Despite being atop the AL Central for most of the 2011 campaign the Cleveland Indians may have been showing their true colors over the past three weeks. After a blistering April (18–8) and a decent May (14–12) the Tribe rolled into June with their chests out as they sported a 12-games-over-.500 record and a solid five game lead over second place Detroit.

Descriptions of Manny Acta’s Boys as being this year’s version of the 2010 World Champion Giants: a collection of youngsters, wily veterans and reclamation projects that just might be for real — seemed to have some merit. At the time the Indians were pitied as being “the-best-team-in-baseball-that-no-one- went-to-see” — given that their attendance numbers were near the bottom of the league. Maybe Clevelanders knew something we didn’t.

June came, the weather warmed and the Indians cooled. They’ve lost eight of ten and 15 of 20 (and that was before their two most recent losses in a three game set with the Tigers), but actually they haven’t even looked that good. During those 15 losses they were shut out six times and in their last five victories they won two games by a 1-0 margin. Their lineup has been anemic since the middle of May and for the year they are hitting just .250 as a team. That ranks them tenth of 14 A.L. teams. Their pitching and defense rankings are only average (8th in both categories) and their unearned run total of 23 (a measure of how often their errors hurt them) is also smack in the middle of the pack.

Were it not for the fact that, other than Leyland’s boys, there isn’t a team in the division within a whiff of .500 (well, okay the Pale Hose are three games under .500), the Indians wouldn’t have looked so strong early on. Actually, their play against those central division bantamweights is an uninspiring 12-11. Add it all up and the Indians are, well, average. Given that Cleveland’s payroll is 26th out of 30 teams “average” probably isn’t all that bad. At least they can say they’re not the Cavaliers.

(Top: Photo of Cleveland’s Manny Acta by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images North America)

Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez was the hero again on Sunday in New York, providing a clutch single in the 11th inning to give his team a 3-2 lead, as the Washington Nationals went on to seal a 7-3 victory. Laynce Nix padded the lead with a three run home run that put the game out of reach. The win allowed the Nats to exit from a tough New York series with a 2-1 edge in games, and brought their record to 4-5 on the season. The Nats will take Monday off, before facing the Philadelphia Phillies in Washington beginning on Tuesday. It looks as if “Pudge” could be shaping a new role on the team — not only as back-up to Wilson Ramos, but as a player you have to bring to the plate when the game is on the line.

Guess Who’s In First Place? Yeah, okay — the Phillies. But over in the AL Central the Cleveland Indians have compiled an astonishing 7-2 record and lead the Pale Hose by a full game. The Tribe, it seems, is hitting on all cracked cylinders: off-season acquisition Orlando Cabrera is hitting .375, youngster Michael Brantley is hitting lead-off (and getting on base), fleet footed shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera is racking up hits (and strike outs), and yesterday righty sophomore Josh Tomlin threw 6.2 in taming the Seattle Awfuls. This will make former Nats’ great and Cleveland manager Manny Acta feel good — he was telling anyone who was listening in Spring Training that the Indians were a sleeper and that they would compete for the top spot with the Twinkies and Konerkos. So, break up the Indians — right? Well, not just yet.

NL Least fans will remember that, back in 2009, the Florida Marlins began the season 11-1. That was their record on April 19. Everyone around the league was oohing and ahhing about the Fish, with some commentators saying that they were “the team to beat” in the National League. And it’s true: the Marlins were on fire, they were playing well — but not well enough. On April 27, the Marlins still had 11 wins, but with 8 losses. On May 8, they were 16-14. They were a solid team, even a very good team, but they weren’t great and they certainly weren’t the team to beat in the National League. They had come back to earth. On May 23, they were six games under .500. We all breathed a sign of relief: the sun rose in the east, set in the west — and the Florida Marlins were still the Florida Marlins. Of course (Marlins fans will claim), their team went on to have a pretty good year: they finished in second place in the NL East, which was good enough for . . . ah, second place in the NL East.

The same thing could happen to the fast-starting Indians. But it’s doubtful: they aren’t an average team, they’re a franchise that’s rebuilding. They won’t be 16-14 on May 8, they’ll be 14-16, or worse. They aren’t even the very good 2009 Florida Marlins: they’re the not-very-good 2011 Cleveland Indians. The Indians have some “good young players,” including underrated right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, who’s one of the best young players in baseball. Which is to say: when sports yackers tell you that a team has “some good young players,” what it means is “they better have, because they don’t have much else.” Of course, we can’t be totally negative. If the Tribe finishes the year at .500, it will be one of this year’s most dramatic stories. One thing’s for sure: back in 2009, the same columnists and baseball writers that said that the Marlins were the team to beat had forgotten all about them in September.

