We’ll give you a deeper rundown on Monday, perhaps, but for now, let me give you four quick thoughts about the Hall of Fame Contemporary Era balloting on Sunday that led to the election of Fred McGriff.
McGriff’s election reminds me of the defining trade of my childhood as my six year old self heard that McGriff and my favourite player, Tony Fernandez, had been traded for some guys named Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. Little did I know how many good memories they would bring. I wonder if there will ever be a trade like that again, two great players exchanged for two great players. There can’t be many trades with that much WAR from the year before and the year after on both sides exchanging. The no prospect trade.
5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, *integrity*, sportsmanship, *character*, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.
Beltran and A-Rod should be elected. Beltran has a shot, although I think the writers will make him wait a few years. A-Rod I think goes the way of Bonds, et.. al.
Harold Baines I love to death, but it really lowered the bar when every marginal candidate can point to Baines getting in recently as a qualification, and not a mistake of long forgotten era.
I have to disagree with you on 1 point, George Brett absolutely idolizes Don Mattingly. If you watch the MLB Network documentary Donnie Baseball, Brett is all over it talking about how much he loves Mattingly
Crime dog said this is the second biggest honor of his life. Number one was being named a starter on the all-time born in Florida team for the strata Matic world championship tournament.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens raped the game. It's that simple.
Baseball, more than any other sport, treasures the history of the game. Its history and statistics are exponentially more important to its followers than any other sport. And these two guys have forever tainted that passion.
Consider everything that Hank Aaron went through to achieve the number 755. Consider the man... his integrity... his dignity. Yet Barry Bonds sent Hank Aaron to his deathbed knowing he was no longer considered baseball's Home Run King.
And look at what Bonds did to the future that followed him, never more evident than this year. No man playing fair will ever be able to hit 73 home runs in a season. It's unrealistic. Think of the season we may have had this year watching Aaron Judge chase Roger Maris' all-time major league home run record if the juicers hadn't ruined it. Judge's chase was a fraction as exciting as it could have been had it not been for the meaningless recognized home run "record" of 73. And every time I hear an announcer mention Judge's "American League" home run record it makes me cringe.
Barry Bonds deprived us all of that.
So does Barry Bonds belong in the Hall of Fame? Hell no. Same for Roger Clemens and his seven Cy Young Awards.
They raped the game and ruined its history. The game and its history are what Cooperstown is all about. They should never, ever, ever be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's that simple.
If they want to get in the Hall of Fame, let them pay $28.00 like the rest of us.
Bonds and Clemens did not do that on their own. Baseball did that to itself. With how widespread the problem was, if you want to do something to reflect what happened and the fans disappointment with then it should also be widespread and not focused on these handful of players. Start with protesting Selig being in the HoF.
how the hell do you know that Aaron played fair?!?!?!?!? MANY were gobbling amphetamines like candy during that era, and injections of god-knows-what weren't even discussed, let alone monitored?!?!?!?!? YOU are raping this discussion, and your clueless idiocy should never, ever, ever be considered as informed opinion! (side note to JOE: forgive me, but when people have such an illogical hard-on against Bonds & Clemons, when so many others for 50+ years are also equally as suspect of abusing amphetamines, steroids, etc, i start to see red!!! )
Perhaps being a Giants fan is coloring your thinking? There are reasonable arguments for Bonds and Clemens, but saying that EVERYONE is guilty and anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot isn’t one of them.
i never have stated that anyone disagreeing w/me is an idiot; however if somebody offers up a particularly specious faux argument, then i say if the shoe fits, wear it! btw, there are many other non-Giant fans who also think that Barry belongs in HoF, and many non-Red Sox/Yankees/AL/Clemens fans (me among them, surely) who feel that Roger belongs as well...
to be honest, who among us isn't at least a little bit guilty of our particular fervent fandom coloring our thinking, viewpoints, arguments?!?!?!?
Joe, I'm not sure Bonds and Clemens will be back in the next Contemporary Era ballot three years from now. With fewer than 4 votes, the tribe has spoken. They're not wanted. And I don't think the Hall wants to revisit the same steroid controversy with the same players every three years. Also, the presence of these two unwanted players, and the few votes they may garner, could effect the chances of election of the others on the ballot.
