My American League All-Star Picks

C – Joe Mauer, MIN
Even after missing the first month of the season, Joe Mauer’s my pick. He fixed the only supposed flaw in his game by smacking 14 home runs in his first 200 at bats.

1B – Justin Morneau, MIN
Morneau should join Mauer in the starting lineup for the Junior Circuit. Since his MVP season he’s done nothing but drive in runs and produce and this year is no exception.

2B – Aaron Hill, TOR
One of quite a few surprising Jays this year, Hill’s consistency has kept the Jays hanging around.

SS – Derek Jeter, NYY
Tales of his demise seem to have been greatly exaggerated as he’s hitting a cool .309 with 9 homers and 30 runs driven in. His plate discipline is the best it’s ever been and his defensive zone rating is tops among qualifying AL shortstops.

3B – Evan Longoria, TB
A monster start has inflated his overall numbers, but he’s still the clear choice to man the hot corner for the AL.

LF – Carl Crawford, TB
40 swipes before July gives Crawford a shot at 100 stolen bases. He should be leading off for Joe Maddon.

CF – Torii Hunter, LAA
This guy seems to get better with age. With his teammates succumbing to injuries all around him, Hunter has thus far paired an excellent offensive season with out-of-this-world defense.

RF – Ichiro Suzuki, SEA
Ichiro’s stuck atop one of the worst lineups in baseball, but it’s no fault of his. All he’s doing is hitting .372 and swiping 13 bags.

RESERVES

C – Victor Martinez, CLE
Cooled off somewhat from a torrid start, but clearly a head above the rest of the AL class of catchers.

1B – Russell Branyan, SEA
Someone finally gave him a chance at full-time duty and he’s made the most of it. He leads all AL first basemen in OPS and his 38 RBI are due more to Seattle’s jayvee lineup than his own ineptitude.

2B – Ian Kinsler, TEX
The second base toss-up loser is Kinsler, who by some accounts may be having a finer season than the AL starter, Hill.

2B – Ben Zobrist, TB
A season-ending injury to Akinori Iwamura allowed Zobrist to play every day for the defending AL champs. All he’s done is lead the league in OPS at 1.026

SS – Jason Barlett, TB
A .276 career hitter before 2009, the throw-in from the Matt Garza deal is raking this year, hitting more than 100 points better than his career average.

3B – Brandon Inge, DET
The former catcher gets this spot over the seemingly rejuvenated Scott Rolen. Inge is a threat to give you a spectacular play every night at third, and has shown impressive pop this year.

OF – Jason Bay, BOS
Another player coming back down to earth after an inhuman start to the season, Bay clearly has his eye on his impending free agency and is producing accordingly.

OF – Adam Jones, BAL
The Eric Bedard centerpiece is Torii Hunter lite, depositing balls over the fence in the top of an inning, then bringing them back in the bottom half.

OF – Johnny Damon, NYY
Damon, like Bay has enjoyed playing for a new contract. He’s already popped 14 home runs, just 10 off his career high and is head back to Yankee Stadium’s porch for a long home stand.

SP – Zack Greinke, KC
I’m handing him the start in his cross-town rival’s park. Even a small stumble couldn’t jack his ERA up above 2.00. The All-Star Game should be the first time Greinke starts this year with major league hitters backing his efforts.

SP – Roy Halladay, TOR
Head of the class as usual is Doc Halladay, but a short DL stint cut back on his time. He’s been busy mowing through AL lineups all season, and should do the same to the class of the NL.

SP – Felix Hernandez, SEA
Continuing to build on his early success, King Felix is having a terrific year by anyone’s standards. Very quietly, he’s right up there with Greinke and Halladay.

SP – Edwin Jackson, DET
Highly touted throughout the Dodgers and Rays farm systems, Jackson is finally realizing his immense potential in Detroit.

SP – Kevin Millwood, TEX
He’s been the workhorse ace the expected, but never really got when they signed him in 2006. Only Greinke’s thrown more innings than Millwood and only the guys listed above him have better ERA’s.

SP – Jered Weaver, LAA
With so many decimating injuries to the Angels’ rotation, Weaver’s been rock solid for them since day one.

SP – Justin Verlander, DET
Verlander started 2009 much like he ended 2008 – terrible. But he’s rebounded impressively and leads the AL in strikeouts.

RP – Frank Francisco, TEX
Apart from a minor injury that limited Francisco early in the season, he’s been about as dominant as Texas could have hoped for. A 1.23 ERA and 23 K’s in 22 innings has made the end of games less of a mystery for the Rangers.

Joe Nathan, MIN
Since being traded for AJ Pierzynski, Nathan’s been nothing short of automatic.

Mariano Rivera, RP
Is there anyone else you’d rather have on the mound with home-field advantage on the line. He was atypically prone to the long ball early in the season, but his control remains impeccable with a 13:1 strikeout to walk ratio.

RP – Matt Thornton, CWS
Thornton’s here because the White Sox are required to have a representative.

RP – Andrew Bailey, OAK
Oakland is also required to have a representative, and Bailey’s pretty much been money out of the bullpen for the A’s all season.