The Chicago Cubs got healthy in Washington, taking four games of a four game set, the last an embarrassing blowout with seeming ramifications for both the starting staff and the bullpen. Julian “Coo Coo” Tavarez was designated for assignment after the game and Logan Kensing was recalled from Syracuse. The Tavarez decision came several games too late; Tavarez had a habit of walking first batters and was particularly ineffective in his last three outings. The well-traveled Tavarez (eleven stops in 17 years) was optimistic about his chances of catching on with another club: “Tomorrow I’m going to be running and throwing balls, waiting for someone to give me a phone call. I’ll be back.” Maybe: but Tavarez, who has worn out his welcome, won’t be back in Washington. Logan Kensing, late of the Marlins, was recalled from Syracuse and will be given another chance with the big club.

It’s unlikely the Nats are finished shuffling. After a pre-All Star Game letter apologizing for their first half antics and the firing of Nats good guy Manny Acta, the Nationals and Jim Riggleman are in the midst of a mid-season slump that belies Riggleman’s promise that “We will turn it around.” It was hard to feel that during the Nats’ collapse on Sunday — the combination of a stadium half-filled with Cubs fans, an Alberto Gonzalez booted ball, the unraveling of Garrett Mock and ”Coo Coo’s” antics combined to send Nats’ fans home early. The stadium started emptying in the top of the 6th (it almost reminded me of Shea), leaving fans of the North Side Drama Queens to celebrate their victory. The Slugs are now rolling towards the Redbirds, whom they trail by two games. The Cubs head north to face the Phuzzies, while the Nats will square off against the Chokes, who are coming in from Atlanta — where they lost three of four.

Down On Half Street: It takes time to assess a trade, but Mike Rizzo’s acquisition of Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett is looking more and more like a steal. Morgan has gained the most attention, but Burnett (who should have been on the mound for “Coo Coo” on Sunday) has continued to impress. His ERA has dropped nearly half-a-point since his arrival in Washington. But Burnett has been used sparingly: logging less than nine innings in eight outings. During that same period, “Coo Coo” faced double the batters of Burnett, while his ERA rose by the same rate as Burnett’s fell. I don’t get it . . . MLB Network showed Ryan Langerhans in left field for the Mariners the other day. The former Chop and Nats’ outfielder’s BA has ping-ponged with the Blue and Teal. Meanwhile Mike Morse, the player Rizzo obtained for Langerhans, is hitting the hell out of the ball in Syracuse. Morse, a third round draft choice for the Pale Hose has been haunted by injuries and the Mariners seemingly ran out of patience with him. Morse has played short and third, but he’s now holding down second for the Chiefs. Morse is big, tough and hits the long ball and he has a good glove. He could be in Washington soon . . . 

Around the NL Least: Kingman over at The Real Dirty Mets Blog loves the Ryan Church for Jeff Francoeur trade and says he has not yet given up hope on the Mets’ season. Readers of CFG know we have no brief for Francoeur, but we would probably take the swap. Francoeur was smiling all the way through the Mets’ loss to the Chops on Sunday in Atlanta, while Church looks like the same old Ryan Church that once played for the Nats . . . Braves Baseball Blog, meanwhile, makes a plea to Atlanta’s front office: “Another bat would be all I want. With offense struggling [the Braves] are in dire need of a legitimate bat to give support to McClouth, Chipper and B-Can . . . I’m very optimistic that it will happen, but some players I wouldn’t mind getting would be Holliday, Teahan, Jeremy Hermida, and or Alex Rios. But I don’t want the team to be trading away any potential future studs just so they can win now . . . not worth it in my opinion . . . ” The newest addition to nleastchatter is Fish Guts. This’ll be the last time I agree with a Phish fan, but he’s right about the new stadium and plans to replace the Marlins’ uniforms: ”my dream is that they keep the home whites with pinstripes, as I think those are some of the classiest threads in all of baseball.” That’s true . . .

