The NL Rookie of the Year voters faced a difficult decision at the end of last season. Both Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki made strong cases to receive the award and it was difficult to choose between them. Ultimately, Braun ended up with the honour and in retrospect that seems a fair result.

Apart from his ROY trophy, the Milwaukee youngster came out of 2007 relatively empty-handed. Firstly, his efforts were not enough to save the Brew Crew from a demoralising collapse that enabled the Cubs to take the NL Central crown from their grasp. More recently, he has had to suffer the indignity of being moved from his preferred fielding position, following his much-highlighted struggles at the hot corner (committing twenty-six errors will tend to get you noticed).

Tulowitzki on the other hand may well have been disappointed at not adding the ROY award to his resume, but he can hardly complain at how his first year panned out. An NLCS ring accompanied by a World Series appearance is not bad going in your rookie season. According to reports, he will be adding to that World Series bonus as well.

MLB.com states that, pending a physical, Tulo will sign a six-year contract with the Rockies that will guarantee him $30 million. Any lingering thoughts that he might not have made the right career move can be well and truly put to rest!

This deal makes complete sense for the Colorado Rockies. While Tulo still had at least one year before he became arbitration eligible (he probably would have become a ‘Super Two’ player at the end of the coming season), agreeing to this deal will almost certainly save them some money over the next five years. Add in the fact that they’ve bought his first potential year of free agency and it begins to look like a real bargain. The Rockies can plan ahead without worrying about the potential disruption (both financial and emotional) that arbitration can bring. Ryan Howard, for example, looked to have his contract on his mind at the beginning of last season and he and the Phillies are a not insignificant $3 million apart in their valuation this year (all this after failing to agree a similar multi-year deal).

It’s been a fairly quiet off-season in Denver, but put this deal together with the extensions agreed with Matt Holliday, Jeff Francis and Aaron Cook, and it’s clear that the Rockies are building a strong core of players to build around for several seasons to come. Although their team’s showing in the Fall Classic may have been a disappointment, fans in Colorado have good reason to hope that they won’t have to wait too long for another shot at winning their first World Series title.

The marquee opener to the 2008 season sees the Atlanta Braves facing the Nationals in the first game at Washington’s new stadium on Sunday 30 March. This will be a Sunday Night game on ESPN (which means Jon Miller – hooray! – and Joe Morgan – boo!) and screened live on Five, and probably also on NASN, here in the U.K in the early hours of Monday 31^st. After three seasons in rented accommodation, this will mark the real start to baseball’s return to the U.S. capital.

However, the regular season actually kicks-off in Japan, with the Red Sox playing two games against the Oakland A’s. These take place on Tuesday 25^th and Wednesday 26^th of March . Due to the time difference, New Englanders will have to wake up early for their World Series winning heroes. Both games are scheduled for a 06.07 a.m. start, Boston time (19.07 in Japan). That means the two MLB opening games from Japan will begin at 10.07 a.m. for us Brits.

The games come just after the Easter Bank Holiday, so MLB.TV subscribers might want to book up a longer Easter break and take in the games live. Rest assured there’s nothing wrong in planning leave from work around the baseball season, despite what your colleagues may say!

The Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants, will be the venue for both games and they should be a fitting way to begin another exciting season. After months of inaction, any game would catch the attention, but seeing Matsuzaka and Okajima head back to their homeland as defending champs should make for quite a spectacle. Matsuzaka is likely to start one of the two games and it’s possible that Josh Beckett, who would otherwise be the opening day starter, will be shifted to the second game so that Dice-K can make the starring role.

As for Oakland’s starter, it’s probably going to be Joe Blanton but keep a check on the hot stove as very few players on the A’s roster are immune from Billy Beane’s rebuilding project. The latest version of Beane’s ‘Island of Misfit Toys’ may pose a sterner test to the knowledgeable Japanese crowd than they do to the Red Sox on the field (even A’s fans might struggle to recognise some of their players at this rate). But that’s just the pessimistic Oakland fan in me writing. If MLB fans know anything, it’s that any team can beat another on any given day. The World Series champs will be expecting a victorious start to the season, with the locals cheering on their favourite sons. The A’s will be intent on crashing the party and proving the naysayers wrong, if only for a few days.

Sounds like the makings of two great games of baseball. Put 10.07 on Tuesday 25 March in your diaries and start counting down the days.

