First Month Full of April Fools...Ello, Apr. 20th

So you and everybody else loves October baseball...yeah, yeah...big deal...long season, then long playoff series'...then the calendar turns to November...it starts snowing or raining for three days somewhere...and then the World Series.

Don't know about you...but all I remember about last year's Fall Classic is that the final game took longer to play than a cricket match...should have called it the Winter Classic.

Anyway...as for me...my favorite time of the baseball season is April...right now...Why? Because this is the month that makes all the experts look like idiots. (Being as I'm clearly no expert, I get a certain amount of joy out of stuff like this).

Examples: Well, of course, the Padres are one....Which expert was it exactly who pegged the Padres for maybe nine wins before the All-Star break?? Same guy -- or gal -- I assume who had the Friars taking 2-of-3 from the unbeatable Mets and then 2-of-3 from the defending World Champion Phillies. On the road, no less.

Marlins opening the season 11-1?? Can't tell you how tired I got reading about that over and over during Spring training.

Last-place finishers in the American League?? Pretty sure I saw where the
Rays-Indians-Angels trifecta was a better bet than Lindsay Lohan staying sober.

Just when is it, by the way, that Peter Gammons is going to finally come clean and tell us that truth be told, he's really just as dumb as the rest of us?? Probably the same day he admits knowing that the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang would be dazzling the American League with a
34.50 earned run average...or that the greatest Red Sox hurler of them all, Daisuke Matsuzaka, would be on the shelf with a 12.79.

I must have missed it, but I'm certain Tim Kurkjian called Brandon Webb on the DL with a 13.50 and also had the Cy Young-World Series MVP Daily Double pegged by coupling Cole Hamels and his 11.17 ERA right along with him. Hamels couldn't even hold a 7-1 lead against the Padres.

Here are some more: Jason Stark's blog predicting that April's batting leader would be the Nationals' Christian Guzman at a robust .515...And ESPN's Buster Olney breathlessly telling us that young stars like Alex Gordon (KC, 2-for-21 .095), Gervany Soto (Cubs, 2-for-19 .105) and Alexei Ramirez (Chisox, 5-for-40 .125) would all come crashing down to earth.

It really is amazing how much time we all waste listening to these guys...and even worse, how we're duped into believing everything they say.

You know...I hope April never ends. Think I can get the Padres to join me in that?


Early candidate for stupidest free-agent signing...goes to the Cubs who piled the dough up for outfielder Milton Bradley...Bradley already has more times out of the lineup (two -- one for a pulled muscle, I think, and another for a suspension) than he has hits (one).


My choice for April's MLB Player of the Month...already belongs to Padres closer Heath Bell. Sure the seven saves and perfect ERA are nice, but they're far from the reason he gets my vote.

Bell loudly (and correctly) called out ESPN (and all of their geniuses) for totally ignoring the 27 teams not named the Yankees, Red Sox or Mets. Bell said there's no reason for him to tune into the Worldwide leader any longer because he likes to see what's going on in baseball, not just what's going on in New York and Boston.

It's about time somebody (other than me) had the guts to call out ESPN's one-coasted coverage of what (I thought) is called the National Pastime. When history's keepers of the grand-ol' game change it to the Anything-North-of-Baltimore-and-East-of-Pittsburgh Pastime...well, then I'll start tuning in again.

Either that, or when one of the geniuses in Bristol can correctly predict what's going to happen in baseball during the month of April.