So Let’s Put A “Curly L” In The Books: The “Jim Riggleman” era began in Washington last night, with a loss to the Chicago Cubs. Nats fans and baseball analysts and columnists who follow the team are so downhearted, however, that they seem to see no diffence between this “era” and the last. Indeed, the same plague — poor fielding and a collapsing bullpen — seem as ever present now as it did before the all star break. It’s hard to blame anyone for not noticing any difference between last night’s loss and (say) the embarrassing play of the team in Colorado and Houston. But there were, in fact, some fairly obvious differences. Cristian Guzman, for instance, seemed reenergized, snagging two tough grounders that (I can’t help feeling) he would have booted under Manny. And Alberto Gonzalez went two for three at the plate, raising his batting average to .342. Take a bow Manny. Alberto’s hitting is a confirmation of the ex-Manager’s judgment that the kid at second is now ready for prime time, a decision that Riggleman has (thankfully) endorsed. As for Guzman, I get the impression that Riggleman had a little chat with him — or maybe he didn’t have to. 

The NL “Least”: The Nats are the only team in the NL East to not be playing an inter-division rival. While last night’s head-to-head games were hardly the last that the Phuzzies, Chokes, Phish and Chops will have with each other (or with our Anacostia Boys), they were emblamatic of the kinds of knock-down-drag-outs (or perhaps “surrenders”) that are likely to characterize the rest of the season in the NL East. New York’s tussle in Atlanta with “the Chops” not only resulted in an Atlanta win, it symbolized the kinds of problems the ailing New York 9 is having. Chipper Jones stroked an RBI single in the seventh to break a 3-3 deadlock and the Braves went on to win 5-3 in nine. The new Mets’ savior, Jeff Francoeur, went 0-4, with an infield single that scored a run. That’s about standard for the whiney Francoeur, who was swapped for the appropriately named Ryan Church in a straight-up trade of “we-don’t-want-him-anymore” outfielders. The Mets bullpen, a weakness last year but a strength this year, failed to hold the Chops — with the otherwise lights-out Pedro Feliciano serving up the Jones game-winning RBI in 1/3 or an inning’s work.

In Miami, the little engine that could — Jamie Moyer — hooked the Phish, holding them to one hit in seven innings of work. You have to wonder what the Marlins are going to do the rest of the way: their starting five looks suddenly vulnerable and their “closer by committee” plan hasn’t ever worked for anyone. That leaves the Phish depending on the bats of Emilio Bonafacio, Jorge Cantu, Dan Uggla, Hanley Ramirez and Jeremy Hermida to generate runs, which is not such a bad bet were it not for the fact that the Miami front five went 1 for 14 last night. Okay, so Jamie Moyer isn’t Tim Lincecum, but you see the point. Calling Moyer ”that wily and crafty veteran” doesn’t compensate for a night in which Miami failed miserably to show the Phuzzies that they were going to fight them for the division flag. 

If last night is any indication, the Mets, Marlins and Braves are going to have trouble staying with the Phillies, with the Phuzzies having the inside track on winning the division. The Mets are not only hobbled, the horses they were depending on to put them back in the post-season are not producing: David Wright has suddenly and inexplicably lost his home run stroke and no date has been set for the return of injured semi-stars Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran. And Mets fans counting on the return of Jose Reyes will just have to wait: the everyday shortstop is still nursing his nagging calf and there’s a growing feeling he might be done for the year. But that’s hardly the worst problem facing the Chokes: the team has no starting rotation outside of Johan Santana and screaming and yelling that Mike Pelfrey is the answer doesn’t make it so. He’s not. After working through the off-season to remake “the great collapsable bullpen,” Omar Minaya can feel good that the Chokes have one of the best core of relief pitchers in the game — and very little else. Certainly Minaya must be calculating his own future, knowing full well that this time the Mets’ ownership will look for someone else to fire besides the manager.

The Phish are flopping, the Chokes are choking, and the Chops are struggling. Which is to the point: in comparison to the NL West, where the Dodgers, Giants and Rockies are likely to fight it out for the division flag (and the likely NL wild card birth) and in comparison to the NL Central — where only the Pirates seem out of the running — the NL East looks more like “the NL Least,” with a team that is the worst in baseball and three others that are in various states of collapse. The result is that the division will probably be sorting itself out fairly soon – especially if Philadelphia lands fireballer Roy Halladay in a trade.

But even without Halladay, the Phuzzies are putting distance between themselves and the rest of the division, with Florida five games back and Atlanta six. Halladay will be added, then, though not to finish the Phish, choke the Chokes or sink the Chops — the Phillies are looking ahead to the post-season: to the Dodgers, Cards and Giants. The disparity in talent in “the Least” is obvious: Philadelphia has everything it needs to take on the other NL contenders in the post-season, while the Braves, Marlins and Mets are trying to solve major problems. It’s painful to say it, but if the Nats had any kind of a team at all . . .

