Vladimir Guerrero of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim looks on during an off-day workout part of the ALCS on Sunday.Jeff Gross
We're getting worked up for another day of post-season baseball and wondering whether Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia has the stones to drop Vladimir Guerrero out of the cleanup spot.
This is a big post-season for Vlad, who is eligible for free agency this winter and could have used a defining post-season to help alleviate ever so slightly the always-present injury issues. Vlad will get a contract, but in this cautious marketplace it will likely be with a big-market team that can afford to cover any losses. Baseball people have felt for some time it's a slam-dunk that he would end up with the New York Mets and their general manager Omar Minaya, but a combination of Minaya's lack of job security, the Mets recent record of injuries to big-time players and concerns about how much money the Wilpon family lost in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme no longer make that a certainty. One agent told me in the summer that the best Vlad could hope for would be "to be somebody's Plan B or Plan C."
Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times has neat piece on the "clutchness" of Derek Jeter vs. Vladimir Guerrero and Dave Waldstein of the New York Times composes on an article close to our heart - baseball's unwritten rules, specifically as they relate to the "neighborhood play" on the double play.
Finally …. Did ya hear the one about the rabbi and the referee ?
After watching a game with replacement referees last week, the NBA's labour dispute with its zebras can't end soon enough.