CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER

***TWO WORTHY PLAYERS***
Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were elected into the Hall of Fame this week.
Alomar is arguably the best 2nd baseman in the Hall and, to date, maybe the best ever. He did it all: run, field and hit. He also fits the Picasner Qualification, that of being outstanding in his era and a player you hated to see in the opposing dugout.
Blyleven should have been elected years ago based on his 287 wins and a career .331 ERA. He possessed possibly the greatest curve ball ever.
I am really on the fence about Jeff Bagwell and Barry Larkin, but not any of the other candidates this year. Lee Smith comes close with his 478 career saves, but a WHIP of 1.21 and an ERA of 3.03 are too high for a closer.

***A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE***
Adrian Beltre has signed with the Rangers and ACCUSCORE has devised a statistic to measure his "worth" to the Rangers: 3 more wins. According to them, this makes Beltre an "impact" player. I never gave this much thought before, and on the face of it, you would think an impact player would be worth more wins, but how many more? Is it realistic to think that a players could be a factor to get his team 10 more wins? 15 more? I don't know how they manipulate statistics to come up with this number, but we'll see. Texas had 90 regular season wins. I'll bookmark this and get back to everyone in October.

***WHERE HAVE YOU GONE ANDY PETTITTE?***
We're supposed to find out this week. I wonder if Cashman will be playing "hardball" with Andy? I'll bet not.

Today was my Dad's favorite day of the year, January 6th, The Feast of The Epiphany. He always said it was the Italian Christmas, when children got presents. Because his family was so poor, he felt lucky when he got an orange. I'm sure he's getting better presents now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

CP-