I watched the first hour of the draft on Thursday on ESPN 2. Its always a little goofy watching the MLB draft on TV, because only a few players show up, so its basically watching Baseball Tonight, just focused on High School and College Players. One of the more interesting aspects of the program was when they showed the War Rooms for a few teams right after they made their pick. Teams really set up differently for the draft. For example, the White Sox seemed to be in a small, narrow conference room with Ozzie, the GM and a few scouts surrounding a table with a lot of computers and a TV set. Then that was contrasted with the Athletics, who were in a large empty room, with a ton of people in a complicated table design. It looked like they had almost all of their scouts in their War Room. I had to leave before the Mets made their first pick, so I didn't get to see their war room, if they showed it on air.

Now to "darker times". So the Mets have hit a little funk right now. They were cruising for a while and now they hit a road block again. I am not worried right now because all it would take is one big inning, and an offensive showing, to get the team back on track. It is just a shame that the Mets can't hit when the pitching has been really dominant. Its just bad timing. Lets hope Perez turns it around tonight to give another strong pitching performance.

This is the final part in the three part series listing the 52 players that the Mets drafted over the past two days. Same comments apply from the last article at 3:55, which ended with Mike Lynn (914), so without further ado, here is the final group of Mets draftees:
    944 Michael Powers
    974 Mark Grbavac
    1004 Neil Medchill
    1034 Justin Garber
    1064 Kyle Suire
    1094 Jacob Goldberg
    1124 Timothy Erickson
    1154 Chris Hilliard
    1184 Charles Hinojosa
    1214 Seth Williams
    1244 Tyler Howe
    1274 Timothy Smith
    1304 Mark McGonigle
    1334 Jean-Francois Ricard
    1362 David Phillips
    1389 Brian Gump
    1416 Matthew Bischoff
    1443 Tyler Baisley
    1470 Douglas McNutty
    1497 Kameron Brunty
If you are interested, the last pick in the draft was by the Red Sox, and with the 1504th pick in the draft they took Kyle Stroup, an RHP out of Grant Community High School in Illinois. Well thats the 2008 MLB draft!
   

1:10 Mets Draft Picks Update
3:55 Mets Draft Picks Update

The Mets will try to forget about last night's terrible lost where they were heavily outhit, outwalked, and then gave it up on a bases loaded hit by pitch. So the Mets will send their ace up tonight to take on Randy Wolf and put the Mets back into the win column. (On a side note, I can't say "back in the win column" without thinking about Joe Angel, who currently does the play by play game calling for the Baltimore Orioles on the radio).
Anyway, Randy Wolf, he is 3-4 this year with a 4.33 ERA over 70.2 IP. Last year he picked up a win against the Mets pitching 6 innings, allowing 3 runs, 9 hits, no walks and struck out 2. The year before that, he had a 2-0 record against the Mets over 3 games posting an identical ERA of 4.50, this time allowing 8 runs over 16 innings pitched, and allowed 16 hits, 9 walks and struck out 10. With those types of numbers, you would expect the Mets to at least beat him in one of those games. Here are some numbers that current Mets have put up against Wolf:
    Castillo 17-40 (.425 BA), 4 2B, 3B, HR
    Reyes 7-26, 2 HR
    Wright 2-15
    Beltran 7-22, 4 2B, HR
How about Beltran's extra base hit numbers on Wolf? Five of his seven hits were for extra bases, and Reyes also flashes some power against him.
Santana has been pretty great in his last two starts going 2-0, pitching 14.2 innings, walking 5, striking out 13, allowing only one homerun and has an ERA of 2.45. The last time he pitched against the Padres was a while ago. In 2005, he pitched 6.2 innings allowed 4 runs, walked 4, struck out 3 and took the loss. He has had a strong last 9 games posting a record of 6-1, over 61 innings pitched and has an ERA of 3.25. His walk to strikeout numbers have been amazing. In those nine games he has allowed only 16 walks, less than 2 walks a game and has struck out 53. Here are some Padre offense numbers against Santana:
    Iguchi 8-37, 2 2B
    Gerut 2-8
    Greene 0-3
    Kouzmanoff 0-3
Numbers look good. Today feels good. Redemption time. Lets Go Mets!

