From the Desk of the Commish

We have now reached the one-third point of the 2004 season. You know what that means. Time for the top stories of the season (so far):

I know what you're thinking: "The Zoots being in first-place hardly qualifies as a news story." True, but this season is different. Not only weren't the Zoots favored to win their division for the first time in league history, but they weren't even favored to make it to the post-season with a wild card berth.

On this very page three months ago, I predicted that the Zoots would finish in third place in the Butler Division. In retrospect, I now realize that prediction was nothing more than wishful thinking. The Zoots currently own the best record in the reconfigured Butler Division (36-20), and third-best record in the BDBL, despite featuring a starting rotation that includes Mark Buehrle, Woody Williams and...well...if you can name another Zoots starter off the top of your head without looking, count yourself among the minority. The Stamford offense, featuring three great hitters surrounded by a bunch of guys your wife has never heard of, has scored 318 runs in the first two chapters (second only to Ravenswood.) And the Zoots pitching staff is sporting an ERA lower than the Salem Cowtippers -- who were supposed to have the greatest pitching staff in BDBL history.

The question is: how did all this happen? How did the Zoots manage to ooze their way back into contention after heading into the winter with such a dreadful foundation of a team in every way, shape and form? And the answer, as always, is that the league allowed it to happen. Not only did the league allow it to happen, but the league just about bent over backwards to ensure that it would happen.

How so? Well, if you participated in trading during this past winter, you know how difficult it was to unload big contracts. No matter who the player was, it seemed that no team was willing to take on any contract of any significant size without unloading a portion of unwanted salary in return. For example:

On and on it went, all winter long. No team was able to trade away a high-salaried player this winter -- no matter how talented or valuable -- unless they agreed to take on some unwanted salary in return. No team, that is, except one.

At $10 million, Chipper Jones was a decent value. On the open market, he may have fetched as much as Bobby Abreu ($9m) -- perhaps a bit less due to the difference in age and defensive ability. But let's face it: because Chipper hits like Juan Pierre (.306/.425/.380) against lefties, he has become a bit expensive. And with $30 million remaining on the 31-year-old Chipper's contract, he had become a tough sell. At least, he would be a tough sell for most of us.

Despite the troubles we mere mortals encountered in trying to move large salaries this winter, Paul Marazita was able to move all $10m of Jones' salary without being forced to take one penny of unwanted salary in exchange. Not only that, but he was able to get several quality, useful players on top of that savings. The Zoots acquired a decent replacement for Jones in left field (Moises Alou), a 92-inning relief pitcher (Scott Linebrink) with a 3.31 ERA, and two budding, young, marketable, former top-10 prospects in Corey Patterson and Hee Seop Choi -- all for only $4.7 million in salary. In the end, Stamford saved a whopping $5.3 million while filling several needs all at once.

Next, Marazita set his sights on unloading Jim Edmonds and his $11.5 million salary. Like Jones, Edmonds had become more than a bit expensive, due to the fact that he hit just .225/.320/.577 against lefties. Once again, however, while everyone else was busy taking on unwanted salary in order to clear room under the salary cap, Marazita was able to unload all $11.5 million of Edmonds' salary without taking on one penny of penalty money toward the 2004 draft.

And once again, not only were the Zoots able to clear all that salary, but they got some useful players in return. In that trade, Stamford received an infielder with an 850+ OPS (Carlos Baerga), plus another marketable, young, former top-10 prospect with tremendous upside (Jerome Williams.) Williams not only gives the Zoots a great arm for the future, but he's proven to be the team's ace this season with a team-best 2.14 ERA through nine games. It isn't often that you see one team help another team in the same division to such a great extent, yet the Lightning were more than willing to pave the way for Stamford's sixth division title in six years, and happily opened the door to the possibility of yet another Zoots appearance in the BDBL World Series. Indeed, just four months after that trade, Stamford is in first-place while the Lightning are flopping around in last-place, 11 games behind them. (And to think, there were a couple of people in the league that actually said this trade "wasn't that bad." I suppose in comparison to other Stamford trades of the past, perhaps.)

Combined, those two trades saved Stamford $16.6 million in salary heading into the draft. With that money, the Zoots were able to replace Edmonds and Jones with Manny Ramirez and Bernie Williams -- with $300,000 left over. Using the money from their original free agent budget, Stamford then added Jose Vidro and Woody Williams to the mix. Later, Choi was shipped off in exchange for Larry Walker and Greg Myers. And later on this season, the Zoots will still have Williams and Patterson available as trade bait when the next white flag is raised.

