12 things to watch in 2008

The release of the Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball rocked the sports world in December. More than 80 players were accused of steroid use, including some active stars who could be subjected to punishment by commissioner Bud Selig.

But beyond the names was an even more illuminating aspect of the report. If baseball thought it was cracking down on the use of performance-enhancing drugs after implementing testing and penalties this decade, it was gravely mistaken.

One of Mitchell’s most damning revelations was the way so many players are flagrantly violating the rule against using human growth hormone. It’s a banned substance, but baseball does not test for it. Cheaters continue to seek it out.

Baseball and the NFL have contributed $500,000 each to a former UCLA scientist, Don Catlin, to aid his efforts to develop a urine test for HGH. That money is just a fraction of the cost of the Mitchell Report, of course, but at least it’s a start.

While a blood test for HGH is available, both the players and the commissioner’s office believe it is not reliable.

But the union has said it would accept urine testing, meaning that Catlin’s work is essential to the integrity of the game.

His research is being conducted far from the playing field, but it’s one of the most important stories of the season. Without an HGH test, there’s no way to stop those mysterious packages from surfacing in players’ locker stalls and apartment complexes, and no way to convince fans that what they’re seeing is not the product of chemical enhancement.

BONDS & CLEMENS

Barry Bonds has won more Most Valuable Player awards than anyone in history.  Roger Clemens has the most Cy Young awards. Yet in the offseason, nobody wanted to touch them.

Bonds set the career record for homers in 2007, with 762. But in November, he was indicted on four charges of perjury and one of obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to a grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He could face 30 years in prison if convicted on all five counts.

After helping lift the Yankees to the playoffs, Clemens was cited as a steroids user by his former trainer, Brian McNamee, in the Mitchell Report in December. Like Bonds, Clemens is a free agent in his mid-40s who has drawn no interest from teams.

Neither player has announced his retirement, but both have more pressing issues to address — Clemens wants to clear his name, and Bonds wants to stay out of jail.

Fairly or not, they are the face of steroids in the majors now, and their sagas will continue to dominate headlines, even if neither sets foot in a ballpark. This year’s events should tell a lot about whether Bonds and Clemens end up in Cooperstown or in baseball purgatory with Pete Rose, Joe Jackson and Mark McGwire.

GOODBYE, NEW YORK BALLPARKS

Every year of this decade, baseball has staged its All-Star Game at a young facility, delivering its midsummer showcase as a reward to cities that supported new ballparks.

Things are different in 2008, when the All-Star Game visits Yankee Stadium for a final goodbye. This is the last season for the Yankees at their venerable park in the Bronx, just as it is for the Mets at not-so-venerable Shea Stadium in Queens.

The Yankees will christen a new Yankee Stadium across the street in 2009, the same year the Mets move into Citi Field, which is rising in the right field parking lot of Shea.  The teams will leave behind a combined 131 years of history at their old homes.

The Yankees have played in Yankee Stadium since 1923, except for two seasons in the 1970s when they shared Shea with the Mets. That was when the House That Ruth Built got a facelift, one so extensive that many fans believe the original Stadium is long gone, anyway.

Still, expect the year to be dripping with nostalgia for the Yankees, the team with the richest history in the majors. As cramped as it is, Yankee Stadium is holy ground, the site of some of the most memorable moments in sports history.

Shea had its moments, too — three World Series have ended there, and the Beatles nearly brought the place down in 1965, when it was just a year old. But it never had much charm or character, and most fans have been eager to get out for years.

When the Mets move, the Shea site will become a parking lot. When the Yankees leave, the shell of the Stadium will fall, but the field itself will remain, ensuring that baseball will still be played in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio.

TORII AND TORRE IN L.A.

These are the glory days for the Angels franchise. After winning their first World Series in 2002, the Angels have made the playoffs three times and drawn three million fans to their ballpark five years in a row.

For all of their success, though, the Angels still trail the Dodgers as L.A.’s No. 1 team. The Dodgers have drawn three million fans in 11 of the last 12 seasons, despite having only one playoff victory since the 1988 World Series.