The Mets have made another boatload of draft picks from the last update. Same thing applies as from the last post, some picks will be introduced over the next few weeks, and the players that sign and play for the Mets in some league during the summer will get a formal introduction during the offseason. With these picks, finding information before they play in the majors will be tough, but if I find something substantial, I will be sure to sling it back to you. If you know anything about these players, please post it down here (or you can email me at eteich@umd.edu). Here are the picks after James Bruno (464):
    464 James Bruno
    494 Travis Babin
    524 Mitchell Houck
    554 Collin McHugh
    584 Zachary Rosenbaum
    614 Michael Moras
    644 James Fuller
    674 Christopher Schwinden
    704 Evan LeBlanc
    734 Kyle Allen
    764 Eric Turgeon
    794 John Servidio
    824 Jeffery Flagg
    854 James Johnson
    884 Michael Giuffre
    914 Mike Lynn
There are always plenty of surprises later in the draft. There are surprises that no one can predict, and in a few years, in a Get To Know A Prospect section on this website, we could be looking at this post talking about a few of these players being the future of the club. Its why I love the Baseball draft. Unlike NBA and NFL, where your draft pick makes an impact the following year, here, your pick could be the superstar 2 years down the road, or 5 years from now and can be from all the way down from the bottom rounds. The first few rounds are becoming more predictable with drafting good players due to advanced scouting, but nothing can stop gems from the later rounds.

In other news, this is the 500th post on this website. Heres looking at the next 500.

1:10 Mets Draft Picks Update
7:19 Mets Draft Picks Update
   
      

The draft is already in its 15th round and the Mets have already made a lot of selections. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be going over introductions of several of the Mets big picks, and then during the offseason, they will get a formal "Get To Know A Prospect" if they signed with the Mets and played with the team at one of their minor league levels.
That being said here are the picks thus far:
    18 Issac "Ike" Davis
    22 Reese Havens
    33 Bradley Holt (I really want to make a Steve Holt joke from Arrested Development here)
    68 Javier Rodriquez
    100 Kirk Nieuwenhuis
    134 Sean Ratliff
    164 Charles Doyle
    194 Joshua Satin
    224 Michael Hebert
    254 Eric Campbell
    284 Eric Beaulac
    314 Brian Valenzuela
    344 Jeffery Kaplan
    374 Mark Cohoon
    404 Scott Shaw
    434 Brandon Moore
    464 James Bruno
Hopefully a few players here will be the next big player for New York! A future Hall of Fame player! Lets Go Mets!

3:55 Mets Draft Picks Update
7:19 Mets Draft Picks Update

   
   
   

The Mets open up another series against an NL West opponent tonight as they start their four game set with the Padres. The Mets have won their last three series now and have a record of 7-3 in their last ten games. A lot of this is due to the awakening of a few of their players, Reyes, Wright and Beltran, hitting like they should. In the last ten games, these are their lines:
    Reyes 44 AB, 15 H, 5 2B, 4 HR, 8 RBI, 6 BB, .341 BA, .727 SLG
    Wright 39 AB, 13 H, 3 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 7 BB, .333 BA
    Beltran 37 AB, 12 H, 3 2B, 2 HR, 8 RBI, 7 BB, .324 BA
Those numbers are fantastic and are what the Mets were hoping for, and then some, out of these three players. What is really surprising is how similar these numbers are between these three players, and shows that the Mets can have a really balanced lineup when everything starts to click. Banks, the starting pitcher for the Padres, will be trying to stop the Mets.
Banks has only played 6 games, and started 2 since debuting in 2007. In 2007, he made two relief appearances and one start totaling to 7.1 IP, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 K. This year, he has been completely different as he has pitched 17 innings and has been lights out. He has allowed no runs, walked 5 times and struck out 10. In his first start this season, he pitched a complete game shut out, allowed 6 hits, walked no one, and struck out 5. He has no batting record against any Mets. Right handers are hitting .257 against him and Lefties are hitting .217 against him. The Mets got smoked against Billingsley the last time they faced a young pitcher, but they were able to light up the Dodger pen. Hopefully the Mets will be able to actually score Banks who is sporting a career ERA of 2.22 (over 24.1 innings).

On the side of shutting the Padres' bats, will by Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey had to make a statement in his last start to show the Mets he deserved to stay in the rotation. He made a great statement holding the Dodgers to two runs over 7 innings, walking one and striking out 6. Before his last start, right handers were hitting .272 against him and lefties were hitting .385 against him. After his last start, right handers BA dropped to .265 and lefties BA dropped to .375. So not a huge drop, but it shows that he is starting to improve. He has never faced the Padres before.
Lets Go Mets!

