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Earlier in the decade, Mark Prior was the big pitching phenom.  He was a star at USC,  was drafted at the top of the draft by the Chicago Cubs, and was in the major leagues in 2003, within a year or so of being drafted.  His name could have been changed to “Can’t Miss”.  Problem was, his arm did not agree with all the pundits.  By 2006 he was out of baseball after numerous arm surgeries, unfortunate injuries, and a fateful collision with a guy named Bartman.

It is easy, because it has been so long since he has pitched in a major league game, to forget how exceptional Prior was. He was hailed as a once-in-a-generation pitcher at Southern California, with an unheard-of 17-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and seemingly flawless mechanics. The small-market Minnesota Twins, perhaps scared off by Prior’s price, chose a hometown product, Joe Mauer, with the top pick in the 2001 draft and lavished him with a $5.15 million signing bonus, a record. About six weeks later, the Cubs, who chose Prior second, gave him $10.5 million.

Today, Prior is attempting to make his comeback to the majors by playing in a semi-pro league out in his hometown of San Diego.

I bring all of this up because on Friday, today’s phenom of the year Stephen Strasburg is scheduled to have “Tommy John” surgery on his once golden right arm that has taken MLB by storm this year. And I do mean “taken by storm”. The well deserved hype surrounding Strasburg was off the charts in today’s 24/7 online media world. Like Mark Prior, Strasburg has (or now, had?) all the natural gifts and tools to be special. But with this injury, the hyped up sports world has to again ask “what if” with this newest athlete of the moment. Will he fall on the phenom scrap heap