Miscellaneous Baseball Thoughts

Possibly the most untradeable contract in baseball may belong to the Rockies' Todd Helton. Even though Helton is only 30 and one of the best players in baseball - his contract runs for 7 more years with $114.7 million due to him... OK now I'm starting to wonder. The Red Sox ran into Vlade Guerrero just as he started a red hot hitting streak (remember the 9 RBI game?) and now they run into a Jim Thome buzzsaw. Is it just bad luck or does the Red Sox pitching bring out the best in great hitters?... If Chipper Jones played for the Yankees - there would have been about a dozen magazine covers wondering about his slump. Jones has a career average of .306 but this year is just hitting .210 (which also happens to be how much he weighs)... I would say that Derek Jeter's contract with 6 more years and $126 due to him was worse than Helton's but you know that George would eat about half the contract in a pinch... It has now been 1 day since the Angels got a HR from a first baseman... Atlanta is 4.5 games out of first in the NL East and 6.5 games out in the race for the NL Wild Card. If they don't make up some ground by the All-Star break you would have to think that both Paul Byrd and Russ Ortiz will be placed on the market... Somewhere there is a gambler who went broke betting against the Devil Rays. Maybe the gambler saw the streak get to five games and said, "No way they win six in a row." After that loss - the gambler probably doubled up to even out. Then he was forced to double up again and again until after the 12th game in a row he was completely tapped out. Of course that's when the Devil Rays finally lost. I know that somewhere - somebody fell trap to that scenario. That's why the casinos put up those things that allow you to see the past rolls of the roulette wheel. "Hey five reds in a row? I'll load up on black!" It doesn't work that way... I wonder why Tim McCarver loves Derek Jeter so much because McCarver must realize that as soon as Jeter is done playing for the Yankees - Jeter takes McCarver's TV job in a flash. As that day gets close - I wonder if you start to see McCarver start dropping hints that Jeter drowns baby kittens and molests collies?...