It took the Salem Cowtippers an entire winter to painstakingly piece together a winning team through sixteen trades, working around the clock, haggling back and forth with multiple GM's while juggling salaries, stars and prospects. Yet in just two phone calls -- one to Phil Geisel and the other to John Gill -- Paul Marazita managed to undo all of that hard work without breaking a sweat.

Even after clearing all that salary and spending all that money on big-name free agents, however, the Zoots still did not look like a division winner on paper heading into this season. Of course, not looking like a championship team on paper has never stopped the Zoots from dominating before. After enjoying a magical Chapter One in which they went 20-8 on the strength of mind-boggling clutch hitting, the Zoots fell to 15-13 in Chapter Two. Which is the real Zoots team? I guess we'll find out.

The Black Sox went into the winter as the favorites to win the Eck League title, thanks to a pitching rotation featuring three young studs: Mark Prior, Josh Beckett and Carlos Zambrano. Even after trading two of those studs over the winter, the Black Sox were still favored to win their division, both here on this page and in BDBL pre-season polling.

With the type of team-wide collapse that has only been witnessed in Salem (and in the Bronx in April of 2004), the Black Sox stumbled out of the gates with a BDBL-worst record of 8-20. After one chapter of play, Chicago inexplicably found themselves in a TWELVE-GAME hole.

Thanks to the slumbering bats of Nomar Garciaparra (.202/.283/.374), Aramis Ramirez (.223/.231/.427) and Vlad Guerrero (.254/.361/.424), the Black Sox hit just .260/.321/.448 as a team. But that was nothing compared to the troubles encountered by the Chicago pitching staff, which posted a league-worst 6.17 ERA after one chapter of play. Brett Myers (0-4, 8.39 ERA), Matt Herges (7.23 ERA over 18+ innings), Kerry Ligtenberg (12.46 ERA over 13 IP), Brad Penny (1-3, 5.94), Rheal Cormier (6.62 ERA over 17+ IP) and Darren Oliver (1-3, 4.71) were bloody awful. Even the team's ace, Prior (1-0, 4.41) managed just one win in the chapter.

Understandably frustrated, Chicago GM John Gill rolled out the white flag. On March 2nd, Gill posted a note on the message board stating that his "whole team is available", including Garciaparra, Guerrero, Penny and Cormier. But after cooling off for a while, Gill decided to temporarily reel in the white flag and stick it out for another chapter. And it was a good thing he did.

In Chapter Two, the Black Sox posted a BDBL-best record of 22-6. They out-scored their opponents by a BDBL-best 76 runs. The Chicago offense scored a league-best 174 runs, and the Chicago pitching staff posted a league-best 3.17 ERA.

How can a team lose 20 games one chapter, then win 20 games the next, without making one change in personnel? How can the same group of pitchers chop off three runs per game off their ERA? How can the same group of hitters improve their OPS by 60 points from one chapter to the next?

It's called, "baseball." Wacky stuff happens all the time, both in DMB and in real life. (How could the Yankees add Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield to their lineup and score FEWER runs?) The Black Sox are now sporting a record of 30-26 -- just FIVE games behind the division leader. It is without question the most stunning reversal of fortune in league history, and it is a story that I'm sure will be followed closely throughout the remainder of the season. Let this be a lesson to teams that consider throwing in the towel after one bad chapter.

The Cowtippers came into the 2004 season favored by league pre-season polling to win the BDBL championship. Their starting rotation, comprised of Curt Schilling, Brandon Webb, Kerry Wood, Barry Zito and Tomo Ohka, was favorably compared to the greatest rotations in BDBL history. Their bullpen, headed by lights-out stoppers Guillermo Mota and Francisco Cordero, was considered to be very strong. And their starting lineup, which included the likes of Lance Berkman, Trot Nixon, Luis Gonzalez, Milton Bradley, Michael Young, Sean Burroughs and Mark Teixeira, was a shoo-in to score 900 runs, minimum.

After two chapters of play, the Cowtippers are sitting on a record of 31-25, five games out of first place. They have out-scored their opponents by just 31 runs. The offense ranks just fifth in runs scored, and the world-renowned pitching staff ranks just fourth in ERA. Berkman and Gonzalez are each sporting a slugging percentage below .400, Wood and Ohka are sporting ERA's over 5.00, and Mota's ERA is a lofty 4.95. Zito is just 5-5 with a 4.66 ERA, and Schilling is two games below .500 (3-5, 4.29 ERA.)