RP – Hideki Okajima, BOS
Okajima, along with offseason arrival Ramon Ramirez, has been the automatic bridge to Jonathan Papelbon all year and is a big reason why Boston holds the best record in the American League

Supreme Court Nominee Supports Racial Discrimination

A while back, twenty firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut were denied promotions based on an exam because not enough black firefighters scored high enough to be promoted. The city threw out the exam results and didn’t promote anyone. Naturally, these firefighters (nineteen white, one Hispanic) were pretty peeved. Having worked hard and done everything required for a promotion, they were denied because of their race. So they sued.

Their case was denied, most notably by Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee/bat-crazy racist, Sonia Sotomayor on it’s way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rendered it’s decision yesterday in favor of the offended firefighters.

While Sotomayor is another disaster waiting to happen, equally troubling was Ruth Ginsburg’s comment following the decision:

They had no vested right to a promotion.

So because white firefighters scored higher and earned promotions, they don’t deserve them because their black counterparts failed to perform up to the same standards? What is this woman doing on the bench?

The ruling overturns a decision that Sotomayor made in lower courts and further de-qualifies her to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. As expected, the White House defended Sotomayor, saying that her decision showed she was a “follower of precedent”.

That’s convenient. America had slaves once too, and slaveowners were simply following precedent. But precedent only applies when it works in favor of liberal minded hags like Sotomayor.

“We’re very, very pleased that hopefully this decision will put an end to the type of obnoxious, identity politics and race baiting that occurs in workplaces around the country,” said Karen Torre, the firefighter’s attorney.

So am I.

Honduran Situation Exploits Obama’s Ineptitude

I know most people could care less about what goes on in Honduras, a place more known for church mission trips than lessons in Constitutionality.

Although our President seems keen on the whole matter, I must wonder about his intentions and capacity for common-sense. North Korea shot a missile at us and Obama waited five days before responding. When Iran held fraudulent elections and killed protesters, two weeks later, Obama was “concerned” about it.

But one day after Honduras tried to uphold it’s Constitution, Obama has come out and said that the ouster of Manuel Zelaya was not legal.

Obama would have you believe that the people of Honduras wrongly ousted Zelaya from office. But as with anything he’d have you believe, there’s a different truth to know.

Manuel Zelaya, ex-Honduran President

Manuel Zelaya is basically a Hugo Chavez wannabe. Zelaya’s term is up as President but he wasn’t ready to leave quite yet. So he decides to change the Constitution to allow himself to remain as President for additional terms. In order to alter the constitution in Honduras you have to convene a constituent assembly, something that the President does not have the authority to do – that’s the power of the Congress. Zelaya wasn’t thrilled by that and decided to call one regardless. Now in order to carry out a referendum, one must obtain ballots, and the Honduran Congress wasn’t about to print ballots for an illegal referendum. So Zelaya outsourced the printing of ballots to Hugo Chavez, who does it and sends the ballots to his buddy.

After this little escapade, the Honduran Supreme Court rules that the referendum is in fact, illegal and wholly unconstitutional and issues orders to the military not to do anything to help this thing along so General Romeo Velasquez tells President Zelaya that he is under orders from the Supreme Court and will not be able to carry out Zelaya’s referendum. So Zelaya pink-slips him. The Supreme Court orders Zelaya to reinstate Velasquez, and Zelaya refuses to do so.

At this point Zelaya decides he’ll just do it himself. He gathers up a mob and leads them to the military compound where Hugo’s ballots are stored and then has his supporters begin distributing the ballots to the public. Because of the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling, Zelaya was arrested by the military and was escorted out of the country.

The Honduran attorney general and the military were operating in accordance with the Honduran laws and a valid court order. The Honduran congress has convened and designated a successor president, all in accordance with the Honduran Constitution and the presidential elections set for November – the election that Zelaya was trying to get around – will go on as scheduled.

So for those of you counting, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and now Barack Obama are all on Manuel Zelaya’s side in this thing.

A chance to take a strong, decisive stance on foreign matters after butchering the NK and Iran situations and Barack Obama falls flat on his face again. This man clearly has no idea what he is doing and doesn’t show encouraging improvement. Thank goodness our country is in the hands of incompetent baboons that are more concerned with preening their own coats than concerning themselves with the welfare of nations, including our own.

At least homeless people renting rooms in foreclosed homes doesn’t bother him. When is it 2012?

Epic Battle Update: 06/29/09

I’ve been out of the country lately, and therefore have missed a few updates. But here’s the new one, and everything is holding pretty much steady.

Notes: Big news of the week was Zachary breaking a seven-week losing streak with an emphatic pounding of Kevin to move within half a game of getting out of the cellar. Nathaniel continues to distance himself from the rest of the league, moving twenty-three games ahead of the second place team, JT. JT however, holds only an eight game advantage over the last place team, with five other teams bunched in between them. Matchup of the week is between #2 JT (94-93-29) and #3 Josh (97-100-19).

Possible Big Foot Sighting

In 1967 two hunters, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlinar, took the following photo of what was supposedly Bigfoot:

1967 Possible Big Foot Sighting

The other day however, I found a picture of what, by body language, appears to be the same creature that Patterson and Gimlinar found back in the 60s:

2009 Possible Big Foot Sighting

Focus on the glare both creatures are giving to the camera. Take notice of the way the arms swing as they walk, and while the 1967 Bigfoot picture lacks a watch and cell phone, I’m sure he has his own ways of telling time and calling his friends.

Both creatures are interesting concepts. They’re talked about a lot and many people would give their left eye to see both of these with their right eye. But actual proof that either can be counted on to show up when needed is lacking.