They were given their opportunity. The Hall gave them their fair shake. They had their chance with the BBWAA and failed. They had their chance with the Contemporary Era committee and failed. I see no need to put their names on the ballot again in 2025, and I think the Hall of Fame will see things the same way.
that is SO disingenuous! WHAT fair shake?!?!?!?!?!?!? when several others who most likely juiced (and MANY others from decades prior who gobbled amphetamines like candy) are in?!?!?!?!? oh puh-leese... i see no need to respond further to your sanctimonious self-righteousness
The Hall itself gave them a fair shake in that they gave them the opportunity to be elected by the BBWAA ten times, and then the Contemporary Era Committee, just like the rules for election state. The Hall itself didn't try to ban them or exclude them, and they didn't stack the deck against them. They treated them just like everyone else, which is fair.
Now, as far as the voters, that's up to you as to whether they were fair in their consideration or not. I personally, would have voted no; you apparently would have voted yes. We'll agree to disagree.
But I wasn't talking about the BBWAA voters or the committee voters. I was talking about the National Baseball Hall of Fame itself. And they were fair to Bonds and Clemens.
Football: Be intimately involved in a stabbing that leaves two men dead and plea to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice and you are a 1st ballot Hall of Famer and celebrated in the game's history.
Baseball: Express mean opinions and despite being one of the top pitchers of your generation you are a pariah and the game will go on without you.
Is baseball doing it right? Is football doing it wrong? I know which game is more popular and it is not the one worried about hurt feelings.
Being an ignorant moron probably hurt Schilling's chances a little bit, but not as much as Schilling making sure everyone knows he's an ignorant moron.
As a hypothetical, I wonder how the football writers would have voted on the candidacy of O. J. Simpson if his murder trial (and all the talk surrounding it) had taken place at that time. After he was acquitted would the voters have still voted him in even though most people who were familiar with the evidence knew he had gotten away with murder?
No chance right? I wonder if there's any precedent to football having a morality issue like this. Nothing really comes to mind. But baseball does have a huge head start regarding pure sanctimony.
They both do it wrong. Youre in the wrong place to argue for Schilling though lol. This crowd would vote for R.A. Dickeys babysitter before Schillng cause Trump or something.
Pretty sure Lewis didnt kill anybody and Schilling has oppo politics than 99% of the baseball journalists. Lewis easily got in as he should have. Schilling wasnt first ballot but no reason to keep him out.
Trump is a flawed, self destructive human being. So have been and so are other presidents and politicians.
What political and social opinions an athlete has should not matter in judging the player's contribution to the game. To do this discredits the game - it politicizes the game and politics is stupid. Baseball has enough stupid without adding even more stupid by cancelling players because they are "mean".
Bill James’s Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?, page 365....that’s one more of his predictions correct. Amazing!
For those unfamiliar, in 1994 he predicted the next 50 guys to go in the Hall. 35 have now gone in, leaving only 15 to go. Some may not ever make it like Rose, Bonds, Clemens and Juan Gonzalez, but he was right in predicting them at the time. At least one more of those remaining 15 will certainly eventually go in: Whitaker. Pretty remarkable.....
Baseball HOF voting has degraded to middle school girls fighting over who are the cool kids. As goes the voting for who achieved the highest level of performance in the game, so goes the reputation of the institution. I'll keep watching baseball and I'll spend less time caring what the writers and former players and executives think of the game. For the game they value is bland and mediocre.
To be precise, there is no excuse for not electing Curt Schilling. To claim there is a reason is cowardice. It is to say the HOF is not about recognizing excellence but about a whole lot of things unrelated to the actual game of baseball. Don't like Schilling or his opinions. Then give your vote to someone with a spine who will put the sport and the pursuit of excellence ahead of petty feelings.
In the Schwarber home run post comments in October, someone mentioned McGriff's enormous home run as a rookie in Yankee Stadium, and I feel obliged to post the video here again.
I'd also have leaned to the "not quite enough" side of things on McGriff, but he was close enough that it's really not a travesty, IMO. And in the "Harold Baines Hall of Fame," Fred McGriff is overqualified.
