FanHouse BabeRuth

Apparently, the reason the Padres have won all these games the first two weeks of the season is that they needed the postgame handshakes.

To introduce themselves to one another.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a nod to what's ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler had a pretty good night, rolling all sorts of rare feats into one ballgame. The headline is that he hit for the cycle, the first Rangers player to do that since Gary Matthews Jr. on Sept. 13, 2006.

He also had six hits, the first Rangers player to do that since Alfonso Soriano on May 8, 2004, but that was a 10-inning game. So Kinsler is the first in team history to have six knocks in a nine-inning game.

Now, the big one: Kinsler is the first player in major league history to have six hits in a game in which he hit for the cycle.

I haven't exactly been shy about my feelings towards MLB commissioner Bud Selig here at FanHouse, but just in case this is your first visit and you don't have time to check the tag, here's a quick summary. I believe that Bud Selig is an incompetent buffoon that has never cared anything for fans and only about the bottom line of owners all across the league. I also believe that for every good idea he's had (like the wild card) he's had 50 bad ideas (the All-Star game deciding home-field advantage).

While Bud Selig was trying to figure out a way to punish Alex Rodriguez without going after the other 103 anonymous/confidential positive testing players from six years ago, he also threw out the notion that he's thinking about doing something else drastic. You see, Barry Bonds is still under fire for using performance-enhancing drugs as well, and he broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record.

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

Even for baseball, where winter can seem as endless as a trek through the desert with Lawrence of Arabia, this has been a long and cold one. Long before the Alex Rodriguez revelations, the free-agent market slowed to a crawl, bogged down by the economic downturn. Rather than getting treated to the usual flurry of Hot Stove transactions, we got a series of big-money Yankee signings and an endless stream of updates on the on-again, off-again, still-unresolved Manny Ramirez negotiations.

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

It's all too easy in the wake of Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs to throw up our hands and say the numbers mean nothing. If you listen to the echo chamber of hysterical pundits, this is the dawn of a new age of baseball nihilism.

Just not anything in the past we care to talk about.

Mark McGwire has basically kept himself out of the limelight ever since leaving baseball in 2001, with his infamous appearance at the Congressional hearings on steroids being the lone exception. Well this coming Monday will be the ten year anniversary of the night that Big Mac hit his 62nd home run of the 1998 season, and broke Roger Maris' longstanding home run record.

So, with that in mind, the man who wasn't here to talk about the past talked about the past with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"That day, Sept. 8," he said, "I had a real calmness about me. It was a very eerie feeling that I didn't ever experience again or hadn't experienced before. I remember driving to the ballpark and, even with all the hoopla going on, it probably was the only day I felt so peaceful. It was a premonition that 'tonight is going to be the night.'

"The whole year was so spiritual, so universal, with so many things that happened," he said. "I don't know if people believe this stuff, but I think that when the stars are aligned right, things happen.

Later today, the Red Sox will stroll out of the visitor's dugout and face the Yankees for the final time at venerable Yankee Stadium. There will be other goodbyes to the House That Ruth Built in the coming weeks, but with the Bronx Bombers a major longshot to play into October, this series seems to have taken on special significance.

Here are a dozen of the finest moments in the best rivalry in American sports, all of which took place at Yankee Stadium. Even Red Sox fans have to be feeling a little nostalgic about their team's final visit. After all, the franchise's finest hour took place there.

1. Oct. 16, 2003: The ghosts strike one last time. After Red Sox manager Grady Little leaves Pedro Martinez in well past the 100-pitch mark with a 5-2 lead in the eighth inning, the Yankees rally to force extra innings. In the 11th, Aaron Boone sends a deep fly into the Bronx night, sending New York to the World Series and crushing Boston's dreams of ending the Curse of the Bambino again.

As part of the All-Star festivities in New York this week, the folks at Hunt Auctions are selling off some old Yankees memorabilia before the team moves into the new stadium next season. These auctions are always fun, as more often than not, the money goes to charity and you can always get some pretty cool stuff.

For instance, you could have had a bat Babe Ruth signed for Broadway star Tessa Kosta for the low low price of $195,000. If that's a little out of your price range, you could have had Thurman Munson's Rookie of the Year Award for only $46,000.

Of course, for some of you I realize that these types of trinkets just aren't good enough. A signed bat? Please, it was probably never even used in a game! You want something you know was utilized in a real live baseball game. You want something with proof, like say, a hat Babe Ruth once wore stained by his sweat.

A baseball cap worn by New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth has been auctioned for a record $328,000 on Monday.

The sweat-stained cap from around the 1920s sold at an auction of Yankees memorabilia in New York.

Hunt Auctions says the cap is one of only three Yankees hats in existence worn by Ruth during games. It says a hat used by a player had never sold for more than $100,000.

I wonder if anybody told the guy who bought Ruth's hat that he could have just gotten one through the Yankees website for $32, and it would have come stain free. Though, I suppose that would have denied him the opportunity to fill Ruth's hat with water, squeeze it dry, and no doubt get as drunk as the Babe probably was during the game he played in it.

It was announced back in May that David Ortiz would take part in an on-field promotion for State Farm Insurance in which he'd "call his shot" during the Home Run Derby. Considering the Derby is taking place at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees were up in arms about a Red Sox player riffing on a on a piece of storied Babe Ruth lore.

As luck would have it, Ortiz won't be participating in the Derby because of his wrist injury, but it's interesting to note that the Yankees would have gotten their way, nonetheless. Major League Baseball changed the format of the promotion, so instead of just one player calling his shot, both of the finalists from the eight-man field will have their chance.

Granted, there's still a good chance that the sluggers who do call their shot won't be wearing pinstripes (especially with Alex Rodriguez declining an invitation), but at least Yankees fans can rest assured some bum from the Sawx won't be descreating the old ballpark. Because, you know, some things (that may or may not have actually happened and took place 76 years ago at Wrigley Field!) are just sacred.