence, leaving him a sobbing victim of the cruel “business side” of baseball. Come on K-Rod, you can’t possibly expect us to believe that. You have always been about the money. I truly believe that Rodriguez wanted to stay an Angel, and he may have, but there were 3 embarrassing moments for him that kept him from re-signing.

Everyone knew that the 2008 season with the Angels was Rodriguez’s last. Why? Because he said so before spring training even started! In February of 2008 he told Bill Plunkett of the O.C. Register that this was probably his last year, and to add insult to injury, he blamed the Angels. “If they wanted me here, they would have done something a long time ago.” You mean like offer a 3 year $34 million deal? Oh wait. They did offer that. That offer was shot down by Rodriguez and they went to arbitration. Rodriguez wanted $12.5 million but the Angels won and only gave him $10 million for 2008. Having the league back up the Angels was embarrassing moment #1.

When Mariano Rivera got a 3 year $45 million deal from the Yankees and Francisco Cordero (not as qualified as Rodriguez) got a 4 year $46 million deal from the Reds, Rodriguez’s eyes lit up like a police car in an L.A. riot. Cha-ching! Dolla’ dolla’ bills y’all! Rodriguez decided to spin the wheel o’ fortune known as free agency and see what came up. There is only one problem with that logic. The Yankees can afford to throw that kind of money around, especially at a homegrown talent, and the Reds, well they can’t afford it, but that team is a mess anyways. So when it came his turn to get paid, Rodriguez got no love. No one wanted to offer him the 5 year $75 million deal that he thought he deserved. The closest anyone came was the N.Y. Mets at 3 years $37 million. Kind of close to what the Angels offered, isn’t it? Finding out the Angels were right on with their offer was embarrassing moment #2

The straw that broke the camels back was actually something that Rodriguez could have controlled–his ego. He was thinking that when the offers started to roll in the Angels would realize their mistake and give him what he wanted. One thing he didn’t account for was the acquisition of Mark Teixeira at the trading dead line. That made Teixeira priority number 1, not Rodriguez. He could not believe that they would place Teixeira over him, but everyone knew that the Angels needed a bat more than a pitcher. When the Angels let him know that he made up his mind to leave, even if it was for only $3 million. “I was in their plans, but right now their priority was to sign Tex.” Having his ego punched in the face, and put in it’s place was embarrassing moment # 3.

Rodriguez is bitter at the situation, and he knows that baseball is a business at this level. When he tried to play the money game he got burned. It happens, ask Trevor Ariza, but when it does you suck it up and you let it go.