Mid-Season Baseball Awards

Major League Baseball..........

With all due respect to the movie, "Major League".........has reached the half-way mark of it's marathon 162 game season. This is a strange one.......to say the least.

Thus far, this season, the MLB is like the NFL..........A few good teams, a few bad teams, and a whole lot of teams in the middle.......you know....parody.

The few good teams, Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and the Los Angeles Angels in the AL........Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals in the NL.

The few bad teams? San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals, and the Seattle Mariners.

Everyone else is in the 40% to 50% win percentage. Again...........parody.

So............on with our Mid-season MLB awards:


Biggest Surprise...........

No-brainer .......Tampa Bay Rays. At 52-32, the Rays have the best record in baseball and lead the Red Sox by 31/2 games after sweeping Boston this week.


Biggest Disappointment........

Seattle Mariners. Picked by many to win the AL west, Seattle has fired it's Manager and General Manager, and is in last place with the worst record in baseball, at 32-51.



MVP.....American League......

Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers. Batting average, .308.....19 home runs.........82 RBI's. Hamilton has an outside chance to win the triple crown this year. He has helped make the Rangers respectable at 44-42 and just 71/2 games out of the AL west.




MVP.....National League.......

Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies. With apologies to Chipper Jones (batting .391) and Lance Berkman (batting .358), Ryan is the straw that stirs the Phillies. His .219 batting average is slightly misleading. Howard has 21 home runs and 71 RBI's. He has the Phillies in 1st place in the NL east. Runner-up has to be Dan Uggla of the Florida Marlons (44-40) and only 11/2 games behind Philadelphia.


American League Cy Young Award winner......

Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians. 11-1.........2.26 era...........93 strikeouts and just 17 walks. Lee, with a career record of 65-37 , is a rising superstar. If his Indians could just hit the baseball and score runs..........Cleveland would not be in last place with a record of 37-47. Runner up is the Angels' Francisco Rodriguez who already has 40 saves with a 1.93 era.



National League Cy Young Award winner.....

Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants. 9-1....2.38 era....114 strikeouts and 43 walks. One of the young prospects on a woeful post-Barry Bonds Giant team. Arizonas' Brandon Webb (12-4, 3.21 era) is the runner-up.


So now we will get the All-star game .......then the dog days of August and September......

But .......at least, we're half-way there!