Murphy, Bonds and no runs

Yesterday was an historic day for baseball but my team is in one of the ugliest funks I've seen and all the hoopla and histrionic stuff doesn't mean anything when the Dodgers can't even score a run in three of the last four games. The picture of Nomar sliding in to home has been posted just to see if it helps remind them of what scoring a run looks like.

It's the second week of August and hopefully their huge funk is being played out now and not in September, but then again if they don't reverse this funk...they might be 15 games out of first place by September.

I think there's too much being asked of the youth on this squad and obviously the old timers are feeling the summer heat. They need to reach down to Vegas and pull up Wilson Alvarez and put him at third, Normar back at first, keep Ethier in the line-up and be a lot more patience at the plate.

But a few other things happened yesterday, on my daughter's 21st birthday, in the wonderful world of major league baseball.

Barry Bonds made a 22 year old named Matt Murphy, a household name for baseball trivia experts. For 23 years Barry has been playing the game of baseball at an exceedingly high level, as having seven MVP's would attest to, and with one catch a dude named Matt Murphy becomes part of the Bonds legacy.

From rumors circulating....that part should be worth a minimum of $500,000. I personally think it will go for quite a bit more if Matt Murphy handles the bidding correctly.

The fact that Matt Murphy was even in the ballpark is strange. The kid from Queens, a Met fan, is on his way to Australia and is on a lay over.....decides to buy a ticket in one of the deepest parts of the park, settles in with his Mets Jersey, takes some ribbing from Giants fans and then at 8:51 snags number 756.

Truly........ONLY IN AMERICA.

Barry Bonds hitting 756 home runs is an incredible feat.

Catching number 756 on a layover from New York to Australia is beyond incredible.

I think whatever Airline he is flying should give him 5 million for the ball and the advertising campaign.

The catch phrase for the campaign could be.....

"Lay overs are a great thing when you travel, if you take time to smell the roses and catch a few fly balls."

Someone somewhere is working on this as I write, and by next month more people around the world will know Matt Murphy than Barry Bonds.

There's already more people who like Matt Murphy more than Barry Bonds.

I'm serious when I say that Barry Bonds might be one of the more unpopular athletes alive....and what most people don't understand is that has absolutely nothing to do with steriods.

They guy has always been a dickhead in the eyes of the American baseball fan. He got in a physical fight with Jim Leyland when he was in his early 20's. Jim Leyland!

Barry Bonds has a reputation for being a dickhead that goes far beyond the issue of being juiced. I don't think someone is a dickhead for using human growth hormones, especially when there were no rules against it until very recently.

Mark McGuire has been cruxified and he was using over the counter stuff from health food stores.

If it turns out that Matt Murphy is juiced up then we really have a story.

"I've been taking HGH for a few years," said Matt. " Because I saw how freakin big it made Barry Bonds, and I wanted to be huge, just like him."

So many places to take a story, don't you think?

I'd really like to celebrate the Barry Bonds feat, but the Dodgers haven't scored a run since July and I'm getting nervous. And being a baseball fan means having a team that you love.

Individual players that you love became a thing of the past when free-agency became reality. You can like a player but you better not get to attached unless you don't mind seeing him in different uniforms.

But you can always love a team...

unless of course your are from Brooklyn and you were born between 1900-1957.....but that's another story.

But I still love the Rams and they will never come back to LA.

Anyway...it's a team that we love....and the faces change and the team remains(usually) so right now I'm not enjoying the season because my Team has fallen to fourth place in the division and it doesn't look like they can even score a single run.

Imagine if they went the rest of the season without scoring...now that would be a story for the ages.

I'm not sure I could even handle one more scoreless game.

Maybe they could hire Matt Murphy for some type of promotion....and with that grasping for straws idea....I sign off

Michael Timothy McAlevey