FanHouse Is Awesome, Award Winning

You know, in the long, illustrious history of Foul Balls, this little Chicago sports blog has never had the honor of winning any awards. This doesn't bother me or anything, I just figure that what I do here is so innovative and mind-bending that most people just can't grasp the brilliance my fingers pound out every day.

Still, that doesn't mean I don't like getting awards, because trophies are shiny, and shiny things are always fun.

Luckily, I also work for FanHouse, and we win awards over there.

We at FanHouse are proud to let you know that we won the title of Best Sports Blog today at the ceremony recognizing the 2008 EPpy Awards. The EPpys are given out by Editor & Publisher and MediaWeek magazines to recognize excellence in online content. The other nominees in the Best Sports Blog category were the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Brewers Blog, the Chicago Tribune's RosenBlog and the Memphis Commercial Appeal's The Memphis Edge.

Suck on that, Deadspin! Eat it, Sporting Blog! Uncomfortably crap that one out, Kissing Suzy Kolber! I'm better than all of you! Or at least, the guys I work with are.

I'd go the humble route and say we don't really deserve it, and that all of the other nominees are just as deserving, but that would be a bunch of bullshit. Everybody knows it's not true, and I'm not going to lie to you about it.

We rule!

Now whether or not this means I get a raise, I don't know, but you can be damn sure my bosses will be hearing my case.

Ryan Braun Is Rich

Oh to be a young and talented baseball player these days....

It was announced earlier today that the Milwaukee Brewers have signed left fielder Ryan Braun to an 8-year $45 million contract extension that's going to keep Ryan in a Brewers uniform until 2015 (which will go down in history as the year Prince Fielder ate Milwaukee)...

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Gary Sheffield's Outfield Dream Is Over

Remember earlier this week when I told you about how happy playing in the outfield makes Gary Sheffield? How the grass looks greener, the air smells sweeter, the ball looks bigger, and life just seems better for Gary when he's not relegated to a role as a designated hitter. I hope Gary cherished those memories of chasing down fly balls, because he's not going to get the chance to do it too much in the near future.

The Black Lung has pulled the plug on the experiment...

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The Indians Are Finally in First

It took a lot longer than expected, but it's starting to look like order has finally been restored to the AL Central. After the first month and a half of the season saw the Twins and White Sox splitting time as division leaders, the two teams who were supposed to win the division, Cleveland and Detroit, were spending their time at the bottom of the division with Kansas City.

Well, although Detroit is still struggling at the bottom, the Indians have finally climbed over everybody and reached first place. Let me say, it's about damn time...

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My Friends And Colleagues Know Nothing

Yesterday a very interesting question started bouncing around in the MLB FanHouse Google group, and it's one that brought a lot of surprising answers. The question was, if you were starting your own baseball franchise, and could pick any one current pitcher and batter to start your team with, who would you pick?

I liked the question so much that I even started texting other friends with it as well, to see what they say. I didn't quite get all the answers. Here's a recap of who picked who.

• PostmanE - Clay Bucholz and David Wright
• Josh Alper - Brandon Webb and David Wright
• PostmanR - Cole Hamels and Jose Reyes
• Matt Watson - Jake Peavy and Chase Utley
• Mullet - Johan Santana and Manny Ramirez
• Will Brinson - Cole Hamels and David Wright
• Andrew Johnson - Brandon Webb and Justin Upton
• Jon Bois - Brandon Webb and Hanley Ramirez
• Pat Lackey - Jake Peavy and Chase Utley
• Nick Dallamora - Fausto Carmona and Hanley Ramirez
• Panger - Ervin Johan Santana and Lance Berkman
  
• JoeyMac - Johan Santana and Chase Utley
• My friend Bill - Johan Santana and Alex Rodriguez

Now take a closer look at that list. Do you see one glaring omission on everybody's list?

Fifteen people answered this question, and of those fifteen, only two of them know what they're talking about. Who are those two people? Why they would be Silvio and I. Here are our picks.

• Silvio - Jake Peavy and Albert Pujols
• Fornelli - Brandon Webb and Albert Pujols

The question I have for the other thirteen people who answered this question now is: How the hell can you choose any other hitter in the league right now than Albert Pujols?

