Story Rough Draft

Right now, hundreds of the world’s greatest baseball players are preparing for the 2010 Major League Baseball season. This past year provided many fireworks, steroid allegations, dramatic finishes including an extra inning thriller for the American League Central Division championship. It eventually ended with the World Series trophy going back to the Bronx for a 27th time. This year, many fans hope for even more exciting moments and their team hoisting the trophy at the end of the season. With this being said many teams have threw their names in to the mix with big offseason acquisitions. With four weeks till Opening Day, the anticipation is building.

When the season ends in October, the players get to relax for a couple of months. But this is when the owners, general managers and other front office personnel get to the toughest part of their jobs, making their teams better. Many teams at this point of the year open up their checkbooks and attempt to woo the game’s best players to join their organization. Robert Patten, believes that the biggest offseason acquisition was the New York Mets signing All-Star outfielder Jason Bay, “With how bad the Mets were last year, this move can only make them better,” he said. About as big of a surprise as Mark McGwire’s steroid confession, the New York Yankees have once again opened the seemingly never ending cash supply to revamp their team for this season in hopes to repeat as world champions. Along with retaining long time Yankee Andy Pettitte and utility man Nick Johnson, they made some big trades offseason. One of which was acquiring the exciting outfielder Curtis Granderson from the Tigers and Atlanta Braves ace pitcher Javier Vazquez. The Yankees shouldn’t be overly cocky though, their arch rival Boston has made many key moves as well. The Red Sox were able to sign the best free agent pitcher this year, former Angels ace John Lackey, signing a 5 year contract worth about 82.5 million dollars. Along with Lackey, the Sox also signed veterans Mike Cameron, and Adrian Beltre. Above all else, the Phillies probably made the biggest move this offseason by trading for former Cy Young winner Roy Halladay. This move makes the Phillies, according to most experts, the favorites to win the National League. And what about the Twins, surely their focus would be to save money and extend Joe Mauer’s contract but nope. They went out and signed a couple of veteran players to million dollar contracts. Jim Thome, once rival now player of the Twins signed a one year deal worth 1.5 million dollars, he joins the team along with second baseman Orlando Hudson who signed a one year deal worth 5 million dollars. The Twins also traded speedy outfielder Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for shortstop J.J. Hardy, this trade, for now, gives the Twins a proven player at shortstop when healthy.

With the season just about to start, many experts are trying to predict who will be the last two teams standing at the end and who will be world champion. My interviews were more than happy to give me theirs. Chuck Foster, a lifelong fan of the St. Louis Cardinals believes that his team will be one of the two remaining. “With two of the best pitchers in baseball, strong defense, and Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols, we can’t be beat.” Again, never afraid to voice his devotion for his favorite team, even though he makes a good case. Dan Trehey, who is a Brewers fan, knew his team wouldn’t be there in the end but had his own predictions. “The two teams that I believe will be playing for the World Series Championship are the Cardinals and the Rangers.” I asked him why the Rangers, he then answered, “They’re the underdog, the dark horse team, nobody expects them to but they can easily power their way through the American League playoffs if they get there.” When I asked them about the awards, like the MVP, each one agreed that Joe Mauer would repeat in the American League but were spilt in the National with Chuck saying it would be Albert Pujols, and Dan saying that Ryan Braun of the Brewers would walk away with the honor. When asked about the Cy Young award they were both in agreement on the same thing. In the National League, they both said it would be newly acquired Roy Halladay of the Phillies and in the American League, they both said C.C. Sabathia of the Yankees.

As the temperature rises and the snow continues to melt, many Americans who bleed their team’s respective colors are desperately awaiting the arrival of the season to begin. Whether your team is the defending champ, opening a new stadium, or trying to make drastic improvements from last year, we all wait for that first pitch to be thrown. And as October comes around, we hope that our respective teams can storm through the playoffs, and give us a few or days of summer, and walk away from this year as the Champions of the world.