Charlie Pride, yes, the country music singer, used to be a highly regarded pitching prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals  farm system during the 1950s. He regularly sang during the seventh inning stretch while in the minor leagues in Billings, Montana. He took up singing full time after a major elbow injury.

Manfred needs to quit trying to do NFL things in MLB. He needs to quit tugging at the fabric of the game.Baseball is naturally un-timed. Leave it alone.

The new three batter minimum presents several problems. What if a pitcher just doesn't have it? I can see a three pitch minimum. Three batters is different. Maybe it causes extra intentional walks? Do you bring in a player to pitch and move the previous pitcher in the outfield for one batter? Who knows?

No 7th inning orange wedges here. It's time to bring back the real intentional walk.There is simply too much that can happen in a pro baseball situation  to have a rule that allows someone to be waived on to first base. A wild pitch can allow a runner to move up. An accidental pitch across the plate can be hit out of the ballpark. Let's play big boy baseball.

The designated hitter was instituted in the American League in 1973. The rule, that lets a position player hit in place of the pitcher, was the brainchild of notorious Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck.*

If the Designated Hitter comes to the National League in 2017, I predict position players will be allowed to re-enter games by 2020. If those things become reality, the active roster limit should remain at 25 players to keep some strategy in the game.

*Note: This blog post…

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Pete Rose has been banned from Major League Baseball for more than 25 years now. I think there is one very simple reason why the all-time hits leader {4,256 for his career} hasn't been let back into the game. America is known as the "land of second chances," and, if Rose had come clean to Bart Giamatti – admitting that he committed the number one sports sin by betting on his sport – he would've ended up serving something like a 10 year ban.

So it turns out that something that we are…

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Rockies fans deserve more than what they've received from ownership for 22 seasons of loyal attendance in Denver. Colorado has had some magic baseball moments[1995 and 2007] in the last two decades, but, over the long haul, Rockies pitching has been substandard for MLB competition.

By now, it is well known that the Brothers Monfort and Jerry McMorris, were not the original ownership group that was going to lead the Rockies. The Rockies were going to be owned by a group led by…

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The Rockies beat Milwaukee 10-0 today, and I could care less!

Tomorrow night, it'll probably be tied 1-1 in the ninth with Ryan Braun laying down a suicide squeeze bunt – Rockies will lose 2-1, LOL.

The Rockies don't have any depth in their pitching rotation to begin with, and certainly can't withstand a big injury adding to the ones that already exist in the pitching staff. The Rockies will win 70 games, and only 70, in 2015.

I say the Rockies will be lucky to win big under their current model. They don't buy any big stars, so their bench and pitching will always be thin. Star power--even just a little--equals rings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lawrence Biggin, my grandfather, turns 89 years old on Monday, July 13, 2009. His career as a relief pitcher is over because he broke his arm several months back after a fall in a South Dakota grocery store.



Grandpa grew up on, and then had a farm in Wisconsin. My grandmother gave birth to eight kids -- all daughters! The family moved to Colorado in 1967, after granddad had one of the first neck fusions at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Upon arriving in Colorado, he settled in Brush… Continue

I say the Rockies will win 70 this year. I have the Reds winning 69, and the Pirates winning 68.

First off, I will take mine medium-well

I predicted the A's would suck harder than a group of vaccum cleaner salesmen this year, but--read carefully, Gary and Jayson--I was wrong!!

Louie

This idea comes from sportswriter Woody Paige. Pick a letter of the alphabet, and then pick players whose last names start with that letter, and form your all-star team.

For example: let's use letter M.

Mickey Mantle
Roger Marris
Joe Morgan….

Take it from there!

I spent my childhood in two places: up until I was five years old, we lived in Lyons Colorado; then from five years old on up and, I lived in Longmont Colorado. Both sets of grandparents lived in Brush, Colorado when I was a child. Periodically, just like every other family, we would make the pilgrimage 90 miles northeast to Brush to see Grandma and Grandpa. My grandpa Biggin grew up in Cassville, Wisconsin and my grandpa Sears grew up in Springfield, Illinois, so they were both huge Cubs fans,… Continue