The long season, the marathon as the major league baseball season is known, is designed to weed out the pretenders and the streakers.  The weaknesses of a team will become apparent over the long haul as will the apparent strengths.  The Yankees have been built to win, from the head down.  Manager Joe Torre is flanked by an array of assistant coaches, all of whom have experience managing a team.

They include Tony Pena, Larry Bowa, and Lee Mazzilli in addition to Yankee great Don Mattingly and Ron Guidry.  What else would one expect of a franchise with such a storied history. 

No matter what one thinks of the Yankees and owner, George Steinbrenner, one must respect the tradition that is known as Yankee baseball and the manner in which they go about their business, from the top on down.  Whatever one thinks of Steinbrenner, he aspires to excellence and is determined to settle for nothing less than a maximum effort to win.  And for that fact alone, the Yankees are respected, even by the fans of their arch rivals in Boston.

Derek Jeter clearly deserves to be the captain of this team as he works on what may be his first MVP season, hitting .348 and delivering in clutch situations as well as providing leadership for his teammates.  Will they win the East?  Not if the suddenly injured and slumping Red Sox have anything to say about it, and don’t count them out.  All teams go through a slump at one point

in the season, but losing three straight to the lowly Royals has proven to be both surprising as well as unwelcome timing.  The absence of Jason Varitek, the captain of the Red Sox, has been felt throughout the lineup (in spite of a sub par year offensively) and particularly among the pitchers who he guides through games, series after series and ultimately the entire season, an influence that cannot be minimized.

The Dodgers are streaking, coming off a disastrous losing streak, only to recover by winning 11 of 12, currently tied for first with the Diamondbacks (another team that has inexplicably recovered, fueled with the arrival of two prime prospects, Stephen Drew at ss and rf Carlos Quentin) and the Padres.  Given their experience and offensive lineup, they should win, and with the arrival Greg Maddux, their pitchers will probably learn by example and mimic, for the time being, the future hall of fame pitcher.

Having Maddux on a staff is like having another coach, one with more credibility than most pitching coaches as he not only can talk the talk, he can still perform too. 

The Dodgers and D-Backs are a mere half game behind the Reds in the Wild Card standings, a spot no one really wants as a division crown is a much more straight forward road to the playoffs.   But they will take it and the Reds, led by a prodigious offense, a re-tooled bull pen and the sheer hustle typified by Ryan Freel, the ultimate utility player with impact, are doing just that, hustling their way into the playoff picture.  Picked to fail as everyone waits for them to fade, the refuse to do that and persevere, hustle and hit their way through these dog days.

The A’s cling precariously to first place in the AL West, doing so seemingly with mirrors.  Their pitching carries them but they are missing Rich Harden, arguably their most talented pitcher.  Barry Zito wins games but loses in ignominious fashion as well, taking the loss in a 14-0 loss to the Rangers.  Esteban Loaiza, signed to an uncharacteristically rich deal in the off season has underperformed.

Dan Haren is 9-9 and Joe Blanton is 12-9, both with sub 4.00 eras along with Zito’s 3.73 era.  The bad news is that they have only three reliable starters, but the good news -  no one else is doing any better in this department.  But they have the worst team batting averages in the league, and the MoneyBall theory of on base percentage is not apparent in these 2006 A’s as they rank 12^th in the league (a mere .328 team oba).  

This is a flawed team but they win, and the late season streaks of past teams are being mirrored again this year.  They rank third in the league in ERA though they walk too many hitters (387, 4^th

highest in the league) with only 683 strike outs, good for 10^th best in the league.  The 2006 version of the Oakland A’s defies conventional wisdom as to who wins and who SHOULD win.