Another World Series appearance for the Sox… Boston is living the high life right now in sports. I’d be happier if they were facing the Phillies, but I’ll take what I can get.

I feel obligated to point out that the Red Sox look to be smarter than the Yankees front office at this point. Over the past 5 years or so (the Theo Epstein era), the Red Sox have managed to spend much smarter than the Yankees. Looking back at the different teams, Boston put their money on mid-reputation players with upside and focused their big money on pitching. The Yankees, on the other hand, have paid for a LOT of expensive bats and thrown together pitching almost haphazardly. Injuries have been a big part of the picture, too, but it’s hard to say that Brian Cashman (and Steinbrenner, however much he participates in personnel decisions ) have really shown good baseball sense since their last World Series championship in 2000.

And really, if not for Grady Little, the Yankees probably don’t make the Series in 2003, either. It’s a pretty amazing run the Yankees have had, but this year they lost the division, lost in the first round, and lost their best hope for future success, Joe Torre. I thought maybe it was time for him to move on, but looking back, he’s clearly not the problem. They don’t have the arms to compete. Torre is just a convenient fall guy…

ESPN’s piece on Phil Rizzuto’s career. The Yankees still suck, but Scooter was a class act by all accounts. Sad to see a baseball legend pass away.

At $18M per, he’s way overpriced. I like Barry Zito, but here are his stats for 2003-2006:

YEAR    G    IP     W   L   ERA   K/9
2003    35  231.2   14  12  3.30  5.67
2004    34  213.0   11  11  4.48  6.89
2005    35  228.1   14  13  3.86  6.74
2006    34  221.0   16  10  3.83  6.15

Yes, he has good numbers, but those numbers make him about 20th or so for K/9 and 10th for ERA. He’s a decent top tier pitcher, but this contract makes him the owner of the largest contract for a pitcher, ever. If he’s worth this, and he basically has had some awful postseason games, I don’t know what this does for Johan Santana and the hot youngsters when they come up to their free agent years. Alex Rodriguez may get a big weight taken off his shoulders soon, I think…

Did you know Bill Buckner was wearing a Cubs batting glove under his mitt? Apparently, neither did anyone else. Nice find, Sean.

I finally saw a Phillies game in their new park on Saturday. Not only that, but it was a big game. The Phillies were playing the Reds who happen to be the team holding on to the NL Wild Card. The Phillies were only two games back, so winning Saturday and Sunday would’ve brought them to a tie for the Wild Card. Unfortunately, the Phils lost after Tom Gordon gave up three runs late and a 9th inning rally fizzled with Howard at the plate.

The park is beautiful and our seats were pretty good. Here’s the view from our seats in left (click the picture for a larger version):

The park has good food, though we didn’t sample any of it. My favorite was the Peace A Pizza located in center:

Another first that night, Heidi actually scored (most of) the ballgame:

I was surprised when she asked for the scorecard, but she did a good job. Although, she seemed really fixated on knowing all the players’ first names.

I probably shouldn’t comment on this because of what I do, so I won’t. I will say, go read this: Judge: Fantasy leagues may use MLB names, stats

Fantasy baseball leagues are allowed to use player names and statistics without licensing agreements because they are not the intellectual property of Major League Baseball, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Baseball and its players have no right to prevent the use of names and playing records, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler in St. Louis ruled in a 49-page summary judgment.

St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc. filed a lawsuit against MLB after CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with the baseball players’ association giving it the rights to player profiles and statistics.

Major League Baseball claimed that intellectual property laws and so-called “right of publicity” make it illegal for fantasy leagues to make money off the identities and stats of professional players.

But even if the players could claim the right of publicity against commercial ventures by others, Medler wrote, the First Amendment takes precedent because CBC, which runs CDM Fantasy Sports, is disseminating the same statistical information found in newspapers every day.

“The names and playing records of major league baseball players as used in CBC’s fantasy games are not copyrightable,” Medler wrote. “Therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players’ claimed right of publicity.”

The ruling brings some relief to more than 300 businesses that run online fantasy leagues and have awaited the outcome of the lawsuit. In fantasy sports leagues, fans draft major leaguers and teams win or lose based on the statistical success of the actual players in major league games.