Still, it’s a thriving rivalry, and the Angels are gaining. Under owner Arte Moreno, they have been aggressive bidders on free agents and changed their city affiliation from Anaheim to Los Angeles to establish greater regional appeal.

In November, center fielder Torii Hunter (left) signed a five-year, $90 million deal with the Angels, who paid $50 million for another center fielder, Gary Matthews Jr., just a year before.

The Dodgers tried the same thing, splurging on Andruw Jones just a year after signing Juan Pierre. If there’s one manager to make sense of it, it’s the guy the Dodgers added in November: Joe Torre.

In Torre, the Dodgers have instant credibility in a manager’s chair that belonged to Walter Alston or Tommy Lasorda for 42 years before a parade of five managers staggered through the last decade.

They also have a master communicator who charmed the New York media for 12 seasons and is well-versed in the L.A. scene. Torre is a public relations dream, and for a club clinging to its status as the most important team in the nation’s No. 2 market, he’s ideal.
Then again, Torre alone won’t improve the Dodgers, who are 241–245 over the last three years. Hunter will improve the Angels, who needed a big bat to help Vladimir Guerrero carry the offense.

Hunter also happens to be the friendliest star in baseball, giving the Angels their own cheerful spokesman in the town where image is everything.

THE BEST AND THE WORST

In 1903, the forefathers of the Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates met in the first World Series. One hundred and five years later, the teams couldn’t be more different.
For 86 years, the question for the Red Sox was whether they’d ever win the World Series again. Now, it’s whether they can win a third in five seasons to establish themselves as a dynasty.

In Pittsburgh, meanwhile, the Pirates haven’t had a winning season since Barry Bonds left for San Francisco after the 1992 season. With a losing streak of 15 years and counting, the Pirates are one shy of tying the 1933-48 Philadelphia Phillies’ record for consecutive losing seasons, with 16.

The Red Sox seem to have a better chance of repeating as champs than the Pirates have of winning 81 games. Boston boasts a young rotation, a dominant closer in Jonathan Papelbon, and position players still in their prime.

The Pirates have a rookie manager in John Russell and general manager in Neal Huntington. They have a gorgeous home in PNC Park. They have a dynamic second baseman in Freddy Sanchez, a couple of good young pitchers and not much else. If the Pirate Parrot could fly, he’d have bolted this sinking ship long ago.

A-ROD AND THE FANS

Leave it to a headline in The Onion to have the best take on Alex Rodriguez’s bungled contract situation last October: “Slow Month in Baseball Saved By A-Rod.”
Rodriguez, the Yankees’ dynamic and drama-seeking third baseman, opted out of his contract during the final game of the World Series, stealing some of the spotlight from the Red Sox’ championship. It was a tactless move that opened up A-Rod to searing criticism within the game.

Eventually, Rodriguez did return to the Bronx, blaming agent Scott Boras for giving him bad advice about the Yankees’ intentions. He signed a 10-year, $275 million contract extension that could be worth an extra $30 million if A-Rod breaks the career home run record. (He has 518 homers at age 32.)

The question now is how A-Rod’s latest soap opera will play with Yankees fans still skeptical of his true character. For all of Rodriguez’s on-field success in New York, including two MVP awards, the Yankees have won no pennants with him and lost 13 of their last 17 postseason games. In those 17 games, A-Rod has gone 0-for-27 with runners on base.

Yet despite his reputation for shrinking in the clutch, Rodriguez won over the fans last season with big hit after big hit. He carried the Yankees into October by smashing 54 homers, and the fans cheered him the whole way.

But another empty fall, coupled with the ugly contract squabble, shifted the public focus back to his salary and furthered the notion that Rodriguez’s legacy will be about numbers and dollars unless he delivers a title to a team that hasn’t won one in eight years.

RANDY JOHNSON CHASES 300

Randy Johnson has no need to validate his career. There’s never been a whiff of the steroid scandal around him, and he’s got all the credentials — five Cy Young awards, 10 All-Star seasons and a World Series ring — to be a guaranteed Hall of Famer.

But Johnson is oh-so-close to 300 victories, with 284 heading into this season. At 44 years old, coming off another surgery on his back last July, can he hang around long enough to get them?