How can an entire team slump so badly for so long? See the last paragraph in the previous story on the Chicago Black Sox.

More than mere underperformance, however, what continues to torture Cowtipper fans is not how often this team loses, but the way in which they lose. Of Salem's 56 games this season, 21 (38%) have been decided by one run. And of those 21 games, Salem has lost 12 of them.

The odds are that Wood, Schilling, Zito, Ohka and Mota will eventually begin to pitch as well as expected. The odds are that Berkman and Gonzalez will eventually start hitting for power and getting on base at a respectable rate. The odds are that Salem will eventually win some of those close, one-run games. The odds are that players like Tomas Perez, Sandy Alomar, Todd Zeile, Greg Norton, Luis Rivas, Kenny Rogers, Charles Johnson and John Thomson won't continue to punish the Cowtippers game after game. The odds are that Salem's luck will change, eventually.

New Milford Blazers fans had suffered through a BDBL-record 519 losses coming into the 2004 season, and 2004 wasn't looking particularly bright heading into this season. Yet two chapters in, the Blazers are sitting comfortably in third place in the Butler Division, two games over .500, and just two games behind the wild card leader. The Blazers front office is so excited about this turn of events, they have actually begun trading away prospects in the middle of the season in exchange for immediate help -- something that is unprecedented in Blazers history.

Where did these guys come from? How did this happen? How long will this last? Is this, in fact, a sign of the Apocalypse?

For starters, let's look at the offense. Here is a little chart for your viewing pleasure, showing the difference between New Milford's stats and the league average:

Year	BA Diff	OBP Diff	SLG Diff	Runs Rank
2004	+.004	0	+.014	5
2003	+.001	-.017	-.009	9
2002	-.006	-.023	-.023	11
2001	0	-.009	-.021	8
2000	+.009	0	-.019	10
1999	+.009	-.007	-.012	12

Just in case you still weren't convinced that there is less correlation between batting average and run scoring than there is between OBP or SLG and run scoring, here is further proof. For the past five years, the Blazers have built an offense around batting average, and that strategy has resulted in an offense that has ranked among the bottom five in the league in scoring for five years straight.

Why the sudden turnaround? Has Billy Baseball been reading "Moneyball?" Does this year's team represent a radical paradigm shift in philosophy? Not exactly. Most of this year's OBP and SLG gain result from the performance of one player: Todd Helton. Helton, who was acquired in a trade prior to the 2003 season (a trade that was laughably compared to the Edmonds trade this past winter), is hitting .397/.512/.658 on the season. He has walked a whopping FIFTY times in 56 games, and has struck out just 18 times. Take away Todd Helton, and the Blazers offense is sporting a .306 OBP and a .402 SLG -- far below the league averages of .333 and .415, respectively.

Make no mistake about it: Todd Helton has carried the Blazers so far. He has accounted for over a quarter of New Milford's runs created. (By way of comparison, Barry Bonds has accounted for "just" 21.8% of Allentown's runs.) Can Helton continue to mash at this rate? Probably not. Which means the Blazers offense will eventually revert back to form.

But wait! Hold the phone! The Blazers have just acquired Melvin Mora (.317/.418/.503 in MLB '03.) So, while Helton may not be able to carry the weight of the Blazers offense alone, Mora will certainly be an upgrade over shortstop David Eckstein (.252/.325/.325). Of course, Mora came at the sacrifice of pitching, so let's look at the pitching staff.

In addition to Helton, the Blazers also acquired their ace, Mike Mussina, in that same pre-2003 trade with the Cowtippers. Mussina currently leads the Blazers team in wins (5), innings (82.1) and ERA (3.17). The pitcher that was traded for Mora, C.C. Sabathia, ranks second on the team in ERA (4.20) and third in innings (60). He will be replaced in the rotation, one assumes, with Doug Davis (1-1, 4.64 as a Hammerhead.)

Let's do some basic math. Sabathia had about 157 innings left on his usage clock, and he sported an MLB ERC of 3.70. About 100 of those innings will be filled by Davis, whose ERC is 5.46. That's 65 runs allowed by Sabathia, versus 61 allowed by Davis. But wait -- there's still 57 innings left to fill. Assuming the Blazers don't trade for another starting pitcher, the remaining options to fill those 57 innings are pretty gruesome. Let's assume, however, that those 57 innings will be filled by Horacio Ramirez, who up until this point has been used out of the bullpen (even though he's not a reliever.)