It wasn’t immediately clear what impact the ruling would have on existing agreements, such as the ones MLB has with CBS Sportsline.com, Yahoo Inc., ESPN.com and others. MLB also may appeal; a spokesman for the league did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

An ESPN spokesperson said Monday that the company would have no comment on the ruling.

One thing I try to do whenever I travel is visit a baseball game in town if the city has an MLB team. I don’t have time on all of my trips, but if I do I try to make it over. While in Seattle, I did make a Mariners game, my first at Safeco field. While there, I tried to come up with the list of all the parks I’ve been to. Here it is:

Retired stadiums:

• Veterans Stadium - Philadelphia
• Fulton County Stadium - Atlanta

Been in, but didn’t see a game:

• Skydome - Toronto (may have seen a game, can’t remember)
• Olympic Stadium - Montreal

Current Stadiums:

• Camden Yards - Baltimore
• Fenway Park - Boston
• SBC Park - San Francisco
• Edison Field - Anaheim
• Yankee Stadium - New York
• Safeco Field - Seattle

That’s my list. I hope to add the new Phillies stadium very soon.

Feel free to post your list in the comments or leave a trackback if you blog it.

It’s a little known fact that companies like ESPN.com, Yahoo.com, and Sportsline.com have to pay royalties to the various players association and/or the leagues in order to run their fantasy games for the public. The cost is often significant, amounting to significant portions of a game’s gross revenue. You can tell games that pay the fee because they’ll have the players association logos plus the league logos on some or all of the pages for the game.At ESPN.com, for example, you’ll find the NFLPA logo at the bottom of our fantasy football pages (example).

Anyway, apparently a company out there is taking one of the leagues to court to argue against the fees as they’re set up now. The company is taking MLB, which bought the exclusive rights to distribute player statistics from the MLBPA, to court to argue that the statistics, once the game is over, are historical fact and therefore shouldn’t require a license. It’s going to be an interesting case that will have some interesting repercussions regardless of who wins.

The leagues exercise pretty significant control over anything they can to make money. The trend over the last few years has been to partner exclusively with a partner to get the big check from one source. You can see it with the deals the NFL made with EA and MLB made with Take2. It hasn’t happened in the fantasy sports world yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hasn’t thought of that idea.

David Pinto at Baseball Musings has it right, I think when he argues that MLB and the leagues are making a mistake if they limit the number of licenses. Fantasy sports are a feeder into other merchandising and ticket sales. I own one more jersey than I would’ve and I watch WAY more football and baseball than I otherwise would’ve if I didn’t play fantasy sports. We’ll see how it pans out, I guess.

(Usual disclaimer: I speak for myself here and not for ESPN.com or ESPN or Disney.)

You must check out this new blog I found called Surviving Grady. Think Bill Simmons before he was BILL SIMMONS. Among my favorites are this post on identifying Red Sox beards. My favorite line so far:

This afternoon, we get Clement vs. Zito. And you wanna know just how good Clement is? Dude’s on the five dollar bill.

So far, this has been a pretty good Red Sox blog. (by the way, the site is new to me, not new as in just started… just FYI)

I find this an, um, interesting coincidence, but Bond’s rehab isn’t going so well. Maybe he’s not using the right medication?

A thought about the incident involving Bonds’ former pal, Gary Sheffield. Boston police are now seeking charges against the two fans involved in the swipe/beer incident. I was watching that game on TV and I remember my first reaction was that Jerry Remy was overreacting when he said that the fan tried to swipe Sheffield. I’ve watched numerous replays at this point (including my own slow-mo on my Tivo) and still think the same thing: the fan was looking down the right field wall toward the ball the fans, started reaching down late then realized Sheffield was almost on top of him. He started pulling up and made contact with Sheffield… with his elbow or forearm.

The beer, I still don’t get. I’m not sure if the fan just started backing off or if they tried to spill it on purpose, but the swipe sure as heck seemed like an accident. Just look at the fan’s head… he’s looking down the line and away from Sheffield. Too many people are quick to judge this… stuff like this happens really fast and things look a lot different in slow motion. The Red Sox can go ahead and revoke the tickets as a way of pacifying Sheffield and MLB, but the police have no business pressing charges in this matter. I suspect that if it makes it to court, the fans won’t get convicted.