This year in baseball was one of high expectations and then the dropping of several teams that were expected to do well. One of the most interesting places in the league was the AL Central, which looked like it had improved greatly, but ended up with just the Tigers and the Twins in real contention. The White Sox had fallen off a few weeks before the end of the season and the Indians and Royals were hardly in it at all, despite assertions that they were both finally among the elite. As usual, the AL East was where a lot of the power was, as they took the Wild Card spot as well. On the NL side, the Dodgers, Cardinals and Phillies were the powerful teams, which was hardly expected. In fact, the Western Division was hardly figured enter into any kind of major playoff discussion, but they almost got themselves a pennant. A fun year it was and we look forward to giving you even more fun in 2010.

There is always some kind of labor problem in professional sports. This time it’s the umpires. When you look at the news today, we are happy to see that baseball’s referees have now signed a contract through 2014 and it’s just right. We saw the NBA officials almost go on strike earlier this year but now they are on the job and we don’t have to worry about the umpires leaving the sport for quite awhile now. We just have to hope that the players’ contracts continue to work and then the sport should be just fine. They will probably need a new drug policy, I don’t know what they decided on that aspect, but it seems only obvious that this is going to be very necessary.

The Red Sox have been looking to get Mike Lowell out of town for awhile. Not that he’s a bad player, but they’re looking to update their staff a little bit and get the team back into winning condition rather than keeping too many veterans around. During trade talks with Texas, he was required to take a physical, where they discovered that the sore thumb was in fact a torn ligament. How can that happen? Somehow the Red Sox hadn’t bothered to look into it. So now the trade talk is off with Rangers, who would much rather have their right handed bat ready to go instead of having to wait as long as two months to get him moving. The Sox might not be able to get Lowell out at this rate. They’ll just have to keep at it though, since they do want something new.

Over the last decade, we have seen a lot of different strong players who will be able to make the ESPN “All-Decade Team”. In a way, the team is almost slanted to the older generation, the players who started off the decade dominating. It’s hard to forget the more recent events of the decade when making these decisions, but it’s interesting to look back at those old players. People like Randy Johnson, who had such a dominating arm at the end of the 90s and in the early 00’s. Barry Bonds made the list in the outfield, having won several MVP awards and being the top player for that position over many years, despite the controversy that he ultimately gathered. It was a great decade and we look forward to the next decade of great basketball.

Yesterday, it was reported that the Chicago Cubs had all but signed Matt Capps from the Pittsburgh Pirates to come and play for them, possibly not as a closer, but as a relief pitcher, even as their setup man. But today, the reports were contradicted. They said that Capps is indeed interested in the Cubs, but that RHPs are being sought by almost every team in the league at the moment. So he might not take whatever deal the Cubs are looking for, especially as the Cubs don’t seem to be as able to offer big salaries as they might have been in previous years. They still have to get a Milton Bradley deal done and that’s not easy either, and it will cost them extra money so their resources could well be largely depleted by the end of this thing.

While it feels like the baseball World Series just ended a little while ago, the next season is going to begin surprisingly soon. They start talking about Spring Training in February and March. And it’s inching closer to January. But not to worry. MLB tickets are already onsale for the 2010 season. If you want to see your team work to unseat the Yankees as the perennial winners of the championship, then you should have your tickets in hand. It’s a long season, but you don’t want to experience it only at home. This time of year, you should think about what it will feel like to be out in the warm baseball stadium in July, with a cold lemonade watching your favorite team. This is going to be a great year, because there are some big roster moves being taken by a lot of the best teams too, so we can expect some competition that’s tougher than usual.

Curtis Granderson was sent to the Yankees in a big 3-team trade that seems to involve more players than an actual game. The other players aren’t very well known, but Detroit and Arizona were involved too. Again, it’s the Yankees able to make a better deal than anyone else and end up with the amazing All Star. Meanwhile, the other teams get some solid players with some great performances behind them. This is the biggest news in baseball this week, because it gives the Yankees the help in the outfield that they need. It’s really the only part of the team that’s even slightly weak, but it’s much less so now. And Granderson’s batting numbers just make that deal much sweeter.

The monopoly that the Chicago Cubs have on Milton Bradley might be finished soon and the chess match of the baseball trading season would be done. Whether is requires Bradley to say “Sorry!” and then move on, or if he’s going to be taken up, it uncertain. What is certain is that the Cubs will probably have to take on some portion of Bradley’s salary next year, since he has such a big contract into next year. For whatever reason, the Cubs and Bradley never clicked very well, partly because he was getting paid so much money but seriously underperforming from the start. But then he started getting upset at the fans, which made things work out poorly in the end. Chicago seems to want him out and Tampa Bay, Texas and New York Mets might decide to bring him in. Keep watching it.