I don't know that this is so much a rebuke of Schilling as it is a math issue. Each committee member only had 3 votes. Everyone was pretty sure Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, and Belle had no chance (and they got 11 votes combined between them). And with McGriff getting in unanimously, there were only so many votes left for Schilling, Mattingly, and Murphy.
At some point the various HOF ballots need to be yes/no instead of limiting the number of votes that can be cast.
Hi Brian, good points all, but I think I should add: The other four got 11 votes between them AT MOST. Each committee member got three votes, yes, but they did not have to use all three, and I suspect several of them did not. I'd be surprised if Palmeiro got any votes. I'd be surprised if Belle got any votes. That and we know Clemens and Bonds didn't split the other 11 because neither of them got 4. It would not shock me if the four of them split four votes or fewer.
Joe, I have a theory about why some suspected PED users have been inducted (I-Rod, Piazza, and Ortiz come to mind) while voters have held Bonds, McGwire and Clemens to a different standard.
I believe it has everything to do with the damage they did to the game.
Perhaps they're more willing to forgive the lesser users because in the big picture their use was less damaging to the game. But they may be less willing to forgive Bonds, McGwire and Clemens because of the damage to the history of the game that they've caused.
McGwire stole the legacy of Maris, Clemens set a Cy Young standard that can never be touched, and Barry Bonds sent Hank Aaron to his deathbed knowing he was no longer considered the All-time Home Run King, and deprived us all of what could have been a monumental Aaron Judge home chase.
Mike Piazza? Ivan Rodriguez? David Ortiz? The damage is less apparent.
I’ll give you my thoughts. I think you might be right in how the writers are looking at this. But to me that is ass backwards. So some players were good not great to begin with, used, and became great. Other players who were great to begin with, watched those other lesser players use and become great, so then used themselves, and became otherworldly, so they are the ones who should be out of the hall. So you penalize the best players who cheated when everybody was cheating.
Why not do these like football - A few votes in succession to cut the group down, with each cut down being to a specific number of the highest vote getters, regardless of the vote totals. In other words, cut it to 20, then 15, then 10, then 5, then yes or no. Or remove the first couple steps if there’s not that many on the ballot. And then at the end, when you have five or so left, a yes or no vote for each guy, and for election you have to get a certain percentage. Doesn’t that remove the vagaries of ballots from the equation? At least mostly?
As usual, football is running circles around baseball.
The Football HOF isn't running circles around baseball. They may have a better voting process, but the attitude of most fans toward that institution seems to be more or less apathetic. There's no passion surrounding it, no debates about who should go in, less news when the selections are made--it really doesn't seem to matter in the realm of football. And maybe that's OK--the MLB certainly doesn't have it all figured out. But it baseball, it at least seems to matter.
I think that is yet another example of baseball trading on its past. I agree that the baseball Hall of Fame has traditionally been a much bigger deal. But I think that gap in Hall of fames is closing. Partly because of this stuff
McGriff had such a fascinating follow through on his hits. The bat would swing in a circle over his head like a helicopter blade. McGriff was the addition to the team in 95 that finally took them over the mountain. I recall the 1995 division series he had a monster game against Colorado. The mid-90s Braves absolutely owned Colorado. I think they went at least a full year win streak against them, and continued dominating for quite a while.
Crime Dog became a Brave not in ‘95 but in ‘93 igniting (remember the press box fire!) the race to catch the Giants and win the (geographically challenged) NL West.
I was amazed to read..."Chipper Jones apparently calling in sick (replaced by Arizona Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall".
It's 2022! Do people still miss meetings when they're sick? If only someone could invent some kind of online platform.
PS Apologies to Chipper if he is too sick to get to his laptop, if maybe he was caught up in a school shooting or something...
McGriff’s election reminds me of the defining trade of my childhood as my six year old self heard that McGriff and my favourite player, Tony Fernandez, had been traded for some guys named Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. Little did I know how many good memories they would bring. I wonder if there will ever be a trade like that again, two great players exchanged for two great players. There can’t be many trades with that much WAR from the year before and the year after on both sides exchanging. The no prospect trade.
Schilling getting snubbed is a stain on the HOF. He isn’t even borderline.
He is borderline in many ways, just not in the baseball ones.