A workout fanatic, Johnson has been rehabilitating his back for months, and he has more time to rest it than he did last season, when he rushed from offseason surgery to join Arizona’s rotation in late April. He didn’t make it through June.

When he pitched, though, Johnson showed he could still win. In one stretch of five starts, he went 4–0 with a 1.52 ERA Overall, he had 72 strikeouts in 56.2 innings, so he can still dominate.

Johnson has 4,616 career strikeouts, tops among lefties and trailing only Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens on the career list. But 300 wins could make Johnson the last of a breed. Only 23 pitchers have done it, and with Clemens, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine having already passed the milestone, we may not see it reached again.

The only other active pitchers between 200 and 299 victories are Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, Jamie Moyer, David Wells, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, Kenny Rogers and Curt Schilling. None of those pitchers is likely to flirt with 300.

If Johnson does win 16 games, the Diamondbacks should repeat as champions of the NL West. They already have two aces in Brandon Webb and the newly acquired Dan Haren. A big season from Johnson would give a lift to an already loaded staff.

REBUILDING A’S AND O’S

Billy Beane’s wisdom has been celebrated for years. So when Beane, the maverick general manager of the Oakland Athletics, made this statement at the start of the offseason — “We don’t want to sit in the middle” — the rest of baseball took notice.

The A’s were ready to rebuild. Across the country, the Baltimore Orioles had the same idea. With Andy MacPhail now making decisions, the Orioles, like the A’s, were willing to face the reality that it’s better to sink than tread water.

The A’s traded starter Dan Haren to the Diamondbacks for six prospects, and the Orioles traded shortstop Miguel Tejada to the Astros for five players, including outfielder Luke Scott.

As the AL West-winning Angels added center fielder Torii Hunter and starter Jon Garland, the A’s realized they couldn’t compete after going 76–86, their worst finish since 1998.  Beane believed it was better to re-stock a weak farm system, and with his track record of creativity and long-term thinking, Oakland’s development will be interesting to watch.

MacPhail, likewise, is a proven executive. He helped build the Twins into champions twice, and he got the Cubs to the brink of the World Series. He’s a realist, and understands the damage done in Baltimore since the Orioles’ last winning season in 1997.

That’s why MacPhail even dangled ace Erik Bedard in the offseason — he knows how far this team is from contending. The Orioles have decided to pump more money into the draft and stay away from retreads like Steve Trachsel and Jaret Wright.

It could get ugly for a while at Camden Yards, but it’s been painful to see so many empty seats there the last few years. Baltimore’s a great baseball town, and MacPhail plans to revive its beloved team — in time.

NEW POWER SOURCE

If only the government could find new power sources the way baseball has the last two seasons, there would be no energy crisis. In 2006, the Phillies’ Ryan Howard exploded for 58 homers after hitting 22 the year before. Last season, the Brewers’ Prince Fielder improved from 28 homers to 50. Both were in their third major league season.

So what young star will break through this season? Two prime candidates are Delmon Young of the Twins and Alex Gordon of the Royals. Young was the first pick of the 2003 draft, and Gordon went second in 2005. The tools are there.

The opportunity is, too. Young played every game for Tampa Bay last season, racking up 93 runs batted in and finishing second in the voting for AL Rookie of the Year. Now, he’s a linchpin to the future of the Minnesota Twins, who traded starter Matt Garza to get him.

Gordon earned no Rookie of the Year votes — not even one for third place — but he persevered after a rough start. Through June 6, roughly a third of the season, Gordon was batting .173 with three homers and eight RBIs. But over his last 98 games, he recovered nicely, hitting .285 with 12 homers and 52 RBIs.

If it’s not Young or Gordon, another young player is sure to leap into the game’s elite. Will it be Josh Hamilton, after his trade from Cincinnati to Texas? Or maybe it’ll be Matt Kemp, who hit .342 in 98 games for the Dodgers.

Whoever it is, it’s always fun to watch young talent break through, and there’s no shortage of it in 2008.

RAYS MAKE THEIR MOVE

When the Tampa Bay Devil Rays reached 70 victories in 2004, they celebrated with a champagne toast. And the man who gave it to them was their then-manager, Lou Piniella, a fierce competitor with three World Series rings. That says plenty about the diminished expectations of this franchise.