You remember Ramirez, right? He was the guy that was acquired last year (along with the immortal Zach Day) for Kevin Millwood, who carried the Zoots to their fourth trophy in five years. Yep, that guy. Now, Ramirez's ERC is 4.21, which means he should allow about 27 runs in those 57 innings. Add it all up, and the combo of Ramirez and Davis will allow about 23 runs more than Sabathia.

So, in order for that trade to have a positive effect on the wins column, Mora must be able to generate more than 23 runs over what Eckstein would have delivered. Mora has about 275 at-bats left in his usage. In 275 at-bats, he should be able to create about 62 runs (a simple projection, based on the fact that Mora created 77.9 runs in 344 MLB AB's.) Eckstein would create about 31 runs over the same number of at-bats, giving them a difference of 31 runs.

So, after all that math, what have we learned? By trading Sabathia for Mora, the Blazers have improved themselves by about 8 runs. And since it takes about 10 runs to translate into a win, the Blazers have gained less than a win through that trade.

Something tells me it's going to take a bit more than that to win the OL wild card this year.

Coming into this season, the big stories in the Hrbek Division all centered around teams giving away good, young pitching. The Black Sox traded away Josh Beckett and Carlos Zambrano, while the Ryche traded away Mark Mulder. Then, of course, there was the story of the Cleveland Rocks, who stockpiled good, young pitching, but at a cost that was greater than any other team had spent in the history of the league.

The result has been a very exciting divisional race between those three teams. The Black Sox's roller coaster ride has already been chronicled here, so I won't cover that again. The Rocks have become the Eck League's version of the Los Altos Undertakers:

The Undertakers lead the BDBL in fewest runs allowed. The Rocks are #2. The Undertakers rank 9th in the OL in runs scored, and the Rocks rank 11th. If the Rocks had a cyborg in the bullpen, a group of giggling pre-teens in their farm system, and often played their catcher at second base in the late innings, you wouldn't be able to tell the two teams apart.

Then, there is the third team in the race -- the team currently sporting a winning percentage over .600 and is leading the division by four games. How are the Ryche getting along without Mulder? Just fine, thank you. They currently rank second in the EL, thanks to another brilliant year by Pedro Martinez (6-2, 2.18) and the ungodly bullpen work of Eric DuBose (3-0, 0.32), Ron Mahay (1-0, 0.84), David Riske (2-0, 1.23) and Tim Spooneybarger (2-1, 2.61, with a league-leading 15 saves.)

The Ryche are also getting head-shakingly-good pitching performances from Jason "Who" Davis, whose ERA (3.29) is over a run and a half lower than his MLB ERA (4.68), and - get this - Jeff Weaver, whose ERA (3.80) is over TWO RUNS LOWER than his MLB ERA (5.99). In case you're wondering how this could be possible, I'll just mention that Akron's pitching coach is Gaylord Perry. Need I say more?

Between Chapters One and Two, the Black Sox flip-flopped from 8-20 to 22-6, the Ryche followed the Stamford career path, going from 20-8 to 15-13, and the Rocks fell from 17-11 to 14-14. It's only going to get more wild and wacky from here on out, folks, so strap in tight!

The Los Altos Undertakers have the lowest team batting average (.235) in the BDBL, the third-lowest OBP (.314) in the BDBL, and the second-lowest slugging percentage (.386) in the BDBL. Yet they lead the Ozzie League -- and are second in the entire BDBL -- in wins, with 37.

The reason, of course, is their pitching. While the Undertakers have scored just 249 runs this season (8th in the OL), they have allowed just 206 runs all season -- the lowest total in the BDBL. While everyone was wasting time and energy debating whether or not the Salem Cowtippers owned the best pitching staff in league history, it is the Undertakers' staff that is dominating like few other pitching staffs before it. The BDBL record for fewest runs allowed in a season is 569, set by the Salem Cowtippers in 2002. The Undertakers are on pace to allow 589 runs, which would put them in third place all-time.

If you're thinking that the Undertakers pitchers are merely performing over their heads, and will eventually fall back to Earth, think again:

Pitcher	MLB ERA	BDBL ERA	Diff
Gagne	1.20	0.28	-0.92
Leskanic	2.22	1.71	-0.51
Moyer	3.27	2.13	-1.14
Sullivan	3.66	2.60	-1.06
Perez	4.52	2.63	-1.89
Franklin	3.57	3.81	+0.24
May	3.77	3.81	+0.04
Shouse	3.10	3.94	+0.84
Tejera	4.67	4.18	-0.49
Chacon	4.60	4.62	+0.02
Mecir	5.59	5.73	+0.14
Koplove	2.15	5.74	+3.59
Total	3.68	3.22	-0.46

The fact is, the Los Altos ERA is only about a half-run better than expected, and given the Undertakers' home field, that is a trend that should continue throughout the year. But what about the hitting? Should we expect the hitting to improve in the next four chapters?