Not really relavant, is it?
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/rules/bbwaa-rules-for-election
5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, *integrity*, sportsmanship, *character*, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.
And Schilling has shown to be stellar in each of those includinng sportsmanship, and integrity.
Beltran and A-Rod should be elected. Beltran has a shot, although I think the writers will make him wait a few years. A-Rod I think goes the way of Bonds, et.. al.
Harold Baines I love to death, but it really lowered the bar when every marginal candidate can point to Baines getting in recently as a qualification, and not a mistake of long forgotten era.
I have to disagree with you on 1 point, George Brett absolutely idolizes Don Mattingly. If you watch the MLB Network documentary Donnie Baseball, Brett is all over it talking about how much he loves Mattingly
Crime dog said this is the second biggest honor of his life. Number one was being named a starter on the all-time born in Florida team for the strata Matic world championship tournament.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens raped the game. It's that simple.
Baseball, more than any other sport, treasures the history of the game. Its history and statistics are exponentially more important to its followers than any other sport. And these two guys have forever tainted that passion.
Consider everything that Hank Aaron went through to achieve the number 755. Consider the man... his integrity... his dignity. Yet Barry Bonds sent Hank Aaron to his deathbed knowing he was no longer considered baseball's Home Run King.
And look at what Bonds did to the future that followed him, never more evident than this year. No man playing fair will ever be able to hit 73 home runs in a season. It's unrealistic. Think of the season we may have had this year watching Aaron Judge chase Roger Maris' all-time major league home run record if the juicers hadn't ruined it. Judge's chase was a fraction as exciting as it could have been had it not been for the meaningless recognized home run "record" of 73. And every time I hear an announcer mention Judge's "American League" home run record it makes me cringe.
Barry Bonds deprived us all of that.
So does Barry Bonds belong in the Hall of Fame? Hell no. Same for Roger Clemens and his seven Cy Young Awards.
They raped the game and ruined its history. The game and its history are what Cooperstown is all about. They should never, ever, ever be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's that simple.
If they want to get in the Hall of Fame, let them pay $28.00 like the rest of us.
Bonds and Clemens did not do that on their own. Baseball did that to itself. With how widespread the problem was, if you want to do something to reflect what happened and the fans disappointment with then it should also be widespread and not focused on these handful of players. Start with protesting Selig being in the HoF.
how the hell do you know that Aaron played fair?!?!?!?!? MANY were gobbling amphetamines like candy during that era, and injections of god-knows-what weren't even discussed, let alone monitored?!?!?!?!? YOU are raping this discussion, and your clueless idiocy should never, ever, ever be considered as informed opinion! (side note to JOE: forgive me, but when people have such an illogical hard-on against Bonds & Clemons, when so many others for 50+ years are also equally as suspect of abusing amphetamines, steroids, etc, i start to see red!!! )
Perhaps being a Giants fan is coloring your thinking? There are reasonable arguments for Bonds and Clemens, but saying that EVERYONE is guilty and anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot isn’t one of them.
i never have stated that anyone disagreeing w/me is an idiot; however if somebody offers up a particularly specious faux argument, then i say if the shoe fits, wear it! btw, there are many other non-Giant fans who also think that Barry belongs in HoF, and many non-Red Sox/Yankees/AL/Clemens fans (me among them, surely) who feel that Roger belongs as well...
to be honest, who among us isn't at least a little bit guilty of our particular fervent fandom coloring our thinking, viewpoints, arguments?!?!?!?
And there are many Giants fans who think he doesn't.
Sounds like you're of the guilty-until-proven-innocent crowd, even for people for whom there has never even been a whiff of suspicion. Interesting.
Joe, I'm not sure Bonds and Clemens will be back in the next Contemporary Era ballot three years from now. With fewer than 4 votes, the tribe has spoken. They're not wanted. And I don't think the Hall wants to revisit the same steroid controversy with the same players every three years. Also, the presence of these two unwanted players, and the few votes they may garner, could effect the chances of election of the others on the ballot.
