Hello all and welcome to the next-to-last week of the season! Since we’ve got no real playoff race to speak of in our own league, I’m just going to spend a short time writing down some random notes on the remaining major league teams that have clinched the playoffs already or who are still in the race…

Let’s start with the Yankees. Right now in their starting rotation they have Chien Mien Wang, Randy Johnson and Aaron Small. Which has to make them the first major league team with a Small, Wang, and Big Unit in their rotation. Well maybe not, but at least up to this point no ones talking, especially Suzyn Waldman!…

OK, enough of that, let’s move on over to Cleveland where it we find Grady Sizemore turning in on in a late push for Rookie of the Year. Now with the Tribe still out in front of the wild card race as of this writing, I’d think both the Yankees and Red Sox fans would want to see Sizemore, well kinda size less, no? Of course, a lesser Sizemore would be Grady Little, wouldn’t he? Well talk about your cloning experiments gone amok!

Switching divisions once again and heading out west we see that the Los Angeles of Anaheim and Mulholland Falls and Ventura Boulevard Angels have clinched a playoff spot fighting off the Oakland A’s who have now pretty much been all but mathematically eliminated. And who exactly came up with that term “mathematically eliminated”? Sounds like a very cruel form of capital punishment doesn’t it? Little Johnny went missing from school today. He was last seen after English class heading down to hall for Algebra. Police arriving on the crime scene found a black board filled with quadratic equations and the words HELP ME scribbled sloppily at the end of the board. CSI is checking chalk dust for DNA as they fear that Johnny may have been “mathematically eliminated”…

Now you realize that the worst part of the San Diego Padres winning the NL West isn’t the fact that they may do it with a less than .500 record right? No folks, 80 - 82’s OK with me so long as you beat the other teams in your division. But, do you realize that we’re going to have playoff baseball being played in a place called Petco Park! Bringing up all kinds of possibilities for announcers who like to hear themselves talk. I’m just glad that Joe Theisman doesn’t do baseball games! So who wants to bet the over on the numbers of times we hear phrases like "the dimensions of this place are for the birds” and “the whole offense has gone to the dogs”. We might even be lucky enough to get a “down 3 games to 1 and heading back to Petco, the Braves are facing elimination and might be sleeping with the fishes”. Well hey, at least they weren’t mathematically eliminated…

The ChiSox have become the ChiSucks of late, nearly blowing a once insurmountable 15 game lead. Turning a sure thing into a nightmare for Sox fans, who I believe have now assumed the mantle left behind by Sox fans last year. As a matter of fact I taped the last few White Sox games of the dish and I’ve come up with a new money making idea. You see I print random freeze frame video pictures of crowd shots from the game, bind them all into a book and sell it as the new Where’s Waldo game! Well, except that this time it’s going to be Where’s Bartman! Come on now, you don’t think White Sox fans are all paranoid thinking the Cubbies have had this guy locked away somewhere all season and now they’re letting him loose inside US Cellular field to ruin their cross town rivals hopes? I’ve seen conspiracy theories that were stretched a lot further than this one…

Note to Leo Mazzone, the Braves have clinched the NL East, you can stop rocking back and forth now! Or maybe… Yeah, just maybe… Do you think this is some kind of Prometheus thing going on here? I mean the Braves have won 15 straight NL East titles right? Well, perhaps 15 years ago someone put one of those old-fangled gypsy curses on the Mets, froze Leo Mazzone, started him rocking like some kind of crazed Weeble and prophecised something along the lines of the Mets will not win another division crown until the pitching coach stops shaking! Or it would probably read, in more cryptic gypsy-like verse, If Mazzone’s a-rockin’, don’t bother knockin’! Of course, the Mets secretly placed a double secret agent to infiltrate the Braves bullpen in an attempt to overturn the curse, which would explain the presence of another “Rocker” on the Braves. Ah, man this playoff conspiracy theory thing is growing! Screw that whole Bartman on the other side of town thing I threw out before, somebody call Oliver Stone. I’ve got a Second Rocker theory to discuss! Tell him to meet me at RFK. And don’t dare tell me I’m off my rocker on this one…

Are the Phillies still alive? I believe so. Well Jimmy Rollins is in on a tear right now with a 32 game hitting streak that was still alive at press time. But that’s not the only streak going on in Philly right now. I also hear that Jim Thome has a 30 game streak going in which he consumes at least one cheesesteak while his injured butt rides the pine trying to figure out exactly how he can get this Ryan Howard kid out of the picture. Let’s see, if I drip a little Cheeze Wiz at the top of the dugout steps like so, then through Ryan the ball for infield practice as he comes in at the end of the inning… Throw it a little high so he doesn’t look down…

Houston I don’t think we have a problem. Well at least as far as the Astros making the playoffs are concerned. Looks like Roger Clemens may miss a start, or at least get pushed back some as he mourns the recent death of his mom. Well that’s OK Rog, I hear that you’re covered. Yep, Brandon’s got your Backe…

What can we say about the Cardinals? These guys are perennial contenders every year. They’ve dominated the NL Central this season despite all that added pressure they were under. What pressure? You mean having to come back and defend their NL pennant? No, that’s a piece of cake! I’m talking about all the double headers they had to play to make up for all the time they lost while they were locked up in St. Peters Basilica voting for the new pope! Black smoke, no pope. White smoke, we’ve got a winner. Gray smoke, hold on a second, Tony LaRussa’s making a double switch with Hector Luna and the bishop of Guatemala…

And last but certainly not least, the defending champion Red Sox, who host the Yankees this coming weekend in what’s shaping up to be on of those old WWF-style “loser leaves town” matches. Win and you’re in the playoffs, lose and you’re out. I hear security will be tight at Fenway and Yankee fans entering the stadium will be frisked and checked for Aaron Smalls and Chien Wangs. OK, that sounds fair given the animosity between these two rivals but I’m just hoping things don’t get out of hand and no one tries to enter the stadium with a Randy Johnson! If so, I say somebody save the ball girls! Staying with the Red Sox I finally got to see the movie “Fever Pitch” this week, not a bad deal, kind of a sports flick meets chick flick so it wouldn’t kill you to rent it and watch it with your wife. Although I have to warn you that Jimmy Fallon’s acting in this one is about as good as Grady Little’s managing in the 2003 playoffs. Personally I would’ve yanked Fallon in the 8th. Scene that is…

Closing up the column with official word that ex-owner Mark Robinson, who was involved in that horrific car crash a few months back, has been released from the hospital and is on the road to recovery. Thanks to Jim “All 41” Kalach for the frequent e-mail updates on Mark’s condition all along the way. I also believe that Mark was released prior to August 31 and as such, should be eligible for the playoffs… That’s all I’ve got time for this now, see you all again in about 7 to 10 days when we raise a glass to toast the Intentional Walts first league title and reveal exactly who made it into the money and who was left on the outside looking in on the greenbacks… ‘til next week…