Player	MLB OPS	DMB OPS	Diff
Beltre	714	806	+92
Cruz	779	750	-29
Gibbons	786	661	-125
Hernandez	789	699	-90
Loretta	814	729	-85
McMillon	812	603	-209
Monroe	736	765	+29
Overbay	767	568	-199
Thome	958	765	-193
Valentin	776	623	-153
Williams	730	732	+2
Total	770	700	-70

Oddly enough, though four players are posting OPS's that are over 150 points below their MLB OPS's, the overall team's OPS is just 70 points (or 10%) lower than expected. To be honest, it's hard to see how those numbers could be accurate, but they are.

In any event, the Undertakers have proven, once again, that they are not a fluke. They've also proven that their manager was wrong when he said the following on February 20th: "I have no offense at all...and you can't win when you don't score."

Speaking in terms of general, recent history, if a team is more than six games out of the pennant race by the end of the second chapter, chances are very slim that team will be able to make it to the post-season. As I type, no less than 18 of the 24 teams in the BDBL are within six games of a playoff spot.

Because of that fact, and because of the new incentive rule we passed last year, only three or four teams have officially waved the white flag so far.

That is not to say that we still don't have a sizeable gulf between the "have's" and "have-not's" in the BDBL. We still have five teams sporting winning percentages above .600, and four teams that are below .400. But in general, it seems that there are more teams clinging to hope right now than there have been in past years.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Gillette, where the Swamp Rats have just traded their top two prospects, Joe Blanton and Gerald Laird, in exchange for David Wells and Kirk Rueter. Coming off two straight 90-loss seasons, Gillette find themselves tied for second-place in their division, five games behind the Ravenswood Infidels and two games behind the Cowtippers in the OL wild card race.

Can Boomer and Rueter make all the difference for the 'Rats? Probably not. But it's fun to see a team trying its best to win for a change, rather than throwing in the towel before Cinco de Mayo.

After going to the World Series in each of the past two years, the Allentown Ridgebacks were supposed to have a tough time competing this year. One of their aces, Curt Schilling, bolted through free agency. Another ace, Randy Johnson, suffered through an injury-plagued season in which he pitched just half a season (114 innings) and posted an un-Johnson-like 4.26 ERA while allowing 16 homers and more hits than innings. Their third ace, Roy Oswalt, also pitched just half a season (127+ innings) due to injury. And their fourth ace, Jake Peavy, posted a solid, yet mediocre 4.12 ERA in his first full MLB season.

Offensively, the Ridgebacks lost Manny Ramirez to free agency, and headed into the auction with less money ($6.5 million) to spend than any other team in the BDBL. Yet here we are, two chapters into the 2004 season, and the Ridgebacks are sporting the best record in the BDBL at 38-18.

How did this happen? Like their evil counterparts in the OL, the Ridgebacks were able to rise from the ashes of mediocrity thanks to a little help (make that a LOT of help) from their friends.

First, in a stunning three-team trade this winter, with the Akron Ryche and Villanova Mustangs, the Ridgebacks were somehow able to walk away with one of the league's best, young, bargain pitchers, Mark Mulder. In exchange, they parted with Geoff Jenkins and an assortment of spare parts. That day, Akron GM D.J. Shepard defended the trade by writing, "Do you think that Mulder/Jenkins is all that lopsided? It looks pretty even to me."

One-third of the way into the season, Mulder is leading the Ridgebacks in wins (6), while sporting a nifty 3.14 ERA (good for 10th in the EL.) In 77+ innings, he has yielded 76 hits and 28 walks, striking out 61. Jenkins, meanwhile, is hitting .241/.333/.426 for the Ryche. In 53 games, he has created 22.7 runs. In comparison, Karim Garcia (who was acquired by Allentown in that deal as a throw-in "just to make things even") is batting .297/.342/.436 with 25.7 runs created on the season. So far, then, one could safely say that the Ridgebacks have made out like bandits on that trade.

