There has been a lot of talk all year about MLB Umpiring. I have umpired baseball from little league to high school to softball. I personally like umpiring as it is as close to the game you can get without being in the stands. You are also part of the game, and a game that most umpires really love. You never want to make a mistake as an umpire because as a player you rely on what is right or wrong, and work hard at it. All umpires are going to make mistakes, I would say no umpire is trying to make mistakes. I hate to bring gambling into the mix of referees or umpires, but in lieu of the recent Pacquaio decision you at least have to wonder sometimes. There is a lot of money exchanging hands at any given time, on any given day. Umpires make good money, they do have to travel a lot and most of them have families to care for. The opportunity I know has to be there for any umpire to make a lot of extra money in any certain game, especially balls and strikes. I am not insinuating that the umpires are doing this in any way, but you can't be naive the the options that are available for umpires. The questions then become, do we keep the same options for replay, or do we start to move forward with technology? It is very tough in baseball to have replays on certain plays due to the fact that you then have to assume where runners would have ended up, but I am a big fan of the umpire getting it right. The game can be won or lost by inches, or seconds, umpires are never going to be perfect and they know that, so adding some sort of replay options wouldn't be a bad idea, but how far does that get taken? Think about this, if Cole De Vries is on the mound, pitching against Andy Pettite, who is going to get more calls? The answer is Andy Pettite, the answer should be, What do you mean? Is that fair, obviously not, a pitcher shouldn't just be able to earn a call, but it happens. It happens in basketball, (Jordan, Ewing) It happens in football (Brady), and it obviously happens in baseball. So does electronic balls and strikes happen, and would it happen in our lifetime? I don't want that to happen, the way things are going, and with better technology, it definitely may!!

I wanted to toot my own horn around sticking with my guns with Trevor Plouffe, all of my friends know how I have been his biggest supporter since day 1 this year, and he is finally coming through, taking his average from .132 to .230 in a matter of weeks. He was one bad game away from being done in my mind, and now we have one of the hottest hitters in the league. He is on pace to hit 25 HR's after a historically bad May. Jim Thome in 2010 hit 25 HR. I am the biggest Plouffe fan, and I am definitely happy he is doing well.

I now wanted to say I was wrong trying to jump the Gardy train too early, I have said I have never been a fan of just blaming the manager, but everyone knows it was getting really, really bad, in one of my posts I specifically said we need to clean house and try something new. Injuries or not, we put an unwatchable product on the field and it was disgusting, the Twins are the worst team in the AL, as far as record, that could change tonight as we are only .5 game behind the Royals. I am jumping back on the Gardy train, and at this point I was wrong to jump on the staff too early.

Yes, the Minnesota Lynx our WNBA champions are going to get an insert in my blog. I will be the first to say I do not like watching women's basketball. I will have to say I watched the game when UConn lost to end there streak in womens NCAA basketball, and Dan Barreiro is on the undefeated train for the Lynx, I don't know how much more talented the Lynx are compared to other teams, but they are killing teams. I don't care what major sport you are watching if you go undefeated, it is historic. I may have to watch the Lynx on Friday to see if they can start the season 10-0. AND YES I LOOKED ON YOUR WEBSITE LYNX AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE STANDINGS ON THE FRONT PAGE, you have a horrible front page. I am just throwing it out there, I hope they keep the streak going, and yes I hope I have to watch the Lynx play in the playoffs as an undefeated team, because I will watch.