Ten Reasons Why Last Night was a Great Baseball Night

10. Red Sox clinched a playoff berth into the playoffs. I don't follow like I used to and they angered me after trading Manny Ramirez in what seemed to be a revenge act. But, the Red Sox have an amazing farm system that keeps funnelling players into the majors. In last night alone five home grown players started the game and four home grown pitchers were in relief. Amazing. This brings us to #9.

9. The Dodgers won and my favorite player of all-time hit a first inning three run home run. Nomar Garciaparra. Manny Ramirez also had a hit and is on fire since being traded to the Dodgers. He is hitting almost .400 with 16 HR's. A pathetic trade really. The Dodgers are still two games up in the NL West. Go big blue.

8. Phillies lose. The Philadelphia Phillies lost 3-2 to the Braves and the Mets gain a game.

7. The Minnesota Twins win. The Twins are only one and 1/2 games down in the NL Central. Here is for small market teams making the play-offs. I am rooting for a Twins/Devil Rays AL Pennant. The Twins are a team that does this right, competing every year with out the high payroll of most contenders. The twins rank 25th in major league salary race. Only four teams have lower salaries. You can win without money in this league. Go Twins.

6. The Devil Rays sweep a double header. The Devil Rays who rank 29th in salaries have clinched a playoff spot and are all, but assured of winning the east and playing the AL Central winner. The Devil Rays have $43 million dollar pay roll which is much lower than the combined salaries of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

5. Jose Reyes three run triple for the Mets. Jose Reyes is an absolute lesson in why baseball is the greatest game on earth. He is a marvel to watch and seems to always have a big night. As Jose Reyes goes, the Mets go. He should be the MVP. The 25 year old Met had his 200th hit of the season last night. Kudos to D. Wright as well my feeling however, is that Jose is the player that the Mets could not live without.

4. Johan Santana wins for the Mets. In a do or die game, Johan was masterful throwing 125 pitches and holding off the best team in the national league while the Mets take their time to score their six runs. He is showing why they spent the money on him. This game was pennant race baseball at its best. These two teams are headed for a collision in October.

3. Prince Fielder hits a walk-off Homer in the ninth. The Brewers were losing most of the game, but came back and kept their wild card hopes alive. Fielder hit his 34th Home Run to the cheap seats in Milwaukee to keep them only one game behind the wild card leading Mets.

2. Ken Griffey, jr. moves into 5th place with his 610th Home Run. Junior is the guy we all should be parading around as the person who did it right. Never marred by any steroid stories, in fact he is so old school he hardly looks like he lifts weights. He quietly made it on to the big list now. Only Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714), and Willie Mays (660) have more Home Runs than Griffey. He belongs there with these guys and hopefully he can play a few more years and climb up the list.

1. The Yankees are eliminated from playoff contention. This is the #1 story. After 14 years of buying their way into the playoffs (the period of 1995 - 2001 is excluded from this. The 1998 Yankees is still the best baseball team I have seen in my life) they come up short. After 2001 Steinbrenner said their would be changes and there were. They rid the team of O'Neil, Brosius and Tino and got the lard ass Giambi and a whole host of wasted players marring an astonishing team that will go down with the '27 Yankees as one of the ten best. This is how not to run a baseball team. They have run a franchise that was the model of all the baseball franchises and is now 0-8 this century. Sadly for them the model for franchises is now the Red Sox.