In another pre-season deal, the Ridgebacks acquired Sidney Ponson from the Atlanta Fire Ants (along with top-50 prospect Jayson Nix) in exchange for Paul LoDuca, Mark Hendrickson, Aaron Rowand and Guillermo Quiroz. Ponson currently leads the Ridgebacks staff (and ranks third in the EL) in ERA at 2.59, and is 4-3 on the season. In 90+ innings, Ponson has surrendered 91 hits and 16 walks while striking out 48. LoDuca, meanwhile, is batting .243/.295/.304 for the Fire Ants, while Hendrickson is sporting a spiffy 6.52 ERA through 48+ innings of work. (Rowand has yet to bat for the Fire Ants this season.) Assuming the four players acquired by the Fire Ants don't turn into productive players within the next two years (which is a pretty safe assumption), this was yet another sweet deal for the Ridgebacks.

Thanks to a revamped pitching staff, built primarily through the generous contributions of their fellow EL GM's, the Ridgebacks now own a 4.09 team ERA, good for fifth in the EL. It's safe to say that without Mulder and Ponson, the R-Backs wouldn't be anywhere near fifth place in that category.

Offensively, the Ridgebacks are still benefiting from the overwhelming generosity of yet another EL "rival", the Cleveland Rocks, a year ago. In 2003, you may remember, the Ridgebacks pulled off yet another multi-team trade where they somehow managed to emerge from that convoluted four-team cluster-f**k with the game's greatest hitter, Barry Bonds.

In that trade, the R-Backs sacrificed Brad Wilkerson, Ryan Klesko and Robert Fick among other assorted useless spare parts. After leading the Ridgebacks to their second consecutive World Series in 2003, Bonds is hitting a modest .296/.479/.688 in 2004. He has created 69.4 runs, good for third in the EL (and that is considered to be a slump.) Klesko and Fick were released this past winter (at significant cost), while Wilkerson has created 32 runs so far in 2004. Even if you add in Cliff Floyd, who was acquired by Cleveland in that trade from Villanova, you barely get more runs created (72) than Bonds has created all by himself. Yes, that was yet another great deal for the Ridgebacks.

Perhaps some day teams will finally get tired of seeing the Ridgebacks and Zoots in the World Series, and will stop handing them the keys to the World Series limo. I doubt it, but one can always hope.

There really isn't much to say about this story, other than that it has been a major story of the 2004 season so far (and perhaps the only real controversy of the season to this point.) What began with three unfortunate early departures by Roy Halladay has turned into a running joke, which included perhaps the best prank ever pulled in the BDBL (or at least a close second to the Mike Fitzgerald prank.)

Not surprisingly, the Nashville Funkadelic currently lead the league in random injuries with 16. The next-closest team is the Great Lakes Sphinx, who have suffered a dozen. (Funny, though, you don't hear Scott constantly bitching and moaning about it!)

While the controversy may be dead for now, that is only temporary. I'm sure it will rise once again the next time Halladay is forced out of a game.

In his rookie year as GM in the BDBL, Brian "Skizm" Potrafka has proven he belongs. The Ravenswood Infidels are currently sporting a record of 34-22, five games ahead in the Benes Division standings over the Marlboro Hammerheads and Gillette Swamp Rats. Not only that, but the Infidels are currently the most dominant team in the league in terms of out-scoring their opponents (a BDBL-high 92 runs.)

The Infidels have scored more runs (323) than any other team in the BDBL, thanks to some mind-boggling contributions from some puzzling role players such as Eduardo Perez (.356/.473/.466 over 73 AB), Frank Catalanotto (.350/.434/.479 over 117 AB) and Desi Relaford (.326/.442/.581 over 86 AB). Carlos Delgado is earning his $11 million by hitting .291/.417/.563, while Ivan Rodriguez (.344/.431/.541) leads the team with 51 runs created.

On the mound, the Infidels own the second-best ERA in the Ozzie League (3.67) thanks to more mind-boggling contributions from more puzzling role players such as Danny Kolb (1.03 ERA over 26+ innings), Garrett Stephenson (4-1, 2.95 over 64 IP, with an OL-best 8.2 runners allowed per nine) and Dan Miceli (3.48 ERA over 33+ IP).

Can Ravenswood continue to out-perform their expectations for another four chapters? The Hammerheads and Swamp Rats -- and even the Irish Rebels -- are all banking against it. Right now, the Infidels are holding a very comfortable lead, and I'm sure Skizm has a few tricks up his sleeve over the next four chapters. Personally, I wouldn't bet against them.

Top Ten Stories of 2004 (So Far)