Recently it's dawned on me, I've been in a bad mood for 12 years. My entire 30s. Of course, the Dodgers have won a grand total of zero post season games during that time, so that might have, oh, just a little something to do with it....

OK, so I need therapy, but the fate of the Los Angeles baseball club is directly tied to the ratio of smiles on my face, to days on the calendar, during a particular year. You know, the old "SPS" stat, Smiles Per Season. I don't know how you people in Boston and Chicago do it....

Now that the Dodgers seem to have it at least somewhat together, (depending on your definition of what the word "it" is) can we please put the chemistry discussion to bed (sorry, bad choice of words). Chemistry is a class in high school. Most of us weren't any good at it, and unless you're Ray Milland, it doesn't apply to baseball. If you win, you're happy, you have chemistry. If you lose, you're not, and you don't. Class dismissed....

Again, perhaps therapy is in order, but when I was a kid, I thought Al Kaline was responsible for the Alkaline battery. Guys had to work during the off season in those days, you know, and I thought maybe making batteries was Kaline's gig....

The Atlanta Braves always seem ready for the next closer disaster. When Mark Wohlers went all Steve Blass on them, the Braves had 27 year old Kerry Ligtenberg come seemingly out of nowhere to save 30 games in 1998. When Ligtenberg blew out his arm in the process, along came John Rocker to save 38. If the team decides Rocker needs to go, it looks like Mike Remlinger can step in to hold the fort for a year....

The John Rocker thing really has been beaten to death, and if I hear even one more "off his rocker" crack, I'm gonna hurl. This is the absolute final thought on the subject here, I promise. I'm not going to utter another solitary word about the guy. I won't. No I won't. The hell I won't....

Indulge me for a second please. It's simple really. John Rocker is a blithering idiot. He hasn't anything even remotely resembling a clue. Brian Jordan nailed it with one sentence: "To me, John still doesn't get it. It's not the media's fault he made those stupid comments."

OK, I'm done. Does this mean that, now that I've joined the masses in the media who've knocked Rocker, that he won't speak to me again, or ever? Cool....

While we're on the subject of blithering idiots who have no clue who probably will never talk to me again, has anyone heard from Pete Rose lately? It's been, what, days....

Looks like I was wrong when I said the Chicago White Sox would take the American League Wild Card....

Bob Vila is a five-tool player....

Did you catch that X-Files with Mulder tracking down the story of a too-good-to-be-true, Josh Gibson-like player burning it up for the Roswell (yes, that Roswell) Grays? What a great thing. Written and directed by David Duchovny....

First of all, any episodic that devotes an hour to baseball gets brownie points in my book. Second, you've got a guy named Fox extolling the virtues of the box score to a red head named Scully, comparing it to the Pythagorean Theorem, of all things....

Then you have Mulder being quizzed by an oldtimer, to see if he's worth talking to: Old Guy: "How many home runs did Mickey Mantle hit?" Mulder (dumbfounded): "163" Old guy frowns. Mulder: "...Righty, 373 lefty, 536 total." Brilliant....

An alien who'd rather play baseball here on Earth, and in the minors mind you, than go back to his people in a land far far away? Well, that's just poetry....

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