My two cents worth...

My two cents worth this morning.

Tired of reading about Manny Ramirez. The man lives out of two suitcases. Have bat will travel. One of his bags is filled with money, the other his clothes as he heads for his next ball club. As for the LA Dodgers, they find themselves in court with the McCourts. The only good news out of the Dodgers' camp is the fact that ole Vinny will be back in 2011.

Hats off to the Diamondbacks last night. Their role as a spoiler has come front and center as they dismantled the league-leading San Diego Padres, behind two towering round-trippers by Mark Reynolds. Padres still have breathing room, but another loss or two could have the best team in the NL West gasping for air.

Now what's this about Kurt Warner and Dancin' With the Stars? He can barely dance his way out of the pocket, can he make the "groove" on the dance floor. Mr. Smith move over! Hey, it is Friday Night Lights for my Arizona Wildcats. It's just three days away to the Wildcats' opener in Toledo. Beardown Arizona!

Time for another cup of coffee. Talk to you later.

It's about time I give Fantasy Football a try...

It's about time I give Fantasy Football a try.

A friend of mine talked me into it. So, I went to Yahoo.com, selected an id, a password, and joined the league my buddy is in. It's a 10-team league and you need to select a name for your team right away. I came up with Team Priceless -- kind of catchy, don't you think?

Now most of the guys in the league have played before, so I expect to get kicked around a bit. The rules and regulations are something else and I'm just beginning to get a handle on just a few of those. It should be fun. I'll keep you posted on how I do. Let's hope I can keep out of the cellar!

Could Danny White's nephew get the call?

Could it happen? Could Danny White's nephew, Max Hall, receive final instruction from his coach, don his helmet and join the huddle as the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals this season?

Lackluster performances by Matt Leinart or Derek Anderson, or injuries to one or both, could bolt the former Mesa Mountain View and BYU star into action. Hall completed two of three passes for 58 yards yesterday in the Cardinals' 14-9 exhibition win over the Chicago Bears. That would be quite a story to have the grandson of of the ASU Hall-of-Famer Wilford White calling signals for his hometown NFL team.

Go get 'em Max!

What a race!

It is quite the race for numero uno in the American League East Division. The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays are in a dead heat, as of this writing, and both teams go for their 80th win today as the Yankees visit the Chicago White Sox and the Rays entertain the Boston Red Sox.

Wins by both teams would put them 30 games over the .500 mark. Boston (74-56), arguably the third best team in baseball at this juncture, would be in first place in any of the other divisions or at worst a close second. And then you have Toronto at 68-61, a very good ball club, but 11 games out of first.

The cellar-dweller is of course the Baltimore Orioles (47-83) and I'd expect they'd have a few more victories under their belt, if they were competing in any of the other divisions. Instead, they find themselves 32 1/2 games out of first place and are looking toward 2011, along with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Washington Nationals, the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Indians -- just to name a few.

But, for the fans on the East Coast, it must be nice to pick up the Sunday morning paper, go to the sports pages and check out the standings. Out West, we don't have that luxury. The San Diego Padres (76-52) are rolling along in the NL West and the Texas Rangers (73-56) are cruising in the AL West.

As for a team eclipsing 100 wins this season, it may not happen, but if it does, chances it'll be one of those two powerhouses in the AL East. In fact, it just may take a 100 wins to garner the divison title.

The race is on!

Love to see those smilin' faces...

This is my second year of coaching middle school sports -- girls volleyball this time of year and girls softball in the spring. It is a kick.

A majority of my girls are competing for the first time, on the court and on the field. They have just a few weeks to learn the basic skill of the sport and in no time at all they take to the field of battle, ready to represent their school. As the small crowd roars and their parents await their child's first serve, set, bump, spike or dig, or their child's first ground ball, fly ball or hit, there's a moment, just before the youngster makes her play when she grits her teeth and takes a deep breath. What follows is the reason why I love to coach middle school sports.

For example, yesterday was our first volleyball game of the season. A good crowd was on hand. It was a home game, which made it a little easier on my group of newbies. One of my girls stepped behind the service line and prepared for her first-ever attempt. The volleyball net to her must have looked like it was a mile away. She unleashed the serve. The ball sailed over the net and fell untouched, just inside the out-of-bounds line on the left side of the opponent's court. A point for our side! The young athlete returned to the service line. I yelled out her name. She looked at me. I yelled to her, "Now, do it again and this time smile!"

She did just that as she scored the next six points with her pin-point serves. We won the game and the match. It really didn't matter if we had won or lost (well, maybe a little), but what did matter was that smilin' face.

How could you ever get tired of seeing that?

Daly cards a 64 on final day at Wyndham

Big John Daly carded a 64 Sunday at Wyndham to finish with a four-day total of 289 and pocketed $17,000 (and some change for a few cartons of smokes).

Things are looking up for Big John. After 17 events on the PGA tour, Daly has amassed $140,295 and has made the weekend 12 times.

Sweet Lou hangs it up; Vinny stays

The "voice" will be around for another year.

Eighty-three year old Vin Scully will be back in the broadcast booth for the LA Dodgers in 2011. That's nice to hear. The Hall of Fame broadcaster announced over the weekend that he will back at the helm for his 62nd season. One baseball icon stays and another goes.

Chicago Cubs manager Lou Pinella called it quits today and announced to the world, in an emotional post-game interview, that he is stepping down as skipper of the club. Sad to see him go. The man had 1705 hits as a player in the major leagues, and as a manager, well he stepped into the dugout as a field general 3,547 times. He was on the winning side 1,835 times for a .517 winning percentage. Pretty darn good. At 66, Pinella will have a hard time staying away from the game, but the Chicago Cubs should be okay with 50-year-old Ryne Sandberg waiting in the wings to fill Lou's shoes.