They were given their opportunity. The Hall gave them their fair shake. They had their chance with the BBWAA and failed. They had their chance with the Contemporary Era committee and failed. I see no need to put their names on the ballot again in 2025, and I think the Hall of Fame will see things the same way.
that is SO disingenuous! WHAT fair shake?!?!?!?!?!?!? when several others who most likely juiced (and MANY others from decades prior who gobbled amphetamines like candy) are in?!?!?!?!? oh puh-leese... i see no need to respond further to your sanctimonious self-righteousness
The "Gobbled amphetamines like candy'' defense and whining like a baby reasoning is always a mind changer.
You’re pushing the envelope on what is acceptable behavior on JoeBlogs. Your comments remind me of what we see on less civil online sectors.
The Hall itself gave them a fair shake in that they gave them the opportunity to be elected by the BBWAA ten times, and then the Contemporary Era Committee, just like the rules for election state. The Hall itself didn't try to ban them or exclude them, and they didn't stack the deck against them. They treated them just like everyone else, which is fair.
Now, as far as the voters, that's up to you as to whether they were fair in their consideration or not. I personally, would have voted no; you apparently would have voted yes. We'll agree to disagree.
But I wasn't talking about the BBWAA voters or the committee voters. I was talking about the National Baseball Hall of Fame itself. And they were fair to Bonds and Clemens.
the Nat Baseball Hall of Fame itself was NOT fair to Bonds and Clemens, no matter how you attempt to disingenuously spin it!!!
I'm curious, Jenifer. Explain how you feel that the Hall of Fame itself was not fair to Bonds and Clemens.
Football: Be intimately involved in a stabbing that leaves two men dead and plea to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice and you are a 1st ballot Hall of Famer and celebrated in the game's history.
Baseball: Express mean opinions and despite being one of the top pitchers of your generation you are a pariah and the game will go on without you.
Is baseball doing it right? Is football doing it wrong? I know which game is more popular and it is not the one worried about hurt feelings.
Being an ignorant moron probably hurt Schilling's chances a little bit, but not as much as Schilling making sure everyone knows he's an ignorant moron.
As a hypothetical, I wonder how the football writers would have voted on the candidacy of O. J. Simpson if his murder trial (and all the talk surrounding it) had taken place at that time. After he was acquitted would the voters have still voted him in even though most people who were familiar with the evidence knew he had gotten away with murder?
No chance right? I wonder if there's any precedent to football having a morality issue like this. Nothing really comes to mind. But baseball does have a huge head start regarding pure sanctimony.
They both do it wrong. Youre in the wrong place to argue for Schilling though lol. This crowd would vote for R.A. Dickeys babysitter before Schillng cause Trump or something.
Pretty sure Lewis didnt kill anybody and Schilling has oppo politics than 99% of the baseball journalists. Lewis easily got in as he should have. Schilling wasnt first ballot but no reason to keep him out.
Trump is a flawed, self destructive human being. So have been and so are other presidents and politicians.
What political and social opinions an athlete has should not matter in judging the player's contribution to the game. To do this discredits the game - it politicizes the game and politics is stupid. Baseball has enough stupid without adding even more stupid by cancelling players because they are "mean".
Dont feed that troll. Anybody who disagrees with him he starts fapping about Trump.
Whelp you managed to turn a phrase that is both unseemly *and* incoherent. Mondays, huh?
Bill James’s Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?, page 365....that’s one more of his predictions correct. Amazing!
For those unfamiliar, in 1994 he predicted the next 50 guys to go in the Hall. 35 have now gone in, leaving only 15 to go. Some may not ever make it like Rose, Bonds, Clemens and Juan Gonzalez, but he was right in predicting them at the time. At least one more of those remaining 15 will certainly eventually go in: Whitaker. Pretty remarkable.....
Baseball HOF voting has degraded to middle school girls fighting over who are the cool kids. As goes the voting for who achieved the highest level of performance in the game, so goes the reputation of the institution. I'll keep watching baseball and I'll spend less time caring what the writers and former players and executives think of the game. For the game they value is bland and mediocre.
To be precise, there is no excuse for not electing Curt Schilling. To claim there is a reason is cowardice. It is to say the HOF is not about recognizing excellence but about a whole lot of things unrelated to the actual game of baseball. Don't like Schilling or his opinions. Then give your vote to someone with a spine who will put the sport and the pursuit of excellence ahead of petty feelings.
