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With apologies to Santana and Michelle Branch for copying the lyrics from the 2002-2003 hit "The Game of Love", we present "a little bit of this, a little bit of that" from what's happening in Major League Baseball.
The biggest news is that Pete Rose, along with "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and seven others who were banned in the Black Sox Scandal, have had their permanent bans lifted by Commissioner Rob Manfred. Don't think for a minute that this means they are automatically going to join the hall, and the earliest they can even get the opportunity is December 2027.
Tonight is Pete Rose Night at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. The Reds will salute the legendary baseball player's life and career, with a special game against Shoeless Joe's former team, the Chicago White Sox, starting at 7:14 p.m., and a tribute to his jersey number which the Reds retired in 2016. No one has worn Number 14 for Cincinnati since his son, Pete Rose Jr., did so for 11 games in 1997.
Going into Wednesday's games (May 14), the New York Yankees' Aaron Judge has seen his batting average dip from .431 exactly a week ago to .410, but he still owns a substantial statistical lead in all of Major League Baseball with Jacob Wilson of the Athletics in second at .363. Another Yankee, Paul Angels, is third at .344, while the NL leader is San Diego's Manny Mercado at .331 who tops Tampa Bay's Jonathan Aranda's .339 clip.
Judge is in a 3-way tie atop the 2025 MLB home runs leaderboard at 14, along with Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies and Corbin Carroll of the Diamondbacks.
The Yankees continue to lead the AL East by 3 games over the Boston Red Sox, adding just a half-game to their advantage in the past week. The Toronto Blue Jays sit 3.5 back with the Rays trailing by 4.5. The Orioles are 7.5 back as they continue to bring up the rear of the division.
No team in the AL East has managed to do better than split their last 10 games while the Red Sox and Orioles have each gone 4-6 in that span.
Tampa Bay is 8-5 on the road, but just 11-17 at home. Only the Rockies, who are a woeful 7-35 over-all, are worse in their own stadium at 5-16. Colorado is 2-19 on the road. The Rockies fired manager Bud Black this past Sunday, as well as bench coach Mike Redmond. Black had served as manager since 2017 and probably managed to hang on longer than he should have, considering that Colorado hasn't posted a winning season since Black's second managerial year in Denver in 2018 when the Rockies were swept in the NLDS by the Chicago Cubs.
Colorado finished fourth in the division in each of the next three seasons and took an even deeper dive to a last-place finish in each of the last three campaigns.
The move to fire Black was made the day after Colorado was embarrassed 21-0 at San Diego, but not until the Rockies rebounded with a 9-3 win the next day to end a 6-game losing skid.
Third base coach Warren Schaeffer was elevated to interim head coach in combination with Black's dismissal. Under Schaeffer, Colorado returned to old form in their next outing with a 2-1 loss at the Texas Rangers in game one of the three-game set , and fell 4-1 on Tuesday to guarantee another series loss. As their record indicates, they have not won a single series all season.
Colorado is one of five teams to never win a World Series, along with Milwaukee, San Diego, Seattle and Tampa Bay. The Texas Rangers were the latest to jump off that list when they won the 2023 crown in five games over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Rockies played their way into the 2007 World Series, but were promptly swept out of it by the Boston Red Sox. They have never returned.
The only World Series appearance by the Brewers came in 1982 which they loss in 7 games to the St. Louis Cardinals. They've been experiencing some of that franchise's best regular season success in the 2020's, but have yet to parlay that into postseason success, going 2-9 while bowing out in the NLWCS three times and the NLDS once. The city of Milwaukee did enjoy a 1957 World Series win that came 8 years before the Braves moved to Atlanta, and 3 years after Hank Aaron joined the club.
San Diego has made it twice, but lost in five games to the Tigers in 1982 and were swept by the Yankees 16 years later (1998). However, like Milwaukee, San Diego has had some of its best success in the 2020's, losing 3-0 in the NLDS in 2020 (3-0, Dodgers), the NLCS in 2022 (4-1, Phillies) and the NLDS again to the Dodgers (3-2) in 2024.
Seattle has never made it to the Fall Classic and has only appeared in the ALCS three times (1995, 2000, 2001).
Tampa Bay has made it twice to the World Series, but exited in five games to the Phillies in 2008, and six games to the Dodgers in 2020. The Rays have made the playoffs every year since 2019, but are currently riding a 7-game playoff losing streak since defeating Boston 5-0 in game one of the 2021 ALDS.
As mentioned above, the Texas Rangers won their first and only World Series in 2023, defeating the Diamondbacks in five games. They also won ALCS titles in 2010 and 2011, subsequently falling first to the Giants in five games, and then to the Cardinals in seven games a year later.
Their 2023 championship title put the Rangers on the list of teams that have only a single World Series crown in their history, joining the Washington Nationals (2019), the Los Angeles Angels (2002) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (2001).
While the Nationals only have the 2019 World Series title, they were preceded with a crown for the city of Washington, DC by the Senators who took the 1924 title. The Senators moved and became the Texas Rangers in 1972. "America's favorite pastime" didn't return to America's capitol city until the Expos were relocated in 2005.
Washington had previously lost the 1924 World Series-winning Senators to Minnesota after the 1960 season and became the Twins. The original Senators lost the 1925 series in seven games to the Pirates, and the 1933 series in five games to the Giants. The second rendition of the Senators never made the playoffs in their existence from 1961 to 1971.
The Angels won the series in their first and only appearance in 2002, taking down the Giants in seven games.
Arizona has made it the Fall Classic twice. The Diamondbacks were victorious in seven games over the Yankees in 2001 and, as mentioned above, were taken out in five games by the Rangers in 2023.