I'll admit from the start I liked it, thought it was a novel idea to perhaps even ####e up the long and arduous baseball season. Now however it needs to end, because other than a few geographical rivalries which bring in big box office numbers, there's really no point to it anymore.

It is only May and some teams in both the American and National League are already done with each other for the rest of the year. How crazy is that? Or that fact that some divisional rivals won't play until late July, long after they've already played multiple teams from the other league. Additionally I also believe that the schedules of teams playing within the same division should be hacked from 18-19 games down to 13-15 games.

Even those big rivalries have been over saturated with the Yankees-Mets, Dodgers-Angels, White Sox-Cubs, A's-Giants playing against one another six times. Heck that's only one less game than those teams play against some opponents in their own league!

On a few other notes of why this idea has lost its spark: 1.) The games are on virtually everywhere all the time, one can simply order MLB Extra Innings and watch any team, any player any time. That is also another reason why the popularity and viewership of the All-Star game has dropped over the last decade or so. 2.) With free agency players switch teams and leagues and cities practically all the time. 3.) For every good rivalry there's always a Houston-Minnesota series.

Maybe it doesn't have to be completely abolished but it would heap a great deal to mix it up a bit.

Roger Clemens is overrated as a post-season starter.  Yes I give him credit for having a lot of guts and trying to give it a go in Game 3 of the ALDS.  However for all the regular season greatness, from the seven Cy Young's to the 350 plus wins and the 4,000 plus strikeouts, Clemens has disappointed in the playoffs on more than a few occasions.

Roger isn't the only geriatric to let the Yanks down in the playoffs (see Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson) and the fact that he gave the team a shot in the arm which Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa and countless rookies couldn't along with imparting his pitching knowledge onto Joba, Phil and Ian is priceless.  However for all of his accolades and accomplishments, if one had to pick a pitcher to start Game Seven of a World Series, Rocket might not be in your top 20.  Certainly not ahead of the likes of Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Whitey Ford and Tom Seaver.

Thus let us chronicle the playoff failures of Roger Clemens shall we.

His team has lost 17 of his 34 playoff starts. He's either coughed up leads (8 different games, one in 2002 he blew 3 separate leads), or has left prematurely or controversially.

With Boston during the 1990 ALCS in game 4 at Oakland he gets tossed by umps with two runners on, they score, A's win 3-1 and sweep the series 4-0.  With New York in the 1999 ALCS game 2 at Fenway Park he gets blasted, the Yanks lose 13-1 for their only playoff loss that year.  In the 2001 ALDS game 1 vs. the A's, Clemens gives up solo HR's in 1st and 4th, leaves in 5th with "pulled hammy" Yanks lose 5-3.  In the all important 2003 ALCS game 7 vs. the Red Sox he gets lit for 6 hits and 4 runs in 3 innings.  With Houston during the 2005 World Series game 1 at Chicago, Clemens gives up 3 runs and 4 hits over 2 innings and leaves with a "pulled hammy," (sensing a trend here?)  With the Yankees again most recently in the 2007 ALDS against the Indians, Clemens was unable to get out of the 3rd inning with a pulled hammy, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits.  Which could've prompted Suzyn Waldman to say "Oh my God, Roger Clemens is sitting on an ice box!"  You know for that busted hammy. 

In six of his playoff starts Clemens has blown 2-0 leads: With the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series game 6 at Shea Stadium against the Mets, 1988 ALCS game 2 vs. the A's, 1995 ALDS at Cleveland.  With the Yankees during the 2000 ALDS game 1 at Oakland, 2002 ALDS game 1 vs. the Angels.  With Houston in the 2004 NLCS game 7 at St. Louis, 2005 NLDS game 2 at Atlanta, 2005 NLCS game 3 vs. the Cardinals.

His teams have a 2-4 record in World Series.  He has a 4.61 ERA in Division Series play.  Left game 4 of the 2003 World Series at Florida, losing.  Had a 13.50 ERA in 2005 World Series against Chicago.  Is only a career 4-4 in LDS play, 5-4 in LCS play.  Has only 1 complete game and one shutout in 33 career playoff starts. Don't get me wrong great regular season pitcher, mediocre playoff pitcher.

And no doubt Clemens has pitched teams to the playoffs. However aside from his 2000 ALCS and World Series, (you know the one where he threw the bat at Piazza), his playoff numbers haven't quite lived up to the regular season. He essentially piggy-backed onto the Yankee dynasty after they won 125 games in 1998 and he's never won a post-season MVP award. As much as it pains me as a Yankee fan, in the playoffs I'd take Curt Schilling over him in a heartbeat to win a big game. Rocket needs to prove more.

The playoff stats and record bear it out, Clemens is overrated in the playoffs. He's never even won more than 1 game in a playoff series. Has seven post season series where his ERA in that series was over 5.00. His last three post season starts he has three strikeouts combined. He wasn't able to win a game in the 2001, 2003, or 2005 World Series. He won an MVP and Cy Young award in 1986 and couldn't win a game in the World Series against the Mets. He's certainly wasn't a lock this time around in the 2007 playoffs. 

So Roger thanks for the memories, but we've got plenty of young pitching for 2008.