Well the draft doesn't start until 2:00 but the Rays have already announced their first. With the first pick in the 2008 Draft, the Tampa Bay Rays select Tim Beckham. Beckham is highly touted high school shortstop from Georgia. MLB.com quoted the Rays scouting director, R. J. Harrison saying:
"a really good player at a premium position...Middle of the field player, very good athlete, an advanced bat...Has a real good awareness on the field. He plays the game with a great deal of enthusiasm. And then when you spend time with him away from the field, he's the same guy. He's a fun guy to be around."
Over at Baseball Digest Daily, they have found Beckham's batting numbers from this past year, and they are amazing. In 78 AB, he has 39 hits, 40 runs, 9 2B, 5 HR, 31 RBI's and 2 SB. These numbers might be different than others that will be more readily available on the internet over the next few days because they are his batting stats with two games left in the season. Even with that, those are some amazing numbers.
Other notable number 1 draft picks the Rays have made in recent years are Josh Hamilton (High School), Delmon Young (High School), and David Price (Vanderbelt).

The Mets will try to take the rubber game this afternoon, and take another series, as they face the Giants. The pitching matchup today pits Matt Cain vs John Maine. The first two games this series have been pretty wild, and overall, pretty high scoring. As you will see, with Maine's numbers against the Giants, the high scoring part, at least for the Giants, should not happen today.
Cain has had an interesting season in that he has only 5 decisions in 12 starts this year. He is 2-3 over 74.0 IP and an ERA of 4.38. Last year, he faced the Mets twice and lost both times. He pitched 14 innings, walked 3, struck out 9 and had an ERA of 5.14. However, in 2006, he faced the Mets twice and won both times. In 12 innings of work, he posted an ERA of 3.75, walked only one and still struck out nine. The Mets have put up these numbers against Cain:
    Delgado 0-14
    Reyes 6-12, 2B, 2 3B
    Wright 7-13, 5 2B
    Church 1-8
    Beltran 2-5, 2B
Looking at these numbers, I am assuming that Delgado will get the day off. Reyes and Wright have really done well against Cain. 3 of Reyes 6 hits were for extra bases and 5 of Wrights 7 hits have been for extra bases. Lets hope to see the offense from yesterday carry over to today.
Maine has struggled as of late. In his last three games, he is 0-2, has an ERA of 6.19, pitched 16 innings, walked 8 and has struck out 16. It would be really nice to see Maine turn it around today. In 2007, he pitched a no decision against the Giants where he lasted 6 innings and allowed 3 earned runs. In that game he walked 6, and struck out 4. That being said look at the current Giant numbers against Maine:
    Rowand 0-9, 3 BB, 3 K
    Castillo 0-4
    Durham 0-3
    Molina 0-3
    Visquel 0-2, BB
Those are the only current Giants with batting records against Maine! Those numbers are awesome! Lets see Maine replicate those numbers tonight and lead the Mets to a series win!
Lets Go Mets!

Living in Baltimore, I don't get the Mets games on TV. Tonight, I was staying up to see how Pedro was doing via Gameday on the computer, and watching the Daily Show on TV. Now I don't want politics to enter this blog. Jon Stewart was interviewing Terry McAuiffe, who is a huge Hilary Clinton supporter. I am sure you have all heard by now that Obama has locked up the nominee spot in a numerical sense. Even with that, Terry was extremely excited about how Clinton was going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party. To this Stewart responded somewhere along these lines:  I am a big Mets fan, and last year, the Mets went through a historic collapse...now use your enthusiasm to convince me the Mets won the World Series last year.
I am sure the clip will be up some time tomorrow on the Daily Show website.

Although Reyes didn't get a hit tonight, it was still a pretty good game. The main issues or criticisms I would have about tonight is that the Mets did not get anything together. Then Schowenwies, who has been effective this year, lost his ability to close out the game with a 6 run lead, and Wagner had to come in for a two pitch save.
This was a good day for Pedro. He struggled, he allowed three runs. But at the end of the day, he got a quality start and the Mets won. The Pedro offense was also a nice touch tonight.
Lets Keep it going Mets!