As tradition would have it, 1997 was a fairly typical year for the Chicago Cubs. The Also-Rans boasted a power-packed line-up of potential Hall of Famers (Ryne Sandberg and Sammy Sosa), a handful of on-base guys (Mark Grace and Shawon Dunston) and a few young faces with great potential — like starting pitcher Geremi Gonzalez and outfielder Doug Glanville. Which is why the season caught so many Cubs fans by surprise: the team started losing in late April and didn’t stop until September. Their final numbers reflected their futility: they were dead last in the NL with only 68 wins, which tied them with the even more hapless Phillies. If the arc of the Cubs’ ’97 season was ever downward, then the arc of Cubs manager Jim Riggleman was upwards — a reflection of his increased irritation and angry outbursts. By the end of September, the Chicago baseball press were following Riggleman around like a pack of hounds. He was “good copy” — questioning the team’s attitude and criticizing unnamed players for being “selfish.”

The 1997 season is emblamatic of Riggleman’s style: he’s not above criticizing players, speaking his mind, or making tough decisions. In the middle of the ’97 season, in an effort to provide some spark to the Cubs’ line-up (and to signal that no one was above being called out for not producing) he benched Ryne Sandberg, then defended his decision in public as lynch mobs formed on Michigan Avenue. Riggleman then confronted outfielder Sammy Sosa in the Cubs clubhouse, when the outfielder insisted on playing loud Latin music on his boombox, even after a Cubs loss. Sosa regularly ran through Riggleman’s signs and seemed so intent on hitting thirty homers that he remained unphased by the Cubs’ play. By July, the Cubs were two teams: a Latin team clustered around Sosa and an increasingly disaffected core of veterans who were tired of losing.

The betting for the ’98 season was that if it came to a choice between Sosa or Riggleman, the Cubs skipper would be gone. Which makes the ’98 season that much more of a surprise: not only did Riggleman stay on, he patched up relations with Sosa, united the Cubs’ clubhouse, and re-jiggered the Cubs line-up, batting Sosa ahead of on-base hitting machine Mark Grace. The result was a Cubs’ revival that surprised even the most die-hard Cubs fans, earning the team a spot in the National League playoffs. “I treat players the way I want to be treated,” Riggleman said in the middle of the season, an admission, perhaps, that his ’97 irritability was misplaced, but also a signal that his policy of discipline had not been forgotten. In ’98, Sammy Sosa began to take instruction, turned down his boombox and yielded to Riggleman’s signs. Riggleman even had a bounce in his step when he went to the mound. At one point, he admitted that team losses fed his irritability. ”It know it eats at me daily,” he said.

Riggleman’s reputation as an outspoken disciplinarian followed him to Seattle, where he took over as the Mariners’ interim-manager in 1998. It didn’t take him long to become the darling of the Seattle media, who learned that he was as good a copy for the Post-Intelligencer as he had once been for the Chicago Tribune. Coincidentally — or perhaps not — the kinds of divisions that had plagued him in Chicago were present in the Mariners’ clubhouse. When some of Seattle’s players (including some of the team’s more medicre pitchers) criticized Ichiro Suzuki, Riggleman (an Ichiro defender) lit into them. Why were players criticizing Ichiro? His answer was blunt to the point of being painful: “Pettiness, seventh-grade mentality, just pettiness of whatever jealousy, pointing fingers, deflecting responsibility, lack of accountability, just a lack of a character. These things happen when you’re losing; you’re not seeing that happen with winning teams now. But those winning teams go out and lose a couple games and you’ll see it.”

A tiger doesn’t change its stripes and Jim Riggleman will remain Jim Riggleman — he’s an outspoken disciplinarian with a good baseball mind, but he cultivates controversy and isn’t above leveling criticisms not only at players, but also at owners, scouts and general managers. If he is given a poor product he’ll say so, as he did in Seattle (“the deficiencies start at the top,” he said), where his off-the-cuff remarks made him fanatical supporters among Mariners’ fans, but few friends in the front office. Which is why Don Wakamatsu is now in Seattle and Jim Riggleman is in Washington. He will “tighten the ship,” impose discipline and shake things up. If being bad-tempered will make the Nats hit, field, pitch and run better, he’ll be a hero. But if that doesn’t work, don’t be surprised if “Gentleman Jim” trains his sights on Mike Rizzo and Stan Kasten. When he does, they’ll wish they were somewhere else — or they’ll wish he was.

