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You’ve heard me talk about this before: middle relievers are the red-headed step-child when it comes to fantasy baseball. If Rodney, Dangerfield were still around, he’d say: “middle relievers just don’t get no respect.”

While stud middle relievers may help your WHIP, they don’t pitch a lot of innings and they rarely earn a save given today’s era of relief specialization. Hence, the tremendous decline in fantasy value of a player like Joba Chamberlain when Joe Girardi announced that Chamberlain would start the year as the Yankees set up man rather than as a starting pitcher.

The hold statistic was invented in 1986 by John Dewan and Mike O’Donnell as a way to measure the effectiveness of middle relievers. A hold is defined as “any time a relief pitcher enters a game in a save situation, records at least one out, and leaves the game never having relinquished the lead.” In short, a hold is equivelant to a save in middle reliever lingo.

Brandon Lyon of the Diamondbacks appeared in 73 games and pitched 74 innings last year. He was 6-4, with a 2.65 ERA, and converted 2 of 5 save opportunities. Not exactly the kind of stats that would propel you to the top of the pitching charts in your fantasy league. But, add Lyon’s 35 holds and you have yourself a strong performer. Lyon was certainly instrumental in the D-Backs’ 2007 success.

When the internet came along so did a myriad of statistical categories that could be added to your fantasy baseball league since it was no longer the commissioner sitting at his kitchen table at 2 AM compiling fantasy team stats. While most leagues stuck with the basic 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 leagues, some opted to add as many as 40 obscure categories. With the power of the internet, it wasn’t difficult to devise a system that would give differing levels of points to give credit to guys who excelled at sacrifice flies and assists or to punish those with large amounts of balks or triples allowed.

If your league decides to reward the important role that middle relievers play by adding a holds category (and we think it should), you will probably need to balance it out with another offensive category. The best one to add: probably walks or on base percentage. I think all of us who have read MoneyBall understand the importance of working a walk and getting on base. Red Sox manager Terry Francona sure does; he’s a believer and who can argue with Francona’s recent success.?

And, if your league decides to go crazy and add 40 categories, pick Troy Tulowitzki who led the MLB in assists last year with 561. If you add sacrifice flies, Carlos Lee was awesome with 13 last year.

As for triples allowed or balks: if your fantasy league commissioner proposes adding these categories, find another fantasy baseball league to play in.

http://www.fantasybaseballdugout.com
Anthony Wayne is a writer for Fantasy Baseball Dugout. He is also an ex-middle reliever in high school and doesn’t feel like middle relievers get the respect that they deserve.

If you are a fit young man who is famous and also happens to be a millionaire, it would make sense that you would have a very attractive wife, wouldn’t it?

Wives of Major League Baseball players are some of the most beautiful and often talented women in the world. There’s no doubt about that once you view the post on Fantasy Baseball Dugout.

Many of them are famous like Lisa Dergan, wife of Scott Podsednik, who is a former Playboy playmate. One look at Dergan and you can see why she is well qualified for that job.

Alejendra Tejada, wife of Miguel, is a Latin singer with several albums to her credit. Her web site is full of photos and videos that you’ll enjoy even if you don’t speak Spanish.

Tomoyo Shibata, wife of the Red Sox’s Dice-K, was a journalist before moving to America. She was a reporter for Nippon TV and actually met the now Red Sox pitcher when he was pitching for the Japanese Olympic team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. They married in 2005 and now have two children.

And, then there’s Jennie Finch, wife of Casey Daigle, probably the greatest American softball player of all time. If Finch didn’t have such a great riser, a pitch that struckout the likes of Barry Bonds and other MLB stars, she’d probably have become a model.

Ashley Drane is the cute wife of David Eckstein. Drane appeared in the remake of The Brady Bunch as Marsha and in That 70’s Show with Ashton Kutcher. The petite beauty has also appeared in Dance Dance Revolution, and That’s So Raven.

Debbie Clemens has been in the news a lot lately, mostly standing by her husband in two unfortunate controversies. The steroids investigation targeted Debbie as having used the drug in an effort to get ready for her Sports Illustrated shoot which is featured in the Fantasy Baseball Dugout article.

And, Anna Benson has become famous for her tell all details of her marriage to her husband and Phillies’ pitcher, Kris. Benson, a former Penthouse pet, clearly loves being in the limelight even to the point where she wrote details about having sexual intercourse in major league stadiums with her husband.

