National League Looks to End Rut

It’s the annual midpoint of the baseball season, and for the brief span that is the All-Star break, all eyes are upon the Bronx. As everyone is well aware of, this campaign is the last go around for the world’s most famous, largest, and most prominent ballpark, Yankee Stadium. It seems hard to believe, and even more sacrilegious that this living legend’s days are numbered. Built in 1923 and christened by the greatest ballplayer to ever live, Babe Ruth, the cathedral of baseball will never truly be replaced. Although the Bombers will move a block to Yankee Stadium’s heir, the Mecca of America’s Pastime will still live on in our hearts. Whether you’re a diehard Yankee fan, or Yankee-hater, you still can respect the history and awe that the stadium brings. So when the All-Stars take the field Tuesday night, sit back on your couch, crack open a cold one and soak up the history of Yankee Stadium, as its final chapter is unveiled to all of us.

Toeing the rubber for the National League, and making his first ever trip to Yankee Stadium will be Brewers hurler Ben Sheets. He was selected by manager Clint Hurdle based on his stature among on the players ballots cast. His peers are the best judge of talent, and Sheets fails to gain criticism with his numbers. His 2.85 ERA is just about a full run lower than his numbers the past years and his 10 wins are only two shy of his career high which he set in 2004 and matched in 2007. Despite the brilliance Sheets has shown so far in his career, his tenure could be easily summed up by his strong potential for injuries which have clearly limited his career totals.  In his second All-Star campaign in 2004, his first since his rookie year in 2001, Sheets pitched 237 innings, leading the league strikeout to walk ratio but was limited to 12 wins due to his 6^th place Brewers. But since that breakout year, Ben Sheets has not hit 160 innings. His injuries have varied throughout that time, and a trip to the DL last season during the stretch arguably cost the Brewers their first playoff berth in a quarter of a century. If Sheets can dazzle the American League in the All-Star Game like he has shut down the NL all season long so far, then the contenders in the Senior Circuit can start licking their chops for hosting a Game 7.

The rest of Clint Hurdle’s lineup card seems to resemble a wrecking crew, including megastars like the media’s golden boy Chase Utley, Texas’s blue-collar puma Lance Berkman, and the South’s true Southern man, Chipper Jones. While Jones approaches the .400 barrier set by Ted Williams in 1941, Utley chases Davey Johnson’s second baseman single season home run record and Lance Berkman pursues his elusive first MVP award. They’re the faces of the National League and will anchor the league’s attempt to end the rut that has driven the American League supremacy that is often over dwelled on numerous baseball analysis outlets.

It’s time for the AL’s reign over baseball to end, so tonight as baseball’s best run out of the dugout, the NL All-Stars will be motivated to upstage Yankee Stadium’s funeral with new life for the grandest league in all of baseball.