Hopefully the Mets will able to put last night behind them and forget about it as they sent he energy man, one of the most exciting players to watch in baseball, Pedro Martinez. The Giants will the recently good Barry Zito on the mound.
The Mets get the honor of playing a Barry Zito on a hot stretch in 2008. In the past two games he has a win over 12.1 innings and an ERA of 2.92. Overall on the season, Zito has pitched 11 games with a record of 1-8 over 57 innings and has an ERA of 5.53. He was very good against the Mets in 2007 getting two wins in as many games while walking 2 and striking out 12, posting and ERA of 2.08 over 13 innings. The Mets hitters haven't faired well against him:
    Beltran 6-32, 2B, .188
    Delgado 4-19, 2B, 9 K
    Wright 2-6
    Reyes 1-6, 2B
These numbers are really not pleasant. Hopefully Beltran will be able to channel the past weekend to tonight and lets hope Reyes will continue to swing the bat well.
Pedro! Pedro! Pedro! If he is effective tonight, and if he stays healthy, hopefully that plus a combination of the intangibles he provides will jump start this Mets team. He really hasn't played the Giants in recent years but here are some stats of Giant players against Pedro!
    Vizquel 12-42, 2B
    Durham 4-24, HR, .162 BA
    Molina 2-16
    Aurilia 1-8
If he can replicate these numbers tonight and we could be in for a low scoring game tonight.
Lets Go Mets!

Minor League Teams as many of you know have great promotions and giveaway's throughout the season. The first promotion I want to talk about is not special to June, in fact if you live in Tucson, you can enjoy this promotion every Monday. The Tucson Sidewinders, for an additional fee of $7, offer all-you-can-eat spaghetti and meatballs. All-you-can-eat promotions are always cool, and thats on top of how this one is highlighting a non-traditional baseball food. That is why this promotion landed on this list.
The next promotion has already been highlighted before, but I loved it so much I wanted to restate it. Last night and on the 10th is are the two guaranteed win nights offered by the Frederick Keys. If the Keys don't win on those games, all people in attendance get tickets to another Keys home game. I really love the idea of this promotion.
The River Bandits on June 13th will be hosting Elvis Night.
On June 26th, the Mississippi Braves will be throwing shirts into the crowd that read "Fight the Bite Mississippi", as part of mosquito awareness night. This reminds me of the Emerald Ash Borer awareness information they give out at Bowie Baysox games.
Finally, Durham is going to showcase USA baseball at the end of June. Between the 27th and the 29th, USA will be playing three games with team Chinese Taipei. I love when International Baseball is supported, which is why this three game set made the list this month.

The Mets will try for three in a row tonight as they go west to San Francisco. The Mets will be sending out Oliver Perez tonight, who will hopefully give us a Dr. Jekyll tonight rather than his Mr. Hyde. Perez will be facing Jonathan Sanchez, the 25 year old Left handed pitcher for the Giants.
Sanchez represents that young, unknown pitcher, that usually gives the Mets fits. He faced the Mets in 2006 for 1.2 innings of relief where he allowed no hits, no runs, no walks and struck no one out. He ultimately got the win in that game. On the season, Sanchez is 3-3 over 11 games and 61.1 innings pitched. He has an ERA of 4.26 this season. There really are no stats for Mets batters against him. Scheneider has the most AB's with 3, getting no hits. Chuch has 2 PA's, with an RBI and BB. Besides that a few other Mets have had one PA or AB resulting in no hits. Here are some splits on Sanchez's season:
    Right Handed Batters: .250 BA
    Left Handed Batters: .220 BA
    Home 6 G, 2.78 ERA
    Away 5 G, 6.31 ERA
His Home and Away ERA split worries me, but an energized Mets team should hopefully damage him.
Perez has not been spectacular in his last two starts. He has a no decision for both of those starts, the earlier resulting in a loss to the Rockies and the later one resulting in a 7-6 win over the Marlins. During those two games, Perez pitched 11 innings, allowed 9 earned runs (7.36 ERA), walked 12 and struck out 9. If he can stay away from a bad inning tonight, then he should be fine (most of his damage generally comes in one emotionally crushing inning). In 2007, he pitched against the Giants twice to the tune of an 0-1 record over 11.2 innings an ERA of 3.86. He walked 2 and struck out 9 over those two games. Here are some Giant stats against Perez:
    Aurilia 7-31, 2B, 3B, 4 HR, 10 RBI
    Rowand 4-13, 2B, 5 K
    Vizquel 1-8
    Molina 2-5
Aurilia's line is interesting to look at because his BA is not great against Perez, but 6 out of 7 times he has gotten a hit, it has been for extra bases, including 4 jacks. Goal of the night: keep Aurilia in the park.
Lets Go Mets!

