And yet again, a good-but-not-great Bronx Bombers team put the pesky Midwesterners back in their place.

Three games in which the team’s offense was bad, the defense was worse and the starting pitching was putrid dropped their record to 0-7 for the year against New York.

Though team officials and apologists will point to four one-run games at the new Yankee Stadium earlier this season as evidence that the Twins are competing hard against the Yanks, the winless series makes three seasons during Ron Gardenhire’s tenure where the Twins didn’t take a single game versus New York (0-6 in 2002 and 0-7 in 2003).

Take it back a step further and the Twins are 6-19 overall against the American League East this year, the division that contains arguably the best three teams in the junior circuit. Take out a 12-6 record against the inferior National League and the Twins’ record against teams they’re actually competing against for a playoff spot is 31-37.

While the front office deserves some criticism for not attempting more aggressively to fill its obvious bullpen needs during the offseason this is still a team that added Joe Crede to its lineup. It also had five starters coming into the season with a year or more of experience. Crede has been what was expected – a solid defensive player with 12 home runs and a low batting average who has to miss games from time to time to rest his back.

But four of the five starters – Francisco Liriano, Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker and Glen Perkins – have all been disappointing more than they’ve been good. And several other players have underachieved as well. Nick Punto, re-signed to a $4 million per year multi-year contract, has struggled A) to stay healthy, B) to keep his average above .210, and even C) to contribute the consistent defense he was brought back to provide.

Alexi Casilla has been so bad that he’s been sent to the minor leagues twice. Delmon Young looks like he might be getting a sliver of a clue, but he spent the first half of the season’s first half continuing to give ammunition to those already conceding a loss in the deal that brought him here. And despite occasional glimpses of brilliance, Carlos Gomez still spends more time corkscrewing himself into the ground swinging and missing than he does running around the bases.

More disturbing is the lack of any outward anger or frustration toward a .500 start that clearly is well below expectations. The Chicago Cubs have suffered through worse injury problems than the Twins have and it has caused them to wallow around the same record as Minnesota – but at least they look to have some fire and some anger about it. Not that busting Gatorade dispensers equals heart, but it’s nice to at least see that someone cares.

Without major adjustments, this year’s Twins are going nowhere. Rumor has it they’ve been talking with Pittsburgh about second baseman Freddie Sanchez and/or two relievers, Matt Capps and John Grabow. Some real dreamers are hoping they’ll pony up enough to land Toronto ace Roy Halladay.

While I have my doubts about the team’s willingness to shell out the necessary prospects to add any of the above, even if they do it might not matter.

Yes, if I were running this team, before I would go and drop a bunch of prospects – guys who could be in line to replace some of the underachievers on this year’s big club – I’d be looking to see a sign of the competitive fire and leadership it’s going to take to get this thing turned around. Zero and seven against the Yankees and 31-37 against the AL should be acceptable to absolutely zero members of the team’s 25 man roster.

Until this team shows the ability to compete on a regular basis with the best – or even the middle-of-the-road teams in the American League – and until this team looks like it’s in it for more than just spending an enjoyable summer observing Major League Baseball from the best seats in beautiful ballparks around the U.S. and Canada, they haven’t done enough to make me feel there’s enough there to warrant an upgrade anyway.

We’ve apparently gotten so addicted to the need for instant information that we can no longer even bring ourselves to wait until a ball crosses the fence to know if a ball thrown by a pitcher and hit by a batter has traveled far enough to result in a home run.

ESPN will debut Doppler radar technology - the same used by military officials tracking missile systems - to create on-screen graphics that will project for fans the instant a ball is hit during the All Star Home Run Derby whether or not it will leave the yard, according to the USA Today.

Now, I’m on record saying the All Star Game itself is a fraud. It’s a popularity contest and an exhibition masquerading as a game people have to care about because the winning league gets to host the World Series.

I don’t recall, however, having put myself on record with my belief that the Home Run Derby is also a sham that jumped the shark about the same time Fonzie did on Happy Days.

Yee hah. Eight guys get together - rarely the eight best power hitters in the game or the four best from either league - and hit glorified batting practice pitches a mile-and-a-half for three rounds and someone gets a trophy …  or is it a car. And if you believe some writers, they may ruin their swings for the second half of the season in so doing.