I get the variety in the pitchers chosen, because there are a lot of good pitchers in the game today, and they tend to be streaky. What I don't get is how anybody in their right mind can choose David Wright or Hanley Ramirez over Pujols. Don't get me wrong, they're both good players, as are all the other guys named, but none of them are Pujols.

He's the most feared hitter in the game, why would you want anybody else?

So far this season Albert is hitting .355/.505/.601, with eight homers and 27 RBI. No, that isn't a misprint either, he actually has an OBP of .505. He's on base over half the time.

This isn't exactly a new trend for Albert, either, as in his career he's a .332/.423/.620 hitter, and has averaged 40 home runs, 123 RBI, and 85 walks a season. He's already been walked 41 times in 2008, so I'm guessing that he's going to go well over his career high 0f 99 last season.

Also, did I mention that he's a Gold Glover at first base? And that he's still only 28?

Hanley Ramirez, David Wright, and Chase Utley are all going to have nice careers when things are said and done, but I'll guarantee you they won't come close to anything Albert is going to do.

I'd love to hear what the rest of you think in the comments.

On Deck: Day Games Galore

There are thirteen games on the schedule today in baseball, and nine of them are going to be played under the sun, the way the baseball gods intended it to be. So I figure I may as well feature the team that plays more day games than anybody else in baseball, the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs offense has been mashing the ball all season long, and now Alfonso Soriano has finally joined in on the fun, as he's homered in three straight games (leading off the last two). Soriano is hitting .487 on the current 10-game homestand for the Cubs, a homestand that Chicago is off to a 5-1 start on.

Today will also mark the debut of Jim Edmonds in a Cubs uniform, as what most Cubs fans would surely consider a sign of the apocalypse becomes reality today. Why the Cubs would need Edmonds, I don't know, but they got him...

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On Deck: Lackey's Backey

While most of the world knows John Lackey as our very own Pat Lackey's older, harder-throwing, better-smelling, and much smarter estranged brother, he's better known in southern California as the ace of the Angels pitching staff (Pat , on the other hand, was turned down by the Angels when he applied to become the new rally monkey).

Lackey won 19 games for the Angels last season, and helped lead them to another AL West division crown, but he hasn't been available to the team at all this season. Of course, his absence hasn't done much to keep the Angels out of first place...

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Livan Hernandez Isn't Going Anywhere

It seems like Livan Hernandez has been around forever, as that 1997 World Series MVP award of his seems like an ancient memory. It's just hard to believe that Livan is only 33 years old (at least we're told he is, E:60 is still working on finding out the truth). He's also been a pleasant surprise for the Twins this season, because even though Minnesota knew he would eat up innings, I don't think they were expecting him to get off to a 6-1 start....

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Joe Crede Still Likes Chicago

While most of the talk surrounding Joe Crede, his back, and his impending free agency that dominated White Sox spring training seems to have died down a bit, it hasn't changed the fact that the White Sox still aren't sure what they'd like to do with their third baseman. Crede got off to a real hot start in April, and is hitting .270/.345/.500 to be one of the only consistently productive hitters in the Sox lineup (though all seven of his homers and 22 of his 25 RBI came in April).

HIs back has also stood up to the beating that comes with playing third base on a daily basis, so overall, it looks like the old Joe Crede is back. So what are the White Sox going to do...

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On Deck: Round Two in Arlington

Let's start today's On Deck by taking a trip in the FanHouse Time Machine. We're going to go all the way back to May 8th, 2008. The world was a different place back then. Ok, so the world was really any different as all, as it was just five days ago, but it was sort of exciting!

That was the day when Richie Sexson threw his helmet and charged Kason Gabbard after taking exception to a pitch. Sexson thought that Gabbard's eye-high fastball was meant for his face even though it was over the heart of the plate, and he took umbrage...

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Is Jhonny Peralta About to Lose His Job?

You saw a glimpse of it earlier, thanks to Will's posting of Asdrubal Cabrera's unassisted triple-play on Monday, but that's not the only play Cabrera has made for the Indians in the field this season. His defense, be it at second base or at shortstop, has been hard not to notice. Particularly the last few days when Asdrubal filled in for the struggling Jhonny Peralta at short.

The difference between Cabrera and Peralta in the field is hard to miss. Asdrubal has more range to his left and right, and this was evident on quite a few plays over the weekend...