The calender has turned the page into June, which means another collection of Major League teams making creative and fun promotions and giveaways.
The Mets actually made the list this month with their give-away on June 14th. On the 14th, Nathan's are sponsoring a replica Shea Stadium. This is the type of giveaway that fans could keep on their shelves for a while and is really nice. Normal replicas can range from $10 (if you want a small, non realistic one), to hundreds of dollars for realistic ones. I've seen the picture of this one on the Mets website, and its slightly more detailed then the $10 one I have, so if you can go on Saturday, go get this one.
When you were younger, did you always get your Dad a tie for Father's day? Well this June 15th, the Diamondbacks would be doing that work for you. The first 5,000 Dad's get a really nice Diamondback necktie. This is probably the most creative promotion I have seen for this month.
Two teams have great giveaways on June 17th. I already touched on the first one here. The Orioles are honoring a great fan of the birds who passed away last year, Wild Bill Hagy by giving away Hagy Name and Number T-shirts with 34 on the back to represent the section he sat in. The Cardinals are also doing a creative giveaway on the 17th by giving out ceramic replica's of 1968 World Series Tickets. 17 of these tickets will be painted gold and autographed by Bob Gibson. Honoring past World Series is always a great way to connect generations of baseball fans.
Keeping with the theme of the 1968 World Series. The Tigers on June 24th are giving out a Replica Jersey of the 1968 Tigers. I love when teams give away replica jerseys and these are really cool because of the time period that they represent.

First off, before the Mets game today, I heard of another good PR move by the Orioles. That means I heard two in one day, which is really unbelievable. Anyway, back when the Orioles played in Memorial Stadium, there was a very famous fan who sat in upper deck section 34, Wild Bill Hagy. Hagy passed away in August of last year and was famous for leading the O-R-I-O-L-E chants. Every Tuesday when the Orioles are home, they give out a T-shirt with a player's name and number on the back (thus T-shirt Tuesday) and June 17th, the Orioles announced that the T-shirt will read on the back Hagy 34. This is a really great move for the birds and is one of the more creative, touching promotions I have seen in a while.

Anyway, back to the Mets. My heart jumps every time I see Reyes slide into second headfirst and make contact with the second basemen. The game when Reyes blacked out in Philly this season, and both of Church's concussions immediately flash through my mind. I know thats the way Reyes plays, and I know thats the popular to steal bases. Besides that, its always exciting. When he stole second tonight in the first inning, there was a different feeling in the air. It felt like 2006 in a way because there was this feeling that the Mets were going to get him home some how. It wasn't the 2008, no hits with RISP, it really felt different tonight.

Nothing felt more like 2006 than the 3rd inning where the Mets scored 5 times with 2 outs with. I always seem to be talking about how the Mets need a big inning to turn the season around. An inning where everything seems to go right. Tonight's third inning might be that inning. With two outs, Wright got Reyes home with a clutch hit. Then Beltran kept the inning going with his monster homerun, and then two batters later, Church hits a two run shot. Even though the Mets didn't score after that, it really felt like the Mets developed momentum. (Which hopefully they packed to go out West with them).

Speaking about Wright, how good has he been recently? In his last 10 games, he has 13 hits over 40 AB (.325 BA!), 3 home runs, 7 RBI's (6 in this series, and in the last 4 games alone), and has walked 7 times. He has also scored 10 times. So in his first 45 games this season, he has scored 27 times, or .6 times a game, and in his last 10 games, he has scored on average 1 time per game.
His last four games have been special as touched on before. He has gone 7-15, 2 HR, 6 RBI, and 3BB. That is a great stat line to look at and lets hope those numbers continue as well.