Thanks, but I’ve got better things to do.

But for those that do watch, is ESPN right? Do you really not have the patience to wait the two to four seconds it takes for the ball to get over the fence before learning whether or not said batter gets to add another point to his tally?

Do you need ESPN to instantly project this for you?

Or the 30 seconds it might have taken to get the exact distance on how far said home run traveled – do you need to know now?

I get text messages, instant messages, emails, tweet announcements constantly throughout the day. I open up news sites on Web pages and find out news minutes – sometimes seconds – after it happens. Enough already. Can we have one slow, relaxing activity that doesn’t need to be subjected to up-to-the-second updates?

I started thinking I was a dinosaur, so I ran this new technological breakthrough past my wife, a devoted non-sports fan, to see if I was wrong. Her response provided vindication. “That’s kind of sad, isn’t it?” she said.

Yes, it is. Baseball. The game is about patience and strategy and sitting in the sun and relaxing with a cocktail - it’s one of the few places in this world left where there is a less constant need for instant gratification. Some people think it’s paced too slowly. That is one thing that keeps me coming back.

ESPN has brought a lot of good advancements to broadcasts since the early days. But some of this stuff is getting out of hand. According to the USA Today story, they’re going to experiment with live post game interviews with players who appear “virtually” in studios for “more intimate conversations” with anchors.

They’ve apparently got plans for an “Innovation Lab” at Disney World that will open in September.

I watch sports in part to escape from the constantly-caffeinated, high-speed, instantly-messaged aspects of life. ESPN apparently wants sports to go the other direction. I choose to ignore this particular “breakthrough.” I probably won’t pay any attention to the derby anyway, but if I do, it’ll either be on the radio or with the sound turned off and my attention distracted as much as possible away from the Doppler data.

Doppler is fine for weather men. And for military leaders it definitely has its place. But the day I can’t wait three seconds to see if a batted ball goes over a fence is the day I’ll have someone take me out behind the barn and put me out of my misery.

Research from Westminster, Colo.-based Costigan & Associates indicates that MLB’s teams have 168 total “major sponsor” deals, including 18 naming rights agreements, with 88 companies encompassing 36 categories.

Interestingly, despite well-reported industry struggles nationally, the banking and financial services sector remains one of the strongest categories. Bank of America has five sponsorship deals. Wells Fargo has four and PNC Financial has three, according to the research.

Malt beverage powerhouse Anheuser-Busch is the most frequent major sponsor partner with 17 deals. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. continue to duke it out for soft drink deals, each netting 12 for the 2009 season.

Costigan & Associates is a sports and entertainment marketing firm that specializes in the evaluation of sponsorship and naming rights deals. Its founders, including principal Charles “Chuck” Costigan, came from The Bonham Group, an internationally-recognized firm that succumbed to economic issues early this year.

Costigan is a 10-year veteran of the sponsorship industry who has provided in-depth analysis and strategic recommendations to many blue-chip brands including the O2 Dome, IBM, the NFL, the NHL, JPMorgan Chase, and several individual teams, universities and organizations, according to a bio at the company Web site.

Right?

Well, not exactly.

David Ortiz was supposed to be the offensive engine for the Red Sox. The Mariners were going to be a ship adrift at sea after losing Raul Ibanez. Kansas City was going to be this year’s edition of the Tampa Bay Rays, who by the way were going to come back to Earth. And, um, somebody wrote that Cleveland was going to be the best team in the Central and AJ Burnett was going to be a colossal failure in New York.

Hey, come on. There’s still half a season left. Burnett could still stub his toe really, really bad.

Over in the West, the Southern California Angels of Orange County look like world beaters. They lead the majors in hitting, are second in stolen bases,  fifth in runs scored, 12th in runs allowed and have a rotation deep enough to weather the recent injury to Ervin Santana. Brian Fuentes anchors what continues to be one of the most rock solid bullpens in baseball. They have a team that’s good enough to win the AL right now, and they are the odds on favorites to win the Jake Peavy (injured or not) sweepstakes.

The funny thing is they might only be the second best team in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, but that’s a conversation for another time. There are only a couple other teams in the AL that can challenge them.

