Another Bud dud on drugs

Everything MLB does regarding drug policing, etc. is just baffling. Always too little, too late.

The latest case-in-point comes with the announcement of an HGH summit this fall in Beverly Hills, CA. You can read the details here. It seems baseball might have been a bit more timely with this particular summit after the 2006 season when this story and this story came to light.

Maybe baseball could have looked into HGH after the 2004 season, when this story popped up. There have been many chances. What took so long?

Dempster is Cubs' ace

The Cubs have selected Ryan Dempster as their game one starter for the postseason, regardless of the opponent. I'm not surprised by this, but I don't think Dempster is the Cubs' best or second best starter. I think the pecking order goes Harden, Zambrano, Dempster, Lilly.

Truly Twin billing

ESPN writes a nice enough piece on Giants' owner Peter Magowan stepping down. This quote from Magowan struck me most in the article:

"I've always had the philosophy that a ballpark belongs to the community, not to the owner or set of owners. I think the community wants the team to be run in a way that if they were in charge, how would they want it to be run?" Magowan said. "They want to see a good product on the field and they want to have a good environment at the ballpark where everything works -- clean ballpark, courteous employees, good food, take care of children, all of these things. And they want the team to behave in a way they would be proud of."

While the Giants haven't had a very good product on the field in recent years, their park isn't really the community's, either. It's the first park since Dodger Stadium in 1962 to be built without public funds. That's quiet a feat, considering the Twins new park is getting built with 2/3 public funding. No wonder that thing took so long to get done.

You must rally

Did you know that these playoff rallies are mandatory per Major League Baseball? As if they needed any more buzz.

Wet weekend

With big storm systems threatening the Northeast, an interesting scenario can occur with the Mets and Phillies trying to win the NL East/Wild Card while making up games through double headers.

I can't remember the last time weather was such a culprit on the final weekend of the regular season.