Some of the most beautiful wives in baseball have made their mark by raising money for charitable organizing. The stunning blonde Shonda Schilling has helped raise millions for ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. The Schilling’s even named their son Gehrig after the Iron Horse whose name has been attached to this dreadful disease.

So, next time you go to see your favorite professional baseball team play, remember that there is more going on than just what you see in the field. Behind many of the great athletes you see on the field is a beautiful woman with a story of her own.

http://www.fantasybaseballdugout.com/hot-wives-baseball
Anthony Wayne has published an article about the Hottest Wives in Baseball at Fantasy Baseball Dugout. Included are photos of the most beautiful women in baseball.

Juicing in baseball occurs on two levels. First is the newer baseballs with composite rubber compounds that enable the ball to behave stronger. Better flight and response to the bat which results in more home runs. Second, juicing the player with steroids for increase red blood cells that allow more oxygen metabolizing and muscle growth.

For any baseball fan that has a subscription to Scientific American you can appreciate how they bring in subjects that in one aspect are very in line with their thinking. But even the best minds can have trouble putting together the simplest concepts.

In April 2008 issue they go to great lengths to discuss the compound effects of steroid use. Some of these effects are well known and others you may find surprising.

As a young man just entering college I was fortunate enough to be able to have my exercise regime overseen by the then bench press world record holder. Under his watch I put on 30 lbs and took my bench press to doing repetitions with 450lbs and perform the squat with 680lbs. At 5 foot 11 inches it was impressive.

What I learned most from my mentor was that the stories about steroids were true. Within a few years of taking steroids he developed testicular cancer which resulted in the loss of one. He constantly fought roid rages which brought stress to his whole family. In that Gym, even the discussion of steroid use was frowned upon.

Aside from the emotional and physical trauma steroids put on the athlete, the article in Scientific American points out a lesser known truth. In the periods from 1994 through 1996 world class bicyclists were dying in their sleep. These guys are at the top of all sports when it comes to overall cardio conditioning. They ride for hundreds of miles daily at paces the average Joe can only keep up for mere minutes.

Steroids create additional red blood cells. More red blood cells, the more oxygen the bodies circulatory system has available the harder the muscles can work and recover. Every thing gets stronger down the line. Lungs become larger to pass more oxygen and the cycle goes through again.

What was pointed out is that with all these new red blood cells and athletes with superior cardio is that they were having heart attacks in their sleep. You will have to read the article to get all details on how the heart attacks were actually caused. But so far as it to say, cyclists on steroids were now sleeping with heart monitors to wake them up should their heart stop.

While this is all interesting you are wondering what it has to do with baseball. Simple, steroids are a short term gain and long term loss. How short and long the terms are depends on your unique chemistry. But have no doubt, you will pay a price that you never expected.

The current controversy surrounding baseball really should be laid to rest. The lure of steroid use is so great to these top athletes as it can be the difference between a multi year multi million dollar contract or minimum wage work at Home Depot. The solution to stop steroid use in professional athletics is out there. But today, no one has been able to find it.

For athletes who are not paid but want to take their game up a level. Simple, do it without steroids. Performance enhancement through chemistry is no solution. It just may be that you are not a premium athlete. Believe in yourself that your level of play, how ever frustrating it may be to your self image, is okay.

To break it down even farther; steroids without a prescription are contraband and the mere possession of them can get you jail time. If you have convinced yourself that your body chemistry is suitable for steroids then you are a candidate for instant hire at the human gene research center, they do not even know how it all works together.

Steroids are a hurricane. Once introduced into the body you have now idea when or how bad the storm will hit, but be sure, the storm is coming. No one can be prepared for what it will bring.

As athletes mature and move on into other fields were they are successful other than sports, being brought down from a mistake in the past can wreck havoc on all their current successes. Look forward to your life at 40 or 50, do you really want your kids with you in the hospital waiting for cancer surgery. How about having your heart stop on your wedding night.

As a person you are not an island. Many people are connected with your life and are affected by what you do and go through. Be patient with yourself. There are those you may never meet but your live will impact them. So if preserving yourself is not a good enough reason, maybe they are.