It should be noted here that the Texas Rangers are tied for first place with the Angels at the moment . But really, all this tells me is that they have made their annual sprint into the oppressive Dallas summer heat, where they will inevitably melt. Happens every year. Sorry boys. You might want to put a roof on that thing in Arlington.

In the East we have baseball’s greatest money maker, the race between the Yankees and the Red Sox (with the Rays and Jays desperately trying to crash the party). I’m very clearly on the record saying this isn’t New York’s year, and every reason I gave was wrong. I didn’t think Burnett would be healthy going into June, much less at the All Star Break, I thought CC Sabathia would have a much more difficult time adjusting to New York (although, I didn’t foresee his health problems, either), and I felt that the rest of the team was either too old (Jorge Posada) or too inexperienced (Joba Chamberlain).

So, my reasoning was flawed, but my opinions may still be right. Because as good as the Yankees are, the Red Sox are better. They have the deepest rotation in baseball, and by the end of July, they will most likely have a healthy Daisuke Matsuzaka and a sharper John Smoltz. David Ortiz’s skills are clearly in decline, but Kevin Youkilis , Dustin Pedroia and Jason Bay are picking up the slack capably, and Jason Varitek has bounced back nicely from a sub-par 2008 season. Throw in a little Jonathan Papelbon and the only team in baseball with a better bullpen than the Angels, and you have a team that could win its third world championship in five years.

The Central, as usual, is sticky, messy and not very pretty. The Tigers are something of a surprise to me. Edwin Jackson looks like he was a good move, as was defensive wiz Adam Everett. And now that Magglio Ordonez has cut his hair…sorry, I can’t even finish that sentence. Really? Honestly, why do we care? The guy’s 35 years old. He’s going to have a slump or two. Haircuts don’t cure slumps anymore than fat girls do. But anyway… The Tigers look good, if a year late from their much ballyhooed makeover of 2008.

The White Sox are making a move right now, and the guess here is they will keep it coming. Mark Buehrle looks as good as ever. John Danks and Gavin Floyd are a little unsteady, but both are fantastic when they are on. The offense, though getting on in years is still a force to be reckoned with. Carlos Quentin is on his way back, which will do a lot for that lineup. And I’d take Ozzie Guillen over 90 percent of the managers in baseball. Yes he’s eccentric. But he’s honest and blunt. The game needs more people like Ozzie, with a ton of skill and a ton of personality. He’ll have his club in the thick of things to the end, and with the help he gets from Kenny Williams (), he’ll probably win the division.

The Twins look lost. Sometimes they can pitch. Sometimes they can hit (except for Joe Mauer, who might hit .670 this year). Usually they can catch the ball. But they’re playing style has changed from a scrappy small ball team, to a more traditional AL station-to-station-wait-for-a-home-run style. They’ve lost their identity and, as a result, are a .500 team.

The Royals are a disappointment, but not as much as Cleveland. What the hell happened to these guys? Jhonny Peralta? Cliff Lee? Hello?  Yes, they’ve been beat up, and it’s sad to see what’s happening to Travis Hafner, but most teams at least try to overcome injuries. This team had quit by June 1st. Nice knowing you, Eric Wedge. Maybe you too, Mark Shapiro. I hope you guys both find new jobs before Christmas.

So, it’s looking to me like it will be the Angels and the Red Sox in the ALCS. That Josh Beckett – Jake Peavy match-up in game one should be a good time. From here, it looks to me like the Red Sox will win that series and possibly the one after that too.

But who knows? Maybe in three months I’ll be writing a public apology to the Rangers or the Rays or – God willing – the Twins (But not the Yankees. I’ll never apologize to them). We’ll see. For now, I’m just glad that we have another half season left.

Projected powerhouses struggling to stay above .500
The Chicago Cubs and New York Mets are choking like Michael Vick’s dogs thus far. After watching crappy bullpens cost New York’s second favorite baseball team playoff runs the last two years, management opened the checkbook in bringing in Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz. K-Rod has saved 21 of 24. But Putz is on the DL, as are offensive fireplugs Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and Carlos Delgado, and the first season in the new Citi Field is approaching the midway point with the Mets hovering around .500 in the standings.

