Random Baseball

• Carl Crawford of the Devil Rays ties a modern day MLB record with 6 stolen bases in a single game. He didn't know he had tied the record or had a chance at breaking it until the post game interviews. The Rays are stealing bases at a pretty prodigious rate, 40 so far. It's one aspect of the game that has fallen by the way side as teams focus on power hitters. I miss it.
  
  
• 31 year old, off season high school substitute teacher, Bobby Scales made his major league start with the Cubs on 05/05 after 10 years and 1000+ games in the minors.
  

  [he] got his first Major League hit, scored his first Major League run and whiffed for his first Major League strikeout.

  Highlights on the MLB Network also showed he made a really nice diving stop at 2nd.
  
  The Tribune story on Scales mentions that he had 3,303 minor league at bats.
  
  He continues to impress with 2 run scoring doubles in the 05/14 game.
  
  
• Going back to the Manny story for a moment, as I write this it doesn't sound like he tested positive for steroids although more information is sure to come out. The original article quotes Jose Conseco as saying Manny is likely to be on the list of people that failed the original testing, before there were sanctions in place. Again, it SEEMS like Conseco is a better authority on these things than MLB and the commissioner.
  
  
• I was reminded of something at lunch today. I won't try to explain the process of my mind getting there but sometime in the past couple weeks one of the Cub's announcers, I think Len, talking about pitching, made the comment that the spin on a pitch changes how gravity affects the ball. Ummm, NO!
  
  
• As loathe as I am to discuss the over hyped east coast teams, the Red Sox have an accomplishment worth mentioning. In a game against the Cleveland Indians the Red Sox scored 12 runs without recording an out.