Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

I learned something this weekend – that West Warwick, Rhode Island, is a heck of a lot farther from Waterbury than I thought.

I also re-learned something I had suspected for years – that I-95 is the most miserable highway in the known universe. On my way to West Warwick on Saturday for the New England Regional Babe Ruth 10-and-under Tournament I got stuck in two traffic jams that did not exist for any reason I could discover (no construction crews, no accidents).

I made it to Raina Field at River Point Park in West Warwick in the bottom of the third inning of Newtown’s 7-3 loss to Massachusetts. Apparently the 10s had the lead up to that point, but lost it just as I made my way into the park.

Coincidence?

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I LOVE making road trips.

But I HATE traffic jams.

Sometimes I have to take the bad with the good.

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Barry Bonds is one of the most phenomenal home run hitters to ever play the game of baseball, but when he started diminishing the accomplishments of Babe Ruth – the biggest icon of any sport anywhere – then he made a mistake.

On the face of it, the numbers don’t lie. Bonds is hitting home runs at about the same clip as Ruth did and appears on his way to surpassing the Bambino – possibly next year, most likely the year after that.

But Bonds is hitting homers in the age of miniscule ballparks, lively balls, and legal (and illegal) nutritional supplements.

Ruth hit homers when parks were huge, the ball was deader (a ball was rarely thrown out of play and was usually misshapen by the later innings), and NO ONE was hitting homeruns. When Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920 he hit more than every other team in baseball (14) except for the Philadelphia Phillies.

When Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001 the lowest total by a team was the 121 hit by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. If his accomplishment was to parallel what Ruth did in 1920, then Bonds would have had to hit at least 236 home runs, more than every other team in baseball (28) except for the Texas Rangers (246).

And that’s just ridiculous.

Bonds is a great player with a big mouth. He should just shut up.

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It wouldn’t be summer if Ken Griffey Jr weren’t getting hurt.

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This item appeared in the Inside The NHL segment of the July 14 issue of Sports Illustrated –

“With the Maple Leafs’ front office in flux – the team has new majority owners, and coach Pat Quinn is expected to go give up his G.M. duties – agents are complaining that they don’t know who to contact to shop their free agents.”

Oh, boo hoo.

That reminds me a little of the current situation in major league baseball. Just because major league general managers showed some fiscal responsibility during the off season (for the first time ever) and did not spend money like it was going out of style, a group of agents is questioning whether or not there was collusion going on.

Talk about being a poor sport.