Horrible starts by Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto, and Carlos Marmol, injuries to Aramis Ramirez and several hothead personalities (Ryan Dempster, Milton Bradley, Carlos Zambrano, et al) more intent on beating Gatorade dispensers than opponents have contributed to the Cubs’ slow start. After adding Bradley and Kelly Gregg, among others, many expected the Cubs to challenge for the National League pennant. Instead, the Cubs are scraping to stay in the upper half of the NL Central.

The team sent Alberto Alburquerque (who?) to Colorado for utility player Jeff Baker (who?) earlier this week, but it’s going to take more than Baker – or butcher or candlestick maker for that matter – for this team to salvage its season.

Nobody running away in the Central and the East
While their seasons have gotten off to rocky starts, Mets and Cubs fans can take heart in the knowledge that nobody else in their respective divisions are running away either. The only team dominating its division at this point is Los Angeles. The Dodgers rode a strong performance by Juan Pierre who replaced Manny Ramirez while the slugger was on a performance-enhancing drug induced maternity-leave to a 7.5 game lead in the West.

The Mets are just a game behind Philadelphia and Florida, while Chicago is 2.5 behind Milwaukee and St. Louis.
Chasing the Dodgers, and perhaps the Wild Card, are San Francisco and Colorado, neither of whom was really expected to challenge for much this season. The Giants have gotten star-caliber pitching from Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson while riding the bat of Pablo Sandoval (Who?) to stay in the race, while the Rockies turned their season around when management axed Clint Hurdle.

Dodgers likely World Series rep
With Manny Ramirez coming back it’d be hard to see the Dodgers do anything but continue running away with the West. Aramis Ramirez will be coming back soon, as well, to give the Cubs a boost. And I’m not sold on St. Louis, Milwaukee and especially Cincinnati. So I’d say Lou Piniella’s crew still has a shot at making the playoffs.

I’m not sure about the Mets. They’re chasing the Phillies again and after the last two years it’s hard saying how mentally tough New York will be looking up at their rivals in the standings yet again. Ryan Howard is starting to catch fire for the Phillies, as well. He’s a second-half hitter to begin with, so the guess here is the Fightin’ Phills expand their lead and pull away.

If it seems like I’m discounting Florida, I apologize. They’re a talented bunch, but with that ownership group’s history, they’ll probably sell at the trade deadline anyway. If that guy was willing to put any money into his team they’d be contenders every year.

I like the Rockies and, if they do keep their current roster in tact, the Marlins to fight for the Wild Card. Both teams kind of have that feeling of being too young to realize they shouldn’t be fighting for a playoff berth. At the end of the day, however, it’s hard for me to believe anyone is going to best the Dodgers for the National League pennant.

Despite his douche-osity, Man-Ram has shown the ability in the past to carry a team on his back (see last year’s Dodgers) and he certainly has an incentive to do so again this year.

The Pirates got the better of the deal in terms of upside. Morgan has proven to be a solid-but-unspectacular prospect and at 29, he’s probably showing you about what you are going to get from him. He’ll reportedly upgrade Washington’s defense while providing the fan base with a couple minutes of conversation before they nod back off to sleep while waiting for the Washington Redskins training camp to start.

He also appears to be miles more stable than Milledge, the centerpiece of the trade. Despite his head-case tendencies, at five years younger than Morgan, Milledge has the far greater upside of the two.

Don’t get me wrong. For a rebuilding team, I like young upside more than middle-aged mediocrity. Still, the deal perplexes me because it wasn’t a month ago that the Pirates traded away Nate McLouth, a young, All-Star outfielder, who by most accounts was popular with the team.

Sure, he’s a centerfielder too and the Pirates had Andrew McCutchen in the minor leagues putting up numbers that required his recall.

But McLouth was signed to a reasonable deal through 2011. The combo of McLouth and McCutchen would have given the Bucs a nice power/speed tandem for the top of the lineup that would have teamed well with the LaRoche brothers as fixtures in the lineup.

McLouth couldn’t move to left field? It’s not like Morgan, Delwyn Young, Brandon Moss and the also-traded Hinske were providing such sock-knocking play that they would have needed to stay in the lineup following a McCutchen recall.

Now the team has added the enigmatic Milledge, who has upside that is only exceeded by his dark side. He’ll likely immediately get a shot when he recovers from a broken finger. But his antics have reportedly irritated teammates from the past. To me that’s not an upgrade over the opportunity the Pirates had to plug McCutchen and McLouth in the outfield together to form their own version of the M&M brothers.