As for the Dodgers, they get a reprieve for another year. Scully may give it up in 2012, but finding his replacement will be a tough task for the powers-to-be in Los Angeles.

Tucson Golden Aces prepare for 2010 MSBL World Series

It's that time of year again. It's just nine weeks away.

The 2010 Mens Senior Baseball League (MSBL) World Series for the 60-and-over division commences on Oct. 18 and the 65-and-over division will follow on Oct. 25 in Phoenix. All the spring training fields in the Valley of the Sun will be filled with oldtimers pickin' ground balls and chasing down log fly balls at the spacious parks in Tempe, Peoria, Glendale and Mesa.

Teams from all over the country, from LA to Boston, and as far away as Australia and Canada, will compete for the first-place trophy in their respective divisions. It's a kick. Yours truly, now 65, will be there along with his teammates from the Tucson Golden Aces as they once again go after the gold, so to speak. I'll once again keep you abreast of the games and the results as the Aces battle their way to the finals.

Holy Toledo...it is just 27 days til the Wildcats' season opener

Holy Toledo! It is just 27 days away.

The Arizona Wildcats will head for Toledo to take on the Rockets of the MAC West Conference. It has been 23 months since the Wildcats beat the Rockets, 41-16, at Arizona Stadium on Sept. 6, 2008. Nic Grigsby ran wild that day, gaining 142 yards, while scoring three touchdowns.

They call the Rockets' stadium the Glass Bowl. Let's hope we shatter the Rockets, break a few windows and head home with our first victory of the year.

Can A-Rod surpass Bonds?

Can Alex Rodriquez surpass Barry Bonds as major league baseball's home run King?

And does anyone really care anymore?

I guess I do. I love to play with the numbers. Say the 35-year old Yankee great hits seven more this season and then averages 26 dingers a year for the next six seasons. That should do it. That should put him atop the leaderboard at 763, one more than Mr. Bonds. Let's see, I'll be 71 years old in 2016 and Mr. Rodriquez will be a 41-year-old designated hitter. One thing is for sure, I'll have plenty of time to curl up on the sofa and watch the feat.

And they say nobody cares!

The high and low of a day in baseball...

There is certainly the have and the have-nots in major league baseball this season.

Unfortunately, the Arizona Diamondbacks can be found embedded among the have-nots. In baseball yesterday, August 4, the New York Yankees, in front of 47,659 fans, knocked off the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-1, as superstar Alex Rodriquez blasted his 600th career home run. At Chase Field, it was a different story as the Diamondbacks closed out a hot summer day in Arizona with a dismal 7-2 loss to the Washington Nationals in front of a season-low crowd of 15,670.

Of course Chase Field holds 48,633 and that left plenty of room for big Adam Dunn, a former D'back, to bounce a couple of dingers around the empty spaces. As for the Yankees, it was win number 67 on the season. For the Diamondbacks, it was loss number 68. The beat goes on as the Yankees head for another World Series and the Diamondbacks head back to the drawing board.

The TOTS are certainly in a League of Their Own...

I watched the 1992 release A League of Their Own last night on a cable channel. Of course, it wasn't the first time I've seen the film about the girls pro baseball league which filled a void while the men were off fighting in WWII. The movie centers on two sisters who play for the Rockford Peaches.

What I loved most about the film was the ending when the players met at Cooperstown some forty years later for a reunion and the unveiling of the wing which documented and celebrated the GPBL's nine years of existence (1943-1954).

I went to the movie theater in 1992 to see the film and over the years I have no doubt sat back, with a bowl of popcorn and my favorite beverage, and revisited the flick, especially some of the more memorable scenes with Tom Hanks, who portrayed the manager of the Peaches, Jimmy Dugan.

I guess I haven't seen the flick for a while, at least I'm sure it is the first time I've watched A League of Their Own since I joined the Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) in 2008. So, as I watched the film, I realized that I get to live three days a week at Udall Park a baseball reunion of sorts when I suit up and play with my buddies in our own League of Their Own, the Tucson Old Timers Baseball Club.

As far as I know, the TOTS are the oldest organized baseball team in the country, some 50 members play weekly and range in age from 60 to 90. The league was formed in 1968 and the dues for each member is just five dollars a month. That's three hours of fun, three days a week year around. You got to love it. So, if you're a baseball nut and turning 60 soon, grab the old leather mitt, which is gathering dust in the attic, and head out to Tucson's Udall Park. Take some batting practice, play a game or two, or sit in the dugout and relive yesteryear with another old timer.

 The stories are endless.

 It is likely the old timer you're sitting next to hails from Detroit, Baltimore, New York or Chicago. Chances are he will tell you a story about the Knot Hole Gang. Or about the time he faced a major league pitcher. Or about the time he shook hands with Mickey Mantle or sat in the bleacher seats in Boston and watched Ted Williams hit a tape-measure job out of Fenway Park. It is a reunion. An on-going reunion that never ends. Joe Garajiola said it best in a recent interview: "Yogi Berra and I would always get together for dinner with our wives and the gals would always say," 'You guys say the samething over and over again.' " Reliving old baseball stories. What a kick that is for all us oldtimers. As Garajiola puts it, "That's what we know. That's what we do." And thank goodness for those memories.

And if you're a new member of the TOTS, well then you're welcome to tell us all a tale or two of your own. And if you let us in on the same tale more than once, well that's okay too. Because that's what we do!