The last time two major league pitchers threw a no-hitter on the same day was June 29, 1990 when Dave Stewart of the Oakland Athletics and Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers both went into the record books.  As one may have noticed we almost had the same thing happen yesterday with Tom Glavine of the New York Mets and David Wells of the Los Angeles Dodgers tossing perfecto's through five innings.

In fact a lof of that has been going around lately, with the Atlanta Braves John Smoltz nearly blanking the Washington Nationals on Friday night, Roger Clemens and Chien-Ming Wang of the New York Yankees shutting down the Boston Red Sox for five innings a piece only to see Red Sox rookie Clay Bucholz catch no hit fever of his own, finishing the job against the Baltimore Orioles last Saturday night at Fenway Park. 

Both Glavine and Wells went seven strong, striking out four along the way while each leading their respective club to victory on Saturday afternoon.   

(Perfect they're not)

The New York Yankees are engaged in a "Cold War" of sorts.  Well armed with pitching to be sure, it's all a matter of whether the Yankees fire off any of their missles in a trade or if they can get them to fire for themselves down the stretch.  Back in the 1980's the Yankees dealt away the likes of Jose Rijo, Doug Drabek and Bob Tewksbury and ended up with little or nothing to show for it.  However in the 1990's they held onto the right guys in Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Ramiro Mendoza and turned prospects such as Sterling Hitchcock, Eric Milton and Matt Drews into Tino Martinez, Jeff Nelson, Jim Mecir, Chuck Knoblauch and Cecil Fielder.  Now the Yankees must decide on what they'd like to do with a plethora of prospects which include: Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Alan Horne, Tyler Clippard, Jeff Karstens, Darrell Rasner and Jeff Marquez.

If I'm the Yankees, I'm not letting any of these guys go at the deadline period.  Not that I'm writing off the division just yet, but if this team as currently constructed with enough talent, can't catch the Cleveland Indians who are just four games ahead of them presently in the Wild Card standings, then they don't deserve to make the playoffs. 

What the Yankees should do is unload Kyle Farnsworth on somebody, call up Phil Hughes to replace the recently demoted Kei Igawa (which will happen assuming all is right, this Saturday), call up Jeff Karstens to be their long-man/spot starter out of the pen and call up Joba Chamberlain to pitch out of the pen.  The worst case scenario is for the Yankees to remain stagnant, the best case is that their moves aid them much like the 2002 Anaheim Angels where Phil Hughes becomes John Lackey and Joba Chamberlain mirrors Francisco Rodriguez. 

Would a guy like Eric Gagne, Chad Qualls or Octavio Dotel be an upgrade over Farnsworth?  Yes.  But worth the prospects?  No. 

What is all comes down to is that the Yankees can't be afraid to trust their own guys, especially their heralded prospects.  Over the last three years (2005-07) the Yankees have called up players that weren't initially on many people's radars nor were they trusted until injuries or poor play necessitated their call-ups.  It was Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang who were called up two years ago to replace failures like Tony Womack, Kevin Brown and Jaret Wright.  Last year it was Melky Cabrera getting called up due to the injuries of Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui.  This season it's Andy Phillips getting the every day nod in place of the off-season disaster situation at 1st.  In summary, Cano, Cabrera and Phillips while pumping life into this club as every day regulars are all hitting around or over .300 on the season and Wang has 12 wins as the ace of the staff after missing almost a month of the season. 

While it would be nice for the Yankees to also further upgrade their bench at the deadline, they'll likely have to hope that Jason Giambi can come back at full strength either as a power bat off the bench or as a DH.  If Giambi can come back at 100% it would do wonders for the type of protection A-Rod needs.  Because A-Rod knows that he has to be the guy to knock in runs consistently given the fact that others usually don't and thus with opposing pitchers knowing that, they aren't giving A-Rod anything to hit, which in turn is frustrating A-Rod and making him impatient at the plate.  A healthy Giambi would curb that.  However what a healthy Giambi should not curb is the playing-time of the surging Melky Cabrera.

Hall of Fame Perspective: Anyone happen to notice about 70,000 fans descended upon Cooperstown this weekend?  This was for two guys in Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. who transcended the game, were class acts and were guys who you could just respect and admire watching as a fan no matter what team you rooted for.  Imagine then given the proximity of New York Yankees and New York Mets fans state and city wide with Cooperstown in their own backyard so to speak, just how jam packed that place will get when players like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza all get inducted one day?  Perhaps we'll get a barometer and a small taste for that next year when Goose Gossage is finally enshrined at Cooperstown. 

One of the best things about baseball is that if you happen to have a game where you lose 20-2, it's only one game out of 162.  The problem being if you're the one who wins a game like that, you can't re-distribute your runs to the follwing day's game either.  Therein lied the problem for the New York Yankees (4-4) against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.

After Mike Mussina went down early with a leg injury, the Yankees were aided by a sac-fly RBI from Alex Rodriguez and the continued brilliant relief of Sean Henn to hold the Twins at bay 1-0. 

However close games are where Minnesota thrives, with small ball and a deep bullpen.  Kyle Farnsworth was not sharp, walking leadoff batter and speedster Luis Castillo in the bottom of the 8th.  Castillo came around to score on an RBI single from Joe Mauer and the flood gates opened from there as the Twins rolled on to win 5-1.

Yanks go to Oakland to take on the A's starting Friday night.