The Pirates have not had a winning season since 1992. While this version of the team seems to at least have a hint of how to get there (they did have a winning record the second half of 2008) they won’t get there in any hurry by continually trading solid players for prospects, especially two years before their contracts call for big salary increases.

Not everyone agrees with me - Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro understood it. I guess I did too - I just don’t agree with it, in this case. These are the types of guys you have to start keeping around at some point if you are truly planning to build a winner. In this way, if I was a Pirates fan, the last month would have been extremely frustrating to watch.

And so the rebuilding continues.

So, here I am with MLB.com open in front of me, reading about the final results of interleague play. It’s telling me something that most baseball fans have known for years. For all the talk of parity in baseball, it’s clear that the American League is head-and-shoulders better than the National League.

Numbers don’t tell the whole story (just go ask Danny Haren and his six wins), but they can paint a pretty good picture. The AL dominated the NL in interleague play this year. Again. Nine of the 14 American League teams had winning records against the National League, compared to five in the National. Using my barely adequate math skills (along with the assistance of my mildly annoyed 12-year-old daughter), I have deduced that the American League had 137 interleague wins this year, and the NL had 114. (It should be noted, just for the purpose of scratching my OCD itch, that the Cubs and White Sox had one of their games rained out. That game will likely be made up in September.)

Perhaps congratulations are in order to the NL, whose member teams raised their win total from 2008, when they went 102-149 against the AL. Unfortunately, they fell just short of their 2007 win total, when they won 115 games.

So in the Great MLB Swap Meet of 2009, the National Leaguers got their collective clocks cleaned. But this is not new. This marks the sixth consecutive year that the Senior Circuit has been beaten up by its younger (stronger, better looking, dates cooler girls) brother.

This is hardly surprising. I really don’t like the designated hitter, but there’s no denying the impact it has had on the game. The AL is just stronger offensively, almost by definition. Each AL team has another full time, professional hitter on its roster, while the NL roster has – at best – a pinch hit specialist. DH’s get a full 500-600 at bats in a season, while 150 pinch hit at bats in a season is a ton. So, it would stand to figure that on average, American League teams are better hitting clubs.

But, the DH has something to do with the AL being better pitching teams as well. There are no guaranteed “holes” in an AL lineup. You don’t get to face the opposing pitcher every ninth at bat. And yes, I hear some of you out there talking about Carlos Zambrano and Micah Owings, but for every one of those guys there are 15 Ryan Dempsters and Jake Peavys. AL pitchers have to be just a shade tougher mentally than their NL counterparts. Watch what happens in August after Peavy is traded to Anaheim (assuming he comes back healthy, and I think they’d trade for him even if he’s hurt).

If he makes his first start on August 1st, it would come against Minnesota in the Metrodome. The Twins are less than a
great hitting club (please, don’t get me started), and there will be the natural adrenaline of a top competitor wanting to make a good impression on a new team. He’ll do very well in that first start. Then they go to Chicago to face the White Sox. That’s where Peavy will start to realize that there’s a huge difference between pitching to Chad Billingsley’s .222 average and Jim Thome’s .241. He’ll figure it out, though, and it will make him a better pitcher. He’ll do fine in the playoffs. I can’t wait to watch him face off against Josh Beckett in Game One of the ALCS.

The AL also has the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Now, I’m as sick of the media sucking up to these two teams as everyone else is, but again, there is no denying the effect these two teams have on their league. They raise the water line on the competitive balance each offseason. The Yankees spent $250 million dollars on three players in December and scared every other American League contender into working harder to improve their team.

If you want to beat these guys you have to put together solid, solid clubs. Just ask Tampa Bay, who went 13-5 against the NL this year, but are sitting in third place in their division. Tampa would be one of the three best teams in the National League right now, maybe the best.

I’m not saying that whichever AL team gets to the World Series (be it the Red Sox or the Angels) will win the World Series. In any given series between any two teams a lot can happen. I’m just saying, on the whole, the National League just doesn’t match up. I’m not sure that they ever will, because the differences are too fundamental. We can talk about parity all we want, but for the foreseeable future, as long as these leagues play with two different sets of rules, the National League is going to be Class AAAA baseball.

