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San Diego manager Bud Black played three butchers in the outfield in the most critical game of the year, and they cost his team the game. Yeah, I know, Mike Cameron and Milton Bradley were hurt, but what, you’re telling me the entire San Diego minor league system didn’t have even a Sam Fuld* to call upon? That indictment falls on San Diego general manager Kevin Towers as well. Wouldn’t Jermaine Dye have looked good — even in one of those nauseous oatmeal-colored Padre unis — playing for the Padres Monday night? Or even Brian Anderson? I don’t know what his White Sox counterpart Kenny Williams was holding out for to deal them, but Towers has to be kicking his own ass for not pulling the trigger on whatever it was. Boston is my no-brainer pick to win it all right now behind Josh Beckett, but San Diego had the pitching to compete. Pity the Padres didn’t get the chance.
So what about the Cubs-Diamondbacks series? First, baseball proceeds not to shoot itself in the foot, but to hand the gun to TV and tell it to blast away by letting Fox and TBS fix the schedule. Postseason baseball, to me, is afternoon weekday games in October — kids sneaking radios into school and adults slipping out of work to catch a few innings in a bar. Instead, TBS will present all three games in Arizona — if three games in Arizona there are — at 9 PM CST. What, no Chicago schoolkid has an interest in the outcome?
