Week Six (April 15, 2002)  

Two at the Top!

The Newark Sugar Bears, after posting the best record in baseball for the first quarter of the season, got cold just when the Arkansas Golden Falcons got red-hot. The Sugar Bears ended the week dropping three of their last four -- just as the Golden Falcons were reeling off 10 straight wins. Arkansas's win streak came to an end Sunday, but not before they had caught up to Newark in a dead heat for the best record in baseball.

Behind Newark in the Hanover Division, the Hoboken Cutters also got hot at the right time, going 6-1 to chop 2.5 games off Newark's first-place lead. The Honolulu Sharks went 4-3 to climb into a third-place tie with the Brooklyn Bean Counters, who managed just a 2-5 mark. Both teams enter the second quarter playing .500 baseball. In the second division, the Stanhope Mighty Men are still heading in the wrong direction after dropping four games this week and falling 10 games under .500. The Phoenix Dragons began the week on a promising note, then dropped their next four straight to fall to sixth place. The last-place Harrison Rats, 2 1/2 games out of sixth place three weeks ago, have lost 3 of their last 15 games.

Slowly separating from the pack, the Vancouver Iron Fist went 5-2 this week to solidify their hold on second place, though they're still 6.5 games behind Arkansas in the Morris Division. The Tijuana Banditos held, going 4-4 to take sole possession of third place from the slumping Wanaque Wolverines, who managed just two wins. The Philadelphia Endzone Animals ended the week on a three-game winning streak and are now just 5 games under .500. At the back of the pack, the sixth-place Columbia Rattlesnakes went 2-4, with the Carolina Mudcats making up a game in the standings by splitting this week's slate.

That Amazing Alomar

For the second straight week, free steaks are being delivered to Hoboken. But they're being sent to Roberto Alomar, who led the Cutters with 8 runs, 13 RBIs, 3 HRs and a .429 batting average to take home his first OmahaSteaks.com Batter of the Week Award for 2002. Alomar also is riding the league's longest active hitting streak, at 14 games. Last week's meat eater, Brian Giles, also put up respectable numbers (.348, 2 HR, 9 RBI, with a 1.310 OPS), while Week 3 winner Mike Piazza hit .414 with 4 doubles, 2 HRs and 6 RBIs... Alomar just edged Philly's Scott Rolen, who hit .400 with 5 HRs, 8 runs and 11 RBIs, while fellow third-sacker Troy Glaus hit .400 with 3 HR, 8 runs and 6 RBIs, posting a 1.520 OPS. Table-setter Rafael Furcal hit .400 with a .455 OBP, stole 2 bases, scored 7 runs and knocked in 4, and rookie Albert Pujols hit 2 HR with 7 RBI. The Endzone Animals were the league's top offense this week, hitting .352 as a team (.402 OBP, .634 SLG).

The Bean Counters haven't been adding up much offense this season, but Brian Jordan hit .464 (13 for 28) with 3 doubles, 2 HRs and 6 RBIs this week... Honolulu's Shawn Green had seven hits this week -- one single and six home runs. He scored 7 runs and knocked in 10. His teammate, Jose Cruz Jr., hit just .207 (6 for 29), but slammed 3 HRs for 5 runs, 5 RBIs and was 3-for-3 on the basepaths... Rich Aurilia has been red-hot for Carolina, slugging .955 this week (1 2B, 4 HR) for 5 runs, 11 RBI... Slammin' Sammy Sosa took over the lead for the batting title, hitting .481 with a 1.391 OPS. He only hit 1 HR, but he scored 5 runs and drove in 7 more... But of course, no glance at the league's top batters would be complete without -- who else? -- Barry Bonds, who again put up mad numbers in Arkansas (.304, 1.500 OPS, 5 HR, 8 R, 10 RBI, 9 BB). Teammate Phil Nevin hit .444 with 3 HR, 10 RBI, which catcher Ben Molina hit .389 with a .522 OBP, capped by a league-leading 4 HBP this week... Harrison's Denny Hocking (.385, 4 2B, 6 R), Tijuana's Shannon Stewart (.355, 5 R, 6 RBI), Stanhope's Todd Helton (.261, 3 HR, 6 RBI) and Newark's Jim Thome (.364, 2 HR, 5 RBI) also swung big sticks.

Leiter It Up!