At the beginning of IP this year, Jayson Stark went and found a group of players who don’t like it.  Aside from revealing Adam Dunn to be a complete whiner, Stark’s column tries to take an objective look at some of the things that make the players unhappy.

The major complaints seem to be that there are more “meaningless” series’ (i.e. Kansas City vs. Houston) than there are “rivalry” ones (like the Yankees vs. the Mets), it goes on too long, the travel can make things really difficult, and of course my personal favorite: “it’s not fair.”

I have some pretty strong opinions on the unbalanced schedule, and it occurs to me that we should explore that topic very soon. I’m the rare guy who is a fan of baseball’s schedule, and nothing gets me itchy quicker than someone telling me “it’s not fair”. Dude. You’re a professional ball player, playing at the highest level. If the New York Yankees had to play the New York Mets, and the Tampa Bay Rays had to play Edison Community College, I’d say that’s not fair. You’re playing another major league team. Stop talking and sit down. You’re embarrassing yourself.

I have to say I kind of enjoy interleague play. I’m not over-the-moon in love with it, but it is sort of fun to see my AL club go to Wrigley and St. Louis, as they did this year. I’m not a big fan of the designated hitter, and I like watching Ron Gardenhire have to manage under national league rules.

It reassures me that my skipper understands the nuances of the game. I don’t really understand these people who get all worked up over it, and think it’s an annual scarring of the game. What’s the big deal? The world is not going to come to an end because the Dodgers are playing at US Cellular Field. It mixes things up a little bit. Don’t get your undies in a bunch.

I do think MLB should look at some format changes, though. The National League should bring the rules with them when they go on the road, and vice versa. Namely, there should be a designated hitter at the NL home games, and pitchers should bat at the AL home games. It would make things a little more interesting for the fans, and might sell a few more tickets.

Also, I think the overall league records should determine home field advantage for the World Series. That would be infinitely more fair than a using a one shot beauty pageant like the All-Star Game to determine such an important facet of the championship series. If MLB is going to continue to ignore the best and most obvious way to determine home field advantage (which is, of course, the better record of the two participants), they should at least try to do something a little more played out, if not scientific.

Neither of these are new or original ideas. I’ve probably heard Bert Blyleven talk about the home field advantage thing on 50 different Twins broadcasts over the years. But just because Bert wants it doesn’t make it a bad idea.

It’s not a panacea. It’s not going to end world hunger, fix insolvent banks or bring stability to Afghanistan, but it is a nice little diversion. It’s the rare venture that MLB puts together that is largely for the fans. Stark’s column points out that IP increases ticket sales on an average of nearly 10%, and my guess is that it increases TV ratings by at least that much.

Tweak it, yes. Make some minor changes. But don’t get rid of it. It’s just kind of fun.

Still, the linked post on the Milwaukee Brewers bugged me a bit. The site cites ESPN.com saying the Brewers plan to hang onto top infield prospects Alcides Escobar and Mat Gamel, calling it a “refreshing change in club philosophy from last season” when they traded a collection of prospects including Matt LaPorta for CC Sabathia.

Two things jump out at me about that post. First, the Milwaukee Brewers are hardly known for frivolously giving up prospects to sign or trade for big-name stars. Second, last year was the “refreshing change in club philosophy” as far as I am concerned. The team had a shot to make the playoffs for the first time since 1982 and they went for it full bore.

I might be a little late, but kudos to the Brewers for making last year’s ballsy move. Sure, they ended up losing Sabathia to the Bronx Bombers in the offseason, but I commend them for making the push they did. And most would say it paid off - they did make it to the playoffs before bowing out.

Smaller market teams need to make the runs when they have the chance. While it’s probably good that they’re planning to hang onto Escobar and Gamel this year (if for no other reason than they could replace Bill Hall and JJ  Hardy respectively next year, if not sooner) MLB Trade Rumors is incorrect in its assessment that last year’s move was a mistake - or that this year’s approach is a change in club philosophy.

The Brewers over the past handful of years are clearly an example of a smaller market team doing it the right way - and they’re getting better at it from year to year as well.

