Well, I'd hoped to get some observations about Daisuke Matsuzaka's debut yesterday, but while I did watch the game, I was simultaneously struggling with a book on fixing computers (hint: don't), with the result that I spent more time thinking about CD-ROM drives than balls and strikes.  My only relevant observations are these:

* Matsuzaka looked pretty good, as did Greinke, and

* Dice-K is already my least-favorite nickname in the sports world.  If we expand to all nicknames, it's third after "J-Lo" and "K-Fed."   When was it decided that we no longer had the time to pronounce a person's entire name?

* Since I need some filler, I'll toss in something unrelated: Meet one of the few people who isn't a Bay Area native or a blood relative who is rooting for Barry Bonds to break Aaron's record.  It's my natural contrarian streak come to light.  Anytime SO MANY media people have decided that they unilaterally just don't like a guy and don't want to give him a break, I feel the urge to support the other side.

And no, I'm not happy about the steroid angle.  But unfortunately, a *lot* of people in a lot of sports have apparently been taking steroids, and I find it impossible to judge the effects of it, or to localize all those effects on Barry Bonds.  It's an institutional problem., and I don't like baseball's attitude of milking Barry for every cent he's worth, then turning around and blaming it all on him when the heat over steroids gets a little too high.

The bottom line for me is this: If baseball has sufficient evidence that Barry Bonds has broken the rules and his stats are invalid, then they should ban him.  If they're not going to ban him, then they forfeit the right to complain about the numbers he compiles.

Hey, I think Hank Aaron was an amazing ballplayer.  Probably a nicer guy than Barry Bonds.  But so what?  We can either hide our heads in the sand and try our best to pretend he doesn't exist, or we can embrace and appreciate a record-breaking run by an extraordinary athlete.  I'm going with the second one, whether the media likes it or not.

* Your division-leading teams as of this afternoon: The Red Sox, Twins, Angels, Braves/Mets, Pirates, and Rockies/Padres.  Really, only the NL Central would surprise me if things ended up like that.  But I'm going to make my own prediction, because I enjoy the chance to be really wrong: Yankees, Twins, A's, Braves, Cubs, Padres. Wild Cards: Red Sox and Mets.  But don't look at me-- I'm the guy who watched baseball every day of the 2003 season and wound up predicting a Braves/Mariners World Series as late as August.  I said I watched baseball, I didn't say I learned from it...