Apropos of nothing political:
What an amazing year this is for American League rookies. We have:
-Yangervis Solarte (pronounced yon-HERR-viss so-LAR-tay), who toiled in the minor leagues for 8 years before becoming a New York Yankee, who not only is playing a terrific third base defensively, but is batting .336 – he is currently tied for the league lead – and is driving in more runs than any other Yankee.
-Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox. All he\’s done is hit 15 home runs and drive in 41 runs a quarter of the way through the season. If he continues at that pace (no one expects it, but let\’s just suppose) he will wind up with about 60 home runs and over 160 runs batted in.
-Masahiro Tanaka, the Yankee import from Japan, who, after his complete game shutout of the Mets last night, is 6-0 with a 2.17 earned run average. Last year, in Japan, his record – incredibly – was 24 – 0. And he won his final four games the season before, which means that, combined, Tanaka is on a 34 game winning streak.
There may be other really good rookies as well, but those are the three whose stats jump off the page at me. It will be fun to see how they wind up by year\’s end.
Ok, back to politics, where, in November, I hope a large bunch of rookies are elected, and do one whole lot better than the veterans they will be replacing.
