The Sports Monitor

For several seasons now, and probably beyond that, the Pittsburgh Pirates have made a bad habit of making poor pitchers look like Cy Young Award candidates. The latest example was Tuesday night against the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe sent David Huff to the mound and won the first game of a three-game series. Huff entered the game with a 2-2 record and a 7.09 record. All he did was shut down the Pirates for eight innings, giving up just four hits. Here's a look at some other pitchers and what they did to the Bucs this season: Bronson Arroyo pitched eight shutout innings on May 1. That lowered his ERA to 4.91. His ERA today is 5.16. Brian Moehler pitched a complete game against the Pirates on May 29. He gave up one run. His ERA after that game was 6.43. On May 31, Mike Hampton dominated the Bucs, giving up one run in seven innings. He had a 5.07 ERA after that gem. Glen Perkins picked his second win of the season June 16. He had a 5.04 ERA after giving up two runs in six innings. Th...

It's always satisfying to see the New York Yankees lose a baseball game. It got better when they opened the $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium on Thursday and lost to the Indians. The best part, however, was the 22-4 bludgeoning of the Yankees by the Cleveland Indians on Saturday. The highlight was a 14-run second inning that lasted 37 minutes. The Tribe sent 17 batters to the plate that inning. How has it been going for the Yankees so far? Check out this comment from the New York Daily News after that thrashing: "We thought Obama banned torture in the United States, but it doesn't count for Yankees fans," said Larry Fannin, 51 of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., who paid $100 for his ticket. "The people around us were screaming we want a refund." Fannin was lucky. The top ticket at the new Yankee Stadium costs $2,625. I wonder what that person was saying after the game? The park is a celebration of greed and excess. The only thought put into the stadium was to extract mor...