The announcement that Manny Acta has been dismissed as manager of the Washington Nationals will not come as a surprise to Nats fans. The move had been rumored for weeks, with three-time manager (Padres, Cubs and Mariners) and Nats bench coach Jim Riggleman waiting in the wings as the heir-apparent since the beginning of the year. His last 72 hours on the job were among Acta’s finest: in the face of mounting criticism from on-air analysts Ray Knight and Rob Dibble, Acta defended his team. “It’s a long season. Every one of these guys are going to go through a tough time — offensively and defensively. They are human. That’s why we have to have the patience. It’s very difficult for every one of these guys to be on top of their game for 162 games of the baseball season.” Not surprisingly, Acta was gracious when given the news of his firing, telling ESPN Deportes: “I thank the Nationals for giving me this opportunity, and I’m sorry that things didn’t work out as expected. It’s normal for the manager to pay the price when the team is not doing well.”

The apparent hope in the Nats front office is that replacing Acta with Riggleman will motivate the team. There’s little question: Riggleman is more outspoken, more fiery and more willing to argue with umpires than Acta — and seemingly more willing to confront (as a number of Nats’ commentators have recently described it) the team’s “lazy” and “pathetic” play. But the squad that Riggleman inherits isn’t dead last in the MLB because it lacks desire, but because it lacks talent. The Nats bullpen is virtually non-existent, its defense is last in the league, its situational hitting is “atrocious” (as Ray Knight put it in the wake of the most recent loss to the Astros), and its starting pitching is young and untried. The team is a last place team because it is filled with last place talent. Someone, somewhere was asleep at the switch — but it sure wasn’t Manny Acta.

The Nats had a chance to remedy that during the last off-season: when they might have signed Jon Garland and Orlando Hudson. Garland would have provided a veteran pitching presence among a group of 20-somethings, while Hudson actually wanted to play in D.C. The two would not have worked miracles, but more than 81 games into the 2009 season, the Nats still lack a steady veteran pitching presence and a middle infielder with strong defensive skills. Here’s the simple truth: Cristian Guzman is playing like he wants to be elsewhere, the young starting staff needs more seasoning, Alberto Gonzalez and Anderson Hernandez could both use another year at triple-A, Austin Kearns is a bust, the front office went into the season without an experienced closer and, until recently, the team had no speed. It’s time for Stan Kasten to make it clear: he’s the person responsible for this debacle, not Manny Acta.

A lot of Washington fans will greet Manny Acta’s firing with sighs of relief — believing that his replacement will spell a new beginning for the team. That’s because Washington is a sophisticated football town, where fans know that a new coach means a new set of priorities and a new coaching philosophy. A new coach means a “new scheme,” a new set of offenses and defenses and new ways to make use of them. In football, a new coach can wipe the slate clean, can turn also-rans into champions. That’s not true for baseball, where traditional skills done better are rewarded with wins, where player development that is slow but certain brings championships. Riggle won’t come into the dugout with a new system, he’ll be stuck with the same players that Manny had. It would be very surprising if the results were any different.

The Washington Nationals routed the Houston Astros on Saturday at Minute Maid Park, 13-2. The laugher was highlighted by back-to-back-to-back home runs by Nick Johnson, Josh Willingham and Adam Dunn. Craig Stammen went the distance for the win, throwing 107 pitches over nine innings. The win is the highlight of the Nats’ otherwise disasterous season — a game in which everything seemed to work. Nearly everyone in the Washington line-up had a good game: Johnson was 3 for 6, Willingham 3 for 5, Dunn 3 for 4, Gonzalez 4 for 5, Belliard and Guzman 2 for 5 and Nyjer Morgan, now firmed rooted in centerfield, made a flat-out diving catch that made a number of post-game highlight reels. Outside of Stammen’s pitching performance, the hero of the game was Willingham, with two home runs and four RBIs. The former Phish’s performance raised his average to .303, fifty points better than his average last year with the Marlins. Willingham is now an institution in right field and has pushed Austin Kearns out of the line-up. 

