This Week Month Season to Date in Baseball
Once upon a time, a humble writer took it upon himself to summarize the goings-on in the rest of baseball (even in that bastardized “American” League) for the unwashed masses that stumble across the SnS front page. As the name would imply, this was to be a weekly recap, featuring hot teams and players, the biggest goings-on from the TZ, and a grab bag of other information that may or may not have been interesting. Unfortunately, as both of my regular readers know, the last edition of this “weekly” endeavor was at the beginning of the Beijing Olympics. It was a simpler time, when Shawn Johnson was doing gymnastics instead of dances, and Michael Phelps was doing laps instead of lap dances. A time when the stock market was at 11,782. A time when people even might have thought that Cecil Cooper was remotely competent at his job.

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Before we get to baseball, two points:

1. Apologies for the missing TWiB last week – work interfered, along with preparations for Tropical Storm Towles.

2. I absolutely love the Olympics. Every 4 years, I revert to the proverbial “rip the knob off the TV” mode and just lock in to NBC. I will watch synchronized diving. I will watch equestrian. If I could find the fencing medal rounds, I would watch them. I will watch the leader of the free world give an Olympian the traditional slap on the ass.

Not to go all Bill Simmons here, but if you can’t get in to the Olympics as a fan, then I don’t think you and I are ever going to see eye to eye on anything.

The Opening Ceremonies were amazing, especially when you see just how much this country can get mass quantities of people to operate in perfect synchronization. Nothing will ever top lighting the torch with a freaking bow and arrow from across the stadium, but walking across the sky came close.

Now, with that out of the way, on to baseball:
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“Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up!”

Powerful words. Words to live by. Maybe not so much words to run your professional baseball team by, Drayton.

3 UP:

1. Brewers – so the Astros took 2 of 3… the real key here was going into St. Louis and sweeping a 4 game set. There’s just no better way to break the spirits of the BFiB, and that is something I will always support, especially where the Brew Crew is involved; after all, has a player ever been so aesthetically matched to his city as Prince Fielder in Milwaukee? (Oh, right… John Rocker in Atlanta.)
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Breaking format this week, in honor of the All-Star Break and its typical deluge of first-half instant analysis from the Traditional Media, Blogosphere, and Average Joes like me.

To match appropriately to the Instant Analysis nature of such a column, I shall go all Bill Simmons on you and describe the season by matching it to great opening lines / paragraphs from some famous works of literature (”books”, for some of you, or “Barnes and Noble checkout line stuff”, for others.)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
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Powered by black market antibiotics to cure whatever version of the plague Mrs. MM passed on to me, away we go:

3 UP:
1. American League – 52-31 last week. I cannot even begin to tell you how much this pains me. And before you argue the payroll disparities, please note that the Twins owned the best interleague record at 14-4, with the Royals (really? the freakin’ Royals??) next at 13-5.
Speaking of which…
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