200ish wins. Zero Cy Youngs.
His baseball-only case isn't that compelling or obvious.
In the Schwarber home run post comments in October, someone mentioned McGriff's enormous home run as a rookie in Yankee Stadium, and I feel obliged to post the video here again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYFonO0KDSg
My goodness, he got ahold of that one.
I'll take credit: it was me who mentioned it.
Hell, I watched it live as a 19-year old. Monday Night Baseball. That's why Al Michaels did the call.
I'd also have leaned to the "not quite enough" side of things on McGriff, but he was close enough that it's really not a travesty, IMO. And in the "Harold Baines Hall of Fame," Fred McGriff is overqualified.
I don't know that this is so much a rebuke of Schilling as it is a math issue. Each committee member only had 3 votes. Everyone was pretty sure Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, and Belle had no chance (and they got 11 votes combined between them). And with McGriff getting in unanimously, there were only so many votes left for Schilling, Mattingly, and Murphy.
At some point the various HOF ballots need to be yes/no instead of limiting the number of votes that can be cast.
Hi Brian, good points all, but I think I should add: The other four got 11 votes between them AT MOST. Each committee member got three votes, yes, but they did not have to use all three, and I suspect several of them did not. I'd be surprised if Palmeiro got any votes. I'd be surprised if Belle got any votes. That and we know Clemens and Bonds didn't split the other 11 because neither of them got 4. It would not shock me if the four of them split four votes or fewer.
Joe, I have a theory about why some suspected PED users have been inducted (I-Rod, Piazza, and Ortiz come to mind) while voters have held Bonds, McGwire and Clemens to a different standard.
I believe it has everything to do with the damage they did to the game.
Perhaps they're more willing to forgive the lesser users because in the big picture their use was less damaging to the game. But they may be less willing to forgive Bonds, McGwire and Clemens because of the damage to the history of the game that they've caused.
McGwire stole the legacy of Maris, Clemens set a Cy Young standard that can never be touched, and Barry Bonds sent Hank Aaron to his deathbed knowing he was no longer considered the All-time Home Run King, and deprived us all of what could have been a monumental Aaron Judge home chase.
Mike Piazza? Ivan Rodriguez? David Ortiz? The damage is less apparent.
Your thoughts?
I’ll give you my thoughts. I think you might be right in how the writers are looking at this. But to me that is ass backwards. So some players were good not great to begin with, used, and became great. Other players who were great to begin with, watched those other lesser players use and become great, so then used themselves, and became otherworldly, so they are the ones who should be out of the hall. So you penalize the best players who cheated when everybody was cheating.
Can we recall Bud Selig from the Hall of Fame?
Why not do these like football - A few votes in succession to cut the group down, with each cut down being to a specific number of the highest vote getters, regardless of the vote totals. In other words, cut it to 20, then 15, then 10, then 5, then yes or no. Or remove the first couple steps if there’s not that many on the ballot. And then at the end, when you have five or so left, a yes or no vote for each guy, and for election you have to get a certain percentage. Doesn’t that remove the vagaries of ballots from the equation? At least mostly?
As usual, football is running circles around baseball.
The Football HOF isn't running circles around baseball. They may have a better voting process, but the attitude of most fans toward that institution seems to be more or less apathetic. There's no passion surrounding it, no debates about who should go in, less news when the selections are made--it really doesn't seem to matter in the realm of football. And maybe that's OK--the MLB certainly doesn't have it all figured out. But it baseball, it at least seems to matter.
I think that is yet another example of baseball trading on its past. I agree that the baseball Hall of Fame has traditionally been a much bigger deal. But I think that gap in Hall of fames is closing. Partly because of this stuff
McGriff had such a fascinating follow through on his hits. The bat would swing in a circle over his head like a helicopter blade. McGriff was the addition to the team in 95 that finally took them over the mountain. I recall the 1995 division series he had a monster game against Colorado. The mid-90s Braves absolutely owned Colorado. I think they went at least a full year win streak against them, and continued dominating for quite a while.
Crime Dog became a Brave not in ‘95 but in ‘93 igniting (remember the press box fire!) the race to catch the Giants and win the (geographically challenged) NL West.