Tim Wakefield was in the middle of a dream season. Due to a lower back issue, Wakefield’s dream season will have to be put on hold. The Boston Red Sox placed the knuckleballer on the disabled list, however Wakefield apparently doesn’t believe this is a long-term injury.
“It’s a minor setback,” explained Wakefield, “that’s all.”
Earlier in the month, Wakefield was named to the All-Star team for the first time in his career — quite an accomplishment for a 42-year-old who has been in Major League Baseball since 1992.
On the season, Wakefield has a 4.31 ERA to go along with a record …read more

Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers and Jayson Werth of the Philadelphia Phillies have been named to the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Cruz will be replacing Torii Hunter, while Werth will be replacing Carlos Beltran.
Cruz is currently hitting .264 with 20 homers and 50 RBIs. The 29-year-old out of the Dominican Republic has already set career-highs in home runs and RBIs.
Werth is hitting .268 with 20 homers and 56 RBIs. After helping the Phillies capture the 2008 World Series title, the 30-year-old Werth is on pace to have the best season of his big league career.
Hunter of the …read more

Two roster spots were open for the 2009 Major League All-Star Game — one in the American League and one in the National League. After fans had their say, the two final spots will go to Brandon Inge of the Detroit Tigers and Shane Victorino of the Philadelphia Phillies.
Victorino won with 15.6 million votes, while Inge won win 11.8 million votes. Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants finished second in the National League fan vote. Ian Kinsler finished second in the American League fan vote.
Inge, who has been extremely valuable to the Tigers due to his ability to play …read more

The 2009 All-Star Game reserves were recently named and the coaches got most of the selections right. However, there were three blatant mistakes made. Here are the three snubs along with the three players who should have been left off the All-Star team.
In: Ray Allen
Out: Devin Harris
There’s absolutely no way that Devin Harris should have made the All-Star team before Ray Allen. Allen is having a great shooting year despite not getting his usual amount of shots. Harris, on the other hand, gets tons of shots and tons of plays called for him on a bad team. You’d think the …read more

In the long litany of awful All-Star game jerseys, these may have been the worst for the mere fact that they actually hindered viewing. You (unfortunately) see, the East jerseys had blue fronts and very-white-looking-but-apparently-silver backs, while the West jerseys had white fronts and gold backs. An interesting idea, but it had the unfortunate consequence of creating the appearance of three teams on the floor: one gold, one blue, and one white. The gold and blue teams were usually quite outnumbered, and I expected them to band together in an attempt to have any change against their numerous opponents. …read more