But after a decade of futility, the direction of the organization may finally be changing. First of all, there’s the name — it’s Rays (just Rays), and there’s a sunburst in the logo, not a fish. The team has new uniforms, too, dropping green and black for navy blue and white.  There’s even a plan for an open-air stadium along the St. Pete waterfront.

All of that’s fine, of course, but it’s not why this team looks poised to easily eclipse those 70 wins for the first time ever.

The reason is the young talent the Rays have assembled, largely with wise choices at the top of the draft.

Last season, the Rays had a 5.53 earned run average, by far the highest in the majors. But take a closer look at the rotation.

Ace Scott Kazmir led the AL in strikeouts, and James Shields went 12–8. Both worked more than 200 innings and had an earned run average below 4.00 despite pitching in the tough AL East.

In the offseason, the Rays added another solid young starter, Matt Garza, in a trade with the Twins. Garza gives them a dependable trio of starters, with top prospects Jeff Niemann and David Price not far from joining them. And with Troy Percival, Dan Wheeler and Al Reyes, Tampa Bay has a strong set of veteran relievers.

On offense, B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford are certified stars, Evan Longoria could take over at third, and Carlos Pena erupted for 46 of the Rays’ 187 homers, which trailed only the Yankees and White Sox in the AL.

They won’t challenge for a playoff spot, but for the first time ever, the Rays will be respectable, and a lot of fun to watch. The next decade promises to be a whole lot better than the last.

NEW NATIONALS BALLPARK

Fenway Park has the Green Monster, Wrigley Field has the ivy and Camden Yards has the warehouse. In Washington, D.C., a new ballpark trademark is blooming. Behind the left field bleachers at the new Nationals Park will be a grove of cherry blossom trees, a nod to the thousands of such trees that line the Tidal Basin inlet to the Potomac River in Washington. It will be a prominent attraction and gathering place at the only new park opening in the majors this season.

The Nationals, who spent their first three seasons at dingy R.F.K. Stadium, now have a 41,000-seat palace along the Anacostia River, funded with the help of up to $611 million by the District of Columbia. It will feature 66 luxury suites and amenities such as the “Oval Office Bar.”

The former Montreal Expos will open their park — and the 2008 major league season — with a nationally televised Sunday night game against the Atlanta Braves on March 30.

The Nationals have invited President George W. Bush to throw out the first pitch, just as he did when Major League Baseball returned to Washington in 2005. If he accepts, it will be worth noting who catches his pitch. The Nats’ starting catcher, Paul Lo Duca, was accused in the Mitchell Report of repeated use of illegal steroids, a practice Bush has openly condemned.

TIGERS LINEUP

In 2005, when they were an afterthought, the Detroit Tigers averaged about 4.5 runs per game. The next year, when they won the AL pennant, the Tigers topped five runs per game. Last season, when they went 88–74, they nudged their average near 5.5 runs per game.

Look at them now. It’s a not a stretch to expect that if they stay healthy, the Tigers will average six runs per game. Their lineup is just that good.

A blockbuster deal at the winter meetings brought third baseman Miguel Cabrera and starter Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers from the Marlins. This came a few weeks after the Tigers had traded for Atlanta shortstop Edgar Renteria, a five-time All-Star coming off a career-best .332 average.

Cabrera is such an offensive force that, according to baseballreference.com, the most similar player in baseball history through age 24 is Hank Aaron. Conditioning may be the only factor that could slow Cabrera, but he vowed to report to spring training in shape.

Cabrera and Renteria essentially replace Sean Casey and Brandon Inge in the Tigers’ lineup. Casey is a singles hitter who scored only 40 runs in 143 games last season. Inge hit .236 with 150 strikeouts. So it’s astounding to think of what this new Tigers lineup can accomplish.

Magglio Ordoñez was the runner-up for the MVP award. Placido Polanco hit .341. Carlos Guillen had 65 extra-base hits, and Curtis Granderson had 84. Add in Gary Sheffield, Pudge Rodriguez and Jacque Jones, and Motown will be every pitcher’s nightmare.