The surging Mets will try to take the four game series tonight as they finish the four game set with the Dodgers on ESPN. Johan Santana will be going for his 100th career tonight (the same day that Nolan Ryan did it as well). The Dodgers tonight will be sending out Kuroda, one of their offseason pickups from Japan.
Kuroda this season is 2-4 over 11 games and 68.1 innings pitched. During that time he has posted an ERA of 3.29. However, in his last four games, he has a record of 1-2 over 27.1 innings pitched, he has posted an ERA of 2.30 (10 BB and 15 K). So recently, he has been hitting his stride, which of course is always unsettling because  the Mets generally do not do well with rookie  pitchers, and one starting to get hot gets me a little nervous. In the first seven games of the season, he was 1-2, over 41.0 innings and posted an ERA of 3.95. Here are some other Kuroda splits:
    Right-handed Batters: .248 BA
    Left-handed Batters: .254 BA
    Home 5 G, 1-0, 30.0 IP, 3.90 ERA
    Away 6 G, 1-4, 38.1 IP, 2.82 ERA
Hopefully the Mets will be able to see the ball well from Kuroda and do some damage tonight.
Santana has done well in his last six decisions, winning five of them. Over the last 8 games, he has been 5-1 with 53.1 IP and an ERA of 3.54. In his first three games this season, he was 1-2, 20.2 IP and posted an ERA of 3.05. He really should be 2-1 in that first three game set. One of those losses was that duel with Smoltz that, if I wasn't a Mets fan, say was a very good game. Anyway, the last time Santana pitched against the Dodgers, he was very good. He beat them over 7 innings allowing 2 hits, no runs, three walks and struck out 9. Here are some Dodger stats against Santana:
    Pierre 1-4
    Kemp 0-3
    Kent 0-2
    Martin 0-2
Martin and Kemp were young last time they faced Santana, but hopefully they will have the same results tonight.
Lets Go Mets!

Eric Brown, 24-years old, has been going through the Mets organization since the Mets drafted him in 2005. The Mets drafted him in the 18th round and 539th overall. Brown was selected out of Wingate University (North Carolina), where, according to his 2008 Bowman Baseball Card, he was "extensively scouted by Mets who regarded him as a 'sleeper' pick". New York Future Stars cites his great junior year in college, where he struck out 111 batters in 95 innings.
His ability to strike out batters is due to frame and his pitch selection. Brown is a 6'6'' right-handed batter who, once again according to his 2008 Bowman Card (which is always a great, fast introduction to any prospect), keeps his pitches down, uses his slider as his out pitch and gets good movement on his fastball.
So far in the minors, his strikeouts per nine innings have stayed constant except for this year and last year. In 2005, his K/9 was 8.21, with his stay with Brooklyn in 06, it dropped to 7.07 and then in 06, when he moved to Hagerstown, it increased to 7.32. Last season though, it dropped like a rock to 4.26 and right now its back on a slight rise to 4.64.
His ERA has fluctuated over his time in the minors with  the Mets. In his first season he pitched 34.0 innings with an ERA of 3.97. His first 70.0 innings in 2006 (Brooklyn), were awesome as he posted a 1.16 ERA. (He was honored with an All Star Appearance for the New York Penn League in 2006 due to his dominance.)The next half of the season was not as awesome as he posted a 5.16 ERA over 62.2 innings in Hagerstown. He pitched the most innings in 2007 (143.2, roughly 10 more than 06) and posted a good ERA of 4.13. This season he has been struggling over 42 innings with a 6.33 ERA. (This season he is pitching in AA, and facing tougher batters).
Between his ability to strike out batters between the minors and college, and his good ERA for most of his career, he could make an impact in the majors. He should be interesting to follow and lets see how he finishes out his 2008 campaign. Lets see if he can drop that ERA.

Image of his 2008 Bowman card from Ebay.

The Orioles are finally listening to their fans, which is a shocker. The Baltimore Sun printed this morning that the team is going to move to have "Baltimore" on their away jerseys next year. Fans here have wanted that for a long time and this is a pretty good PR move for the Orioles (as opposed to this horrible PR move made by the birds). Also, for their owner, Peter Angelos, will get more money as I am sure many Oriole fans will buy these new away uniforms.
I am glad the Orioles are doing this for another reason. It really frustrates me when team's away uniforms do not say the town, city, or state where they play. There are two main reasons. One, its not traditional. Two, and more importantly, having the town, city or state, name on the away jersey creates more of a fan base and a feeling of city pride for the team.

Also according to the Baltimore Sun, today is the anniversary or Nolan Ryan's 4th no-hitter. It happened in 1975 when he was with the Angels, and he defeated the Orioles 1-0. This also was his 100th career victory. I bring this up because tonight, Johan Santana goes for his 100th major league victory.

(Article on Baltimore away Jerseys can be found on 1D, information on Nolan Ryan can be found on page 5D of today's Baltimore Sun.