Mr. Dowdy is an Official Distributor for Kelley Athletic which is available at http://NW.kelleyusa.com or http://www.hirschgroupllc.com for more news/tips/articles or subscribe to the blog http://hgllc.typepad.com

Baseball is probably the most watched sport in America today. The way the game is played is two teams are formed with 9 players each. The pitcher will try to haul the baseball to the batter. The pitcher is trying to strike out the batter, three strikes and your out but the batter can hit the ball. The other 8 person playing with the pitcher are the 1st baseman, 2nd baseman, 3rd baseman, shortstop, left fielder, center fielder, right fielder and the catcher which catches the ball that the pitcher throws unless the batter hits the ball.

People will argue where the sport was originated but the real origin of baseball lies here in the good old United States. The game was played here back to the early part of the 19th century, but back then it was all white baseball no other players could play until the 60s and 70s came around where they allowed all players to try out and could play if they were good enough.

The National League was formed in 1876 where they started first playing baseball. After that more leagues and teams were added on and they started to play more and more of baseball and soon it grew to what we now know today as baseball. With Barry bonds and Alex Rodriguez hitting home runs every time up to bat, the players are getting better but the game is still the same. Maybe they need to start making the fields larger so it makes it harder for those good players to get a lot of home runs.

After the world wars baseball was a world wide sport and everyone wanted to play it. By then there were so many teams that they could have a baseball world series which didn’t start till later on down the road. There were baseball teams from all over the world like Puerto Rico, Cuba, Netherlands, Australia , Africa, south Africa, Europe, England, great Brittan, anywhere that you could think of as a country there was a baseball team for it that’s how popular baseball got after the world wars ended. If you wanted to play all you had to do in those days was go try out and if you could run and catch the ball with ease and actually hit the ball when you batted you were going to be on the team.

That’s just how it was back in those days; they just wanted players so they could player each others teams and have something to talk about every day. Back then all you heard talk about all day was baseball. Now today all you hear about is news about the Iraq war and occasionally talk of baseball. The big talk on baseball at the moment is the steroid issue.

Gregg Hall is an author living with his 18 year old son in Jensen Beach, Florida. Find more baseball as well as baseball equipment at http://www.nsearch.com

So you have decided to become a baseball coach, maybe because your child had a team but no one was willing to step up to coach or maybe you just have a passion for working in this field. Whatever the reason is really is not the important factor. Every coach wants a winning team and every player wants the same thing but this all lies within the overall effectiveness of the team as a whole, including the coach. A coach is a teacher and like any good teacher you should always be looking for ways to improve. These are the things that you want to share with your team. You may not even have much, if any experience in coaching but just familiarizing yourself with the basics is a great way to start.

There are actually some benefits to being a coach that is just starting out. As long as you know the basics of baseball and the rules of the game, the coaching skills are one that can be developed with your team and common sense will let you know what it is that everyone needs. It is your own personal style developed with your ethics and morals that will fill in the blanks as to which style of coach you will end up being. Of course the extreme basics of baseball require that a pitcher knows how to accurately throw a ball and a batter knows how to connect with that pitch and hit the ball into the outfield.

In an actual game of baseball a person will be in charge of measuring what each batter has accomplished. The measurement is done by using averages which are later used to measure a player’s effectiveness. Once the batter has hit the ball, it is then up to the opposing team to make sure that within the legal limits of the game of baseball that they make their best attempt to intercept the ball and tag the batter out before he reaches home plate. The opposing team may catch a fly ball, which is one that the batter hits into the air or perhaps the batter hit what is called a line drive or a grounder. In any event the players on the other team want to get the ball and tag the runner out before he clears the four bases and makes it home.

These are the basics of the game except for the fact that the batter could also do one of the following, strike out, which means that he missed the ball when it was pitched to him three different times. He could also walk, which is a baseball term for the pitcher throwing four attempts to a batter that were unable to be hit by error of the pitcher.

In this case the batter would advance to first base automatically. Of course do not forget the homerun either. This is the thing that all players strive for, the ability to hit the ball that is pitched to them outside of the perimeters of the playing field, hence resulting in a home run. This means that the batter automatically gets to advance from first base
to home plate and not only score a run but bring in anyone else who was on base waiting to score too.

Gregg Hall is an author living with his 18 year old son in Jensen Beach, Florida. Find more about coaching baseball as well as baseball equipment at http://www.nsearch.com