Another day, another post on a depressing trend in baseball that leaves traditionalists reminiscing about purer times. But while Congress may be concentrating on performance enhancing drugs, my focus is on the dreaded world of corporate branding.

The Cleveland Indians are the latest team to make baseball fans grit their teeth every time they talk about a game taking place at their ballpark. Farewell Jacobs Field, hello Progressive Field.

Hmm, maybe it will grow on me?

Cleveland fans are generally unhappy with the change and it’s not hard to see why. Jacobs Field had a certain ring to it and, like all good names, it could be shortened to something even better: the Jake. Progressive Field is not the worst name they could have ended up with, but I don’t share Indians President Paul Dolan’s opinion that it is “a great name”. How can it be when it means that your stadium, your cathedral-like venue where crowds gather with hopes of their baseball fan dreams coming true, is named after a car insurance firm?

At least it’s not Sheila’s Wheels!

From Dolan’s perspective, he can claim it’s a great name because whenever he has any doubts, he can think of the $3.6 million his franchise will pocket annually for the next sixteen years (approximately $57.6 million, or £30 million, in total).

Whether fans of the Tribe will take to the name is another matter. Re-naming a current stadium always makes it that much harder for the new name to stick. No doubt many will still be speaking about the Jake for several years to come. This is partly due to familiarity and partly due to stubbornness.

Such problems don’t exist when a new ballpark rises from the ground; there is no sentimentality to cling on to. Mets Fans will have little choice but to call their new home Citi Field when they move in for the 2009 season. And it certainly makes even more sense for a team to agree such a deal when they are in the position of financing a new stadium. Citi Group Inc will reportedly pay the Mets $20m annually for twenty years to put their name above the stadium door (and on every other spare piece of wall no doubt). Quite simply, the Mets would be mad to turn that sort of investment down.

Their cross-town rivals don’t seem to mind so much. As things stand right now, the Yankees will still be playing in a ‘Yankees Stadium’ in 2009, although few would be surprised if that situation changes.

No, it’s just something we have to accept. There’s too much money at stake for most teams to defiantly tie themselves to tradition. All a baseball fan can hope for is that the Front Office uses the money to strengthen the team rather than the owner’s coffers.

So long as C.C. Sabathia is pitching for them over the next six or seven years, Indians fans won’t care what their ballpark is called.

The Brewers will be holding a press conference later today to introduce their latest signing: free agent centre fielder Mike Cameron.

After spending the last two years in San Diego, Cameron moves to Milwaukee on an initial one-year deal that guarantees him $6.25 million (£3.2m – or £61,500 a week). It’s a signing that seems to make perfect sense for the Brew Crew as it should have a positive ripple effect throughout their roster. Cameron can take over in centre from Bill Hall, whose bat is much better suited to an infield position. Hall can shift to third base, allowing 2007 NL Rookie of the Year Ryan Braun to switch to left field.

That’s the plan, but the Brewers will have to wait until the end of April before they can put it into action. Cameron’s career in Milwaukee will begin with a twenty-five game suspension after he tested positive for a banned substance.

Let’s take a moment to assess the situation. A ballplayer who gets named in the Mitchell report on the back of little more than circumstantial evidence is hung out to dry. A ballplayer who actually fails a drug test pockets a lucrative new contract while no one bats an eyelid.

Is that right?

Well, this is a great reminder that the ‘drugs issue’ is a moral minefield. There’s a logical argument that says that someone who has failed a test has at least been brought to task for his actions. Cameron has been caught out (although he maintains that the banned substance was taken unknowingly via a ‘tainted’ supplement), formally charged with his crime and issued with the requisite punishment as prescribed by the drug testing policy. Once he has served his suspension, then I guess that is the end of the matter.

Part of the problem with the ‘Mitchell mob’ is that there is so much uncertainty over whether they have done anything wrong or not. That most of them haven’t failed a drug test (as far as we know) should mean they are considered to be ‘innocent’, but we all know the issue isn’t so straightforward. We are all aware of the infamous examples of sportsmen and women who have blatantly cheated the system and it’s natural for there to be a lingering feeling of suspicion and cynicism towards those who are linked with taking PEDs. The only thing worse than a cheat is a cheat who gets a away with it, after all.

