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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2-4 on the week may not be much, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’m not here to say that anyone actually did sacrifice a Lackey Rag writer, but at least things are starting to trend positive…

3 UP:

1. Brewers – don’t look now, but they’re 5-1 over the last week, and 14-6 in June. They’ve climbed within 6.5 games of the baby bears, and are only 2 games behind the Redbirds for the WC. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, but my intensity isn’t real high for this column – some of the regular contributors are out of the lineup, and I’ve been getting squeezed on my cell phone minutes, so don’t blame me if I allow 7 or more mistakes in this edition.

3 UP:
1. Whoever is playing the Astros – this should be self-evident.
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OK, let’s get this out of the way: yes, it was another wretched week for the “good guys”, a team playing completely uninspired ball for two weeks now. Enjoy the Brewers series while it lasts, because that gets followed up with 2 1/2 weeks of softball. Read the rest of this entry »