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Wrigley and the Cubs Are a Package Deal

While Sam Zell has "threatened" to do a lot of things with the Cubs that Cubs fans aren't too fond of, like sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field, he's yet to actually do anything. Zell was hoping that he'd be able to sell Wrigley Field and the Cubs as seperate entities in hopes of maximizing his profits, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen anymore...

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Jim Leyland Isn't Giving Up Yet

Now that we're about a quarter of the way into the season, it's a lot easier to start judging teams based on what we've seen from them and their performance. When the Tigers started the season 0-7, it was easy to say that they sucked, but really, we had no idea. We had to see them play a lot more before making that judgement.

Now that they're about 40 games into the season, you can make a lot more of an educated guess as to how things are going to work out in Detroit. You see that the offense is still struggling, particularly with runners in scoring position, and that the pitching is still inconsistent...

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Zack Greinke and John Buck Are Open to Negotiating, Is Kansas City?

The growing trend in baseball is for teams to sign their young players to contract extensions in hopes of locking them up before they become too expensive. While it's a smart financial move for all teams, it's generally a real good move for teams with lower payrolls. The Indians started it with Grady Sizemore a few years ago, then the Rockies followed suit with Troy Tulowitzki. This season it's been Evan Longoria and Hanley Ramirez reaping the rewards of baseball's new trend.

One smaller market team that is yet to adapt to this new philosophy is the Kansas City Royals...

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Jon Garland Knows How To Deal With Ozzie

With the White Sox starting a four-game series against the Angels in Anaheim tonight, it marks the first time that Angels pitcher Jon Garland will have a chance to face his former team. Garland is scheduled to start against the Sox on Thursday (a day after John Lackey makes his first start of the season), but instead of asking Jon about that, all anybody really wanted to know was how he felt about playing for Ozzie Guillen.

Garland probably had the best approach of anyone in the White Sox clubhouse. Ignore him...

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Rich Harden Gets Rocked, But Will Live to Pitch Another Day

Normally when Rich Harden pitches, he's pretty dominant. Unfortunately, when he pitches and he's dominating, he also usually gets hurt. So Harden's return to the mound for Oakland on Sunday afternoon may have been a very good sign for the Athletics.

Rich was far from dominant on Sunday. He only lasted 3.2 innings against the Rangers, and allowed five runs on eight hits, four walks and five strikeouts. Whether or not such a performance would have merited a return to the mound in the fifth inning, we'll never know...

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Gary Sheffield Enjoys the Outfield

Okay, so we're nearly a quarter into the season, and we're all still waiting for the Detroit Tigers to get things going. I'm not sure how long we're going to have to keep waiting, or if the Tigers are ever even going to get out of the cellar, but they may have taken a step towards getting on track.

Gary Sheffield has never been shy when it comes to speaking his mind, and he'd been letting Jim Leyland know that he'd much rather be out in the field...

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On Deck: The Marlins!?

Quick, without looking it up, who has the best record in baseball right now? Did you say the Diamondbacks? Close, you were right up until yesterday, but getting swept by the Cubs knocked them off the top of the mountain. The Red Sox? Good choice, they are the defending champs after all, but even though they have the best record in the American League, they aren't the best in baseball.

No, that honor somehow belongs to the Florida Marlins, who have managed to win their last 7 games and are currently an MLB-best 23-14.

Just what the hell is going on here?

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Ozzie Guillen Is Growing Tired

Obviously, the last week or so has been an insane one for Ozzie Guillen. He had to go from watching his team slumping badly, to dealing with attention about his latest profane tirade, to talking about blow-up dolls in the clubhouse, and finished it all up by saying Lou Piniella if [bleeping] messed up. I think he killed a few people at some point as well.

As they say, that's just Ozzie being Ozzie...

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Rich Harden Is Ready to Get Hurt Again

The Oakland Athletics are still tied for first place in the AL West, much to everybody's surprise, and it's all the more surprising that they've done it without Rich Harden. Still, if the Athletics are going to continue playing this well, and stay atop the division with the Angels all season, they're probably going to need Rich to stay healthy for the rest of the season.

Something that anybody who has been paying attention to Harden's career knows isn't likely to happen...

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