But, and it’s a big but, if we don’t accept a negative test as proof of innocence (and Senator Mitchell himself stated that position), how can we exonerate any player? Everyone is guilty by default.

The more you think about, the more you find yourself wrapped up in contradictions. I can’t pretend to have an answer to all this. Cameron’s signing, along with the $36m/3 year contract that the Royals gave to Jose Guillen this off-season, does at least show that baseball’s answer to the uncertainty is to get on with things regardless. Taking an anti-drugs stance is easy. Clearly, it’s not quite so easy to turn down the chance to sign a player who could improve your team just because he has tested positive for a banned substance.

Goose Gossage’s selection to Cooperstown this week has made me consider the whole concept of the Hall of Fame.

In part, that’s because I’ve got no real attachment to Gossage. I’ve only been following baseball for ten years so I never saw him in action and the history of the sport doesn’t reverberate in the households of Britain quite like it does in America, to put it mildly. So aside from what I’ve read about him recently, he’s a bit of a distant figure to me. I feel that more keenly this year than ever before because, in contrast, the 2007 induction was the first time that I really felt like I could be part of the celebrations. I had witnessed the tail-ends of the careers of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken and from a personal standpoint, it validated my self-defined position as a “baseball fan”. That I had watched Gwynn and Ripken and came to the same conclusion (i.e. that they were great players) as life-long, knowledgeable veterans of the game, convinced me that I did know something about this sport after all. It was almost like a rites of passage to go through: I can tell a great ballplayer when I see one, now I’m a man!

Anyway, the Hall of Fame has a certain novelty factor for British fans. If you had to describe it in one word, “American” would be a good one to choose. Our friends from across the pond feel no inhibitions when it comes to celebrating success, while us Brits are frankly a bit embarrassed by it. The idea of grandly celebrating somebody’s greatness doesn’t fit very well with the restrained, stiff upper lipped British (or perhaps more accurately, English) psyche. We will join together to support a ‘lovable loser’ and, lord knows, there’s nothing we like more than seeing a successful person suffering a humiliating fall from grace. But holding a big event to recognise the fact that somebody is extremely talented? That’s just not cricket, I’m afraid. We don’t want them getting too big for their boots after all. A mark of appreciation followed by a firm handshake from some vaguely relevant dignitary is quite enough praise, thank you very much.

So the whole concept is a bit alien to us and that’s before you consider that this richly prized honour is predominantly bestowed upon someone thanks to the opinions of sportswriters. Maybe I’m being harsh, but would either the sportsmen or the fans put much store into whether some hack from the Daily Mail thinks that “player A” should be immortalized as a great, while “player B” should be passed by? I doubt it. Not that I’m suggesting all Americans believe the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) is a faultless judge of sporting greatness either, but at least they’ve been allowed to assume their lofty position as the primary gatekeepers to Cooperstown. Although the opinions of some British sportswriters would be held in high regard, a Hall of Fame determined by the whims of the Press would struggle to assume much legitimacy.

Even without the British aversion to public praise and the misgivings towards the Press, would a football Hall of Fame catch on over here? While top 100 lists and glorified talent contests may be popular with the general public (and TV channel execs), I don’t think there is much desire to set in stone a list of great players. The overriding response would be one of indifference (e.g. “what’s the point?”) and most people would probably argue against it for one of two completely different reasons:

• all sports fans enjoy arguing the merits of different players and most sports fans think that their opinion is correct. Although a Hall of Fame encourages such debates in the first instance, setting up an establishment that formally declares who we should consider to be a great player, and therefore who is right and who is wrong, is an attack on this pleasure.
• while we may argue about the very good players, we all know who the great players are anyway. Part of what makes someone a great player is that their greatness is recognised by (virtually) everyone. If there is a viable argument against them being considered great, then great they are not.

Although this second point is a slight oversimplification, I think it’s worth considering. When I read that Gossage had been elected to the Hall of Fame, one thing stood out above all else: this was his ninth time on the ballot. How is he a better player in 2008 than he was in 2000? He cannot be, of course, as a player isn’t eligible for selection until he has been retired for five years. So he hasn’t added to his resume during that time. Have his supporters simply worn down his many detractors? Has he got in now because other comparable people have been voted in (such as Bruce Sutter)? Did he just get lucky that there was no one better to vote for this time around? Is it a combination of the above?

And what about Jim Rice, who fell just short of the 75 per cent needed at his fourteenth attempt? Those who passionately support his candidacy still hold out hope that he will make it next time around (his last chance before going in via the back door that is the Veterans committee). If he does, surely that decision will be completely worthless? Before the hate mail floods in, I fully recognise that Rice had a very good career and I have no personal bias towards his selection either way. My point is that the Hall of Fame, if it stands for anything, is there to celebrate the very small amount of exceptional players who had a spectacular impact on the game. If the people responsible for deciding who fits into that bracket have overlooked someone fourteen times, he unequivocally does not belong in that very elite class.

Unless the voters got it wrong the other fourteen times. In which case the whole system is a sham.

I think we have to accept that Hall of Fames are not a very British phenomenon; we can enjoy the hullabaloo they create while not taking them too seriously. That’s a good way to deal with all the inconsistencies and the arguments at least, although it’s not a route open to ballplayers. Whether you are a Hall of Famer has a significant impact on your standing in the game and it seems a pretty arbitrary line to me.

That still leaves open the question of why Americans feel it is so important to maintain a formal system to recognise the greatest players, in contrast to the ambivalence for such a process over here? Perhaps there is no great cultural or psychological background to it. The importance of the Hall of Fame and the fierce arguments it creates may have just developed over time out of natural competitiveness. If the thinking behind its initial conception was of a more opportunistic nature, it could explain why they haven’t taken off in the U.K. If they are simply about publicity, excuses to hold grand celebrations linked to patriotism, and attracting tourists, we’ve got no need for Hall of Fames.

We’ve got the Royal Family instead.

The announcement that Roger Clemens’s date with Congress has been put back to 13 February is great news for sports writers and columnists. It’s another month to drag this story out; another month to publish more sensationalist opinions from the great and not-so good. For everyone else, it’s immensely frustrating. Whichever side of the fence you are sitting on, or if you are perched on top with a leg dangling down on each, the delay leaves you left in a state of flux. And that’s just us on the outside looking in.

After his “60 minute” interview, his personal press conference, and the news that he has started legal proceedings against Brian McNamee, we’ve finally seen the reaction from Clemens that many were calling for as soon as the Mitchell report landed on the Internet like a bag of venomous snakes being released back into the wild. The Rocket has made his position clear: McNamee’s claims are untrue and he has never taken steroids or HGH.

So, with the posturing out of the way, we now have to sit back and let the realities of the legal process take precedence. It’s very easy to let your emotions get the better of you with a situation like this and certainly my initial reaction was of the straightforward “if it’s not true, why not sue?” variety. Yet, even with a truckload of money at your disposal, it’s not as simple as that position makes you believe.

Derek Jacques has published an insightful article on Baseball Prospectus about the ins and outs of a defamation suit. The important part to remember is that, as he is the one bringing the case to court, the onus is on Clemens to prove that McNamee’s comments are false. Jacques states:

“Clemens will face an uphill climb making his case, both because he bears the burden of proof and because he has to prove a negative—that an event that McNamee doesn’t tie to a specific date and time didn’t happen”.

With that being accepted, suddenly the decision to sue doesn’t look quite the easy choice that it originally appeared.

With this law suit hanging over proceedings, the hearing at Congress takes on even more significance. Maybe what unravels on 13 February will bring a full stop to the story? More likely, it will make round two (coming to you live from a court room in Houston) even more bitter and dramatic.

You do have to question why Congress are getting involved with this. I know all about the age-old argument that baseball is held to higher standards than other sports, but there are many other channels down which these issues can be addressed (private legal actions among them). It smacks of grandstanding rather than a genuine desire to make a positive contribution to tackling the problems involved. However, some would say that is fitting when you consider that MLB has created this (hardly unexpected) problem by commissioning the Mitchell report in the first place.

Is MLB a better place for having all of this out in the open? I’ll let you answer that question, but Jacques provides some support to my initial thoughts on who would be the winners out of this:

“Before this matter reaches trial, there would likely be months, perhaps years, of preparation, discovery, and depositions. If you give skilled litigators enough time to dig through someone’s life and financial records, all sorts of interesting and unexpected things can happen.”

Sounds like a few legal firms are looking forward to a considerable amount of expensive work coming their way.