The game was marked more for good hitting than bad pitching, Astros’ starter Mike Hampton said. ”When I came out of the game, I was upset because I must have thrown a lot of balls over the middle of the plate. But when I went and looked at the tape, that wasn’t the case. Sometimes you’ve got to tip your cap to the other team. They came out swinging and I thought I made a couple of mistakes early, but for the most part I didn’t feel I made too many terrible pitches, but they were hitting everything. It happens. I wish it wouldn’t, but it was part of the game.” Forgotten, it seems, were the withering criticisms leveled at the Nats just 48 hours earlier by both in-game analyst Rob Dibble and post-game analyst Ray Knight. Both men seemed to back off their claims, that some Nats players were “mailing it in” and that their play was “pathetic.” Dibble, in particular, was nearly eloquent — saying that the team was “talented” and capable of playing good baseball.

Prior to Saturday’s blow-out, Manny Act defended shortstop Cristian Guzman – the target of Dibble and Knight’s more critical comments. ”I see a human being,” Acta said. “In the course of 162 games, every player is going to go through a tough time. He is going through a slump right now. The same thing happened to Ryan Zimmerman. It’s a long season. Every one of these guys are going to go through a tough time — offensively and defensively. They are human. That’s why we have to have the patience. It’s very difficult for every one of these guys to be on top of their game for 162 games of the baseball season.” My hat’s off — Manny is defending his players. I get that. And he’s right, it’s “difficult for every one of these guys” to be on top of their game for an entire year. But you won’t hear Terry Francona saying something like this, or Joe Girardi, or Tony LaRussa.  

They don’t need to.

Down On Half Street: Now that Nick Johnson has been healthy for more than 80 games, talk of his departure from the Nats is heating up. MLB Trade Rumors speculates that Johnson may be on the radar of the San Francisco Giants, in a swap for lefty Jonathan Sanchez. But such a trade would be difficult to explain, even for Giants’ GM Brian Sabean: Sanchez’s recent no hitter has made him a San Francisco darling, one of the real “feel good” stories of major league baseball’s first half. Here’s Jonathan Sanchez celebrating his no-hitter, here’s Sanchez getting hugged by his crying father, here’s Sanchez embraced by Randy Johnson . . . here’s Sanchez on his way to the worst team in major league baseball . . . Then too, while you can never have enough pitching, the Nats would be exchanging a sparkplug for a pitcher with a history of struggling on the mound. We already have that here in Washington. Then too, while fans in Frisco might think that Sanchez is now on a par with Lincecum and Cain, we all know that a brilliant single game does not a career make . . . Bob Carpenter opined on the play of Alberto Gonzalez during yesterday’s game, saying that Alberto’s early season muffs at short “are a thing of the past.” We’ll see . . .

Rule 7.05 d: Now here’s something you don’t see every day. In last night’s Tampa Bay Rays vs. Oakland Athletics game, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon was ejected after arguing plate umpire Jeff Nelson’s invocation of MLB Rule 7.05d. The infraction occurred when Rays’ catcher Michel Hernandez used his catcher’s mask to scoop a pitched ball into his glove. Rule 7.05d reads: “Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability to be put out, advance . . . (d) Two bases, if a fielder deliberately touches a thrown ball with his cap, mask or any part of his uniform detached from its proper place on his person.” I watched the replay of this half-a-dozen times and the ump was right. Maddon later agreed: “That was the right call by Jeff Nelson. I didn’t see it at first, but when I watched the replay, he was right. I went out there to stir it up a bit, and I was wrong.” The ruling would be invoked (as an example) if the centerfielder were to throw his cap at a balhit into the gap, or if a pitcher were to throw his glove in the air at a ball headed to the outfield. But there were problems with Nelson’s ruling, which was correct in fact but not in implementation: Matt Holliday, the A’s baserunner, was awarded one base, when (according to the rule) he should have been awarded two. Tell me I’m wrong.

Oddly, 7.05 (a,b,c, and d) is most talked about among baseball rule wonks for not being invoked — as it was when Bugs Bunny (bear with me) took an elevator to the top of the “Umpire” State Building in the 1946 cartoon “Baseball Bugs.” Bugs throws his glove (successfully) from the top of the building to intercept a ball hit off the bat of a Gas-House Gorilla. The umpire calls the batter out, wrongly. The Gas-House guys on base, according to the rule, should have been awarded to extra bases. The Gas-House batter apparently knows this. “Out?” he asks. In New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty answers: “That’s what the man said, you heard what he said, he said that.” And here the movie ends, with Bugs triumphant over the Gorillas — final score, Bugs 96, Gorillas 95. This is the second time this year I have invoked Bugs Bunny to prove a baseball point.

Must be some kind of record.