We here at Brushbackpitch.com have been extremely critical of Fehr. He is one of the five or six people in baseball most responsible for the financial inequities of the game. His attitudes begat Scott Boras, which is an absolutely unforgivable sin. And although baseball now has a comprehensive drug testing policy – or at least that’s what Bud Selig says – Fehr has fought the idea of drug testing at every stop.

From illegal narcotics to steroids, Fehr has consistently maintained that drug testing is an invasion of privacy. If Fehr had had his way throughout his 25-plus year tenure, baseball players today would resemble the Looney Tune Monstars from Michael Jordan’s mid-90’s movie Space Jam. They’d be ‘roided up beyond belief, hitting 861 ft. home runs and sliding head first when they stole a base so as to not break the vials of cocaine in their back pockets.

To me Fehr will always be the man who killed the 1994 World Series. He led the players into a strike in August of ’94 because MLB owners were demanding a salary cap. To Fehr, it was as if ownership was asking for the right to keep the players in little cages. The idea wasn’t only out of the question, but it was insulting and inhumane.

He dug in. He wouldn’t budge. He knew that the owners wouldn’t be as unified as the players, so he engineered a seven-and-a-half month work stoppage. Over and over again that winter, Fehr would talk to the media about salary caps being unconstitutional, and that he would never allow something to artificially slow the growth of player’s salaries.

In truth, the owners were looking for protection from themselves, and a salary cap was the only way that was going to happen. Fehr knew it. He also knew if he held the players out long enough, the owners would turn on themselves. Never mind that the average baseball fan would have supported a salary cap of some kind because it would have provided a little more continuity on rosters, and it would have allowed “small market” teams to at least keep their own home grown players (think about how much a salary cap would have helped the Montreal Expos in 1994).

He was smarmy, self righteous and smug. But he was right about ownership, and he won. Fifteen years later, Major League Baseball remains the only professional American sports league without some form of a salary cap. Fehr is an evil genius, and the perfect man for his job. He’s done everything he can to protect the rights of professional baseball players, with no plausible regard for the fans or the game, and with sometimes open disdain for management.

So why do I have a nagging feeling that his retirement is a bad thing for baseball, at least in the short term?

Well, first, I think it’s because Bud Selig isn’t going with him. Baseball needs new leadership across the board. We can’t be much clearer about that than we have on this site. Fehr, his sidekick and MLBPA Chief Operating Officer Gene Orza and Commissioner Selig have all outlived their usefulness. New ideas are in pretty short supply at the top of the baseball food chain, but they are desperately needed. If Fehr really is going to leave before the end of March, he really needs to drag those other two bozos with him.

But that’s not what’s bugging me. The problem I really see on the horizon is the current collective bargaining agreement, which expires at the end of December 2011. For all of his many, many (many, many, many, many) faults, it seems like Fehr has softened some, or at least developed a little bit of common sense in the last few years.

Yes, he opposed re-opening the CBA in 2004 and 2005 to allow for stronger drug testing in reaction to steroids, but he could have slammed his fist on the table, declared new drug testing to be an impossibility and stopped the reform that has happened dead in its tracks.

Any drug testing program has to have his initials on it. He put his personal misgivings aside and allowed it.

Even more impressive, though, is his quiet understanding of the damage he did to the game in 1994. In 2002 the MLBPA and Major League Baseball came to agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement, and there wasn’t a work stoppage. This was unprecedented in the La-La land that is MLB. It was the first time a CBA had been agreed upon without a strike since 1972.

In 2006 the CBA was in place a full two months before the old one expired. Somehow Fehr and Selig had found some common ground. They may be making some terrible mistakes in their stewardship of the game, but at least these guys have learned to play nice. They’ve learned how to keep the game going.

So now, we’ll have a new Executive Director, most likely Michael Weiner who has held the number three position with the MLBPA for years. There are ringing endorsements for him from Fehr and MLB team representatives alike. The 2011 CBA negotiations will be his first real opportunity to prove himself to the rank and file members of the union.

Meanwhile, there are new rumblings among the owners for a salary cap. A new, freshly scrubbed Executive Director will have the standards set by Fehr and Marvin Miller to live up to. And anyone who ascends to that position will undoubtedly be looking for a fight.

We’ve had sixteen years of labor peace, in part thanks to Donald Fehr, but that could change.

Expect to hear talk of a strike next season, and pray for the 2011 baseball playoffs.