The All-Star Break means it's the unofficial halfway point of the season, and with that come the midterm grades. Here are Jon Paul Morosi's.
The Tigers are fourth in Nick Cafardo's mid-season power rankings. I wonder if he'll adjust that after this weekend's series with the Red Sox.
Murray Chass is still picking at the scab that is the Yankees trading Gary Sheffield to the Tigers. (Click ahead to page 2.)
If you want to compare the 2007 Tigers at mid-season to the 2006 team, here's a chart for you.
Maybe we're past wondering how Dmitri Young is doing now, but Barry Svrluga wrote a long feature on the Nats' lone All-Star, which includes the origins of his switch-hitting and what he was doing while the Tigers were in the playoffs, for today's Washington Post.
How do groundskeepers get those cool patterns into the outfield grass? Check it out.
Was yesterday Mark Buehrle's final start for the Chicago White Sox? (South Side Sox is furious that Buehrle backing off an insistence on a no-trade clause hasn't compelled Kenny Williams to get a deal done.)
Reggie Jackson is mad that ESPN didn't consult with him for their "The Bronx is Burning" mini-series, beginning tomorrow night. (Is anyone planning on watching that, by the way? It looks like it could be awful, yet I'm intrigued.)
I think Reggie should be mad that the guy playing him - Daniel Sunjata - looks ridiculous in his Reggie Jackson get-up. I like Sunjata a lot on "Rescue Me," but he's just doesn't look big enough to be Reggie. And his Afro wig and mustache look like some bad black Groucho Marx parody.
The critics, however, seem to like it. Mike Duffy of the Detroit Free Press thinks "The Bronx is Burning" is good stuff. So do the TV writers at the Chicago Sun-Times and Seattle Times.
And maybe I'm pushing it now, but if you're interested in more of this stuff, the NY Daily News has a great section on the summer of 1977.