Two years ago, Al Leiter went 16-8 with a 3.34 ERA for the Vancouver Iron Fist, eating up 234 innings and never missing a turn in the rotation. But Leiter, after going 2-3, 5.29 ERA in the post-season (and a Vancouver loss to hated Arkansas in the World Series), was allowed to test the free agent waters and signed with Austin, later moving with that franchise to Harrison. On Jan. 16, the Iron Fist fans got re-acquainted with Leiter when Vancouver gave up Tom Glavine, Tony Armas and Javy Lopez to get him back. Lopez is hitting .371 with a .911 OPS for the Rats, but Glavine (3-2, 5.94), Armas (1-6, 8.62) and Leiter (3-3, 4.18) have been rather disappointing thus far. That was, of course, until this week, when Leiter went 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA, including a clutch 3-2 win over Randy Johnson on Sunday. Leiter's impressive week earned him an audit as he struck out 27 and walked just 2 in 23.1 IP.

But even more impressive has been the performance of Stanhope's Mariano Rivera: No walks and 23 Ks in 25 IP. Rivera (2-1, 8 SV) recorded two more saves this week, lowering his ERA to 1.44 ERA and his WHIP to 0.80... Arkansas's pitching staff yielded a league-fewest 12 earned runs in seven games, going 6-1 with a 1.64 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. In fact, in their only loss this week, Brad Penny yielded just 3 runs -- but the Falcons were shut out by Stanhope. Roger Clemens (6-1, 2.35 ERA) gave up 3 hits and no runs to get the win in his only start this week... On the other side of the coin, Wanaque went 2-4 despite posting a 2.94 ERA. The defense yielded 20 runs, the offense scored 19... Curse of the Fat Chicks? Two weeks ago, Newark's John Thomson was 6-0 with a 1.44 ERA and 7.2 runners per 9 when he won the Fat Chicks in Party Hats! Pitcher of the Week Award. Since then, he's gone 0-1 with a 5.68 ERA and has allowed 16.34 runners per 9. "I just can't get that boob belt out of my head," Thomson sobbed after Thursday night's 1-5 loss to Honolulu, his first defeat of the season. "It's haunting me. It's like a car wreck. I don't want to look, but I can't turn away." Newark pitching coach Mike Grace said they'll try shock therapy if Thomson doesn't right the ship with two starts next week.

Neifi, Benji... Benji, Neifi

There was a bit of musical chairs in Philadelphia this week as the Endzone Animals shuffled their shortstops. On Wednesday, GM Anthony "Bocci" Pucci waived Benji Gil, who was hitting just .195 with 8 R, 6 RBI in 116 ABs, and re-signed Neifi Perez, last year's starting shortstop. Perez, in his first game back with the Animals, had 2 of the team's 3 hits against Roger Clemens in a 5-0 loss. Nevertheless, he was released after the game. His replacement? Benji Gil. Pucci said he made the move "to fuck with Benji's head." It worked: Since rejoining the Endzone Animals, Gil is hitting .571 (8-for-14) with 5 R and 7 RBI, and the team has won three straight... Perez, who was released for the second time this season, will hope his .667 batting average with convince some other team in search of a middle infielder to give him a try; maybe the Harrison Rats, who lost utility man Frank Catalanotto for two weeks after he "sampled the local produce" on a road trip to Tijuana. But there's a long list of players given their walking papers this week, despite impressive auditions: Tom Lampkin hit .368 with a .900 OPS for Vancouver, with 5 doubles, 5 R and 6 RBI in 38 ABs, but was released when Ben Petrick (.164, 4 HR, 14 RBI in 73 ABs) came off the DL; Brook Fordyce, who had two doubles, a walk and an RBI in six trips to the plate for Newark, was released for Shane Spencer (.250, 0 HR, 0 RBI in 20 ABs); and Abraham Nunez, who singled, scored two runs and drove in another in his only two ABs for Arkansas before being released in favor of Joe McEwing (.207, 1 R, 2 RBI in 29 ABs). A frustrated Pokey Reese, released by Stanhope in spring training only to be re-signed April 4, said it's time the league's scrubs form a union to prevent this kind of abuse. "You pick up your whole family, you move to a new town and a week later you're working at Sears again," Reese said. "This isn't the NBA with their 10-day contracts. Major league players deserve major league treatment." Reese was released after Sunday's doubleheader.

TWIB may have Ozzie Smith, but we have the better Smith! Zane Smith, former pitcher for the San Antonio Slingers and Sacramento Seahawks, now writes this column exclusively for the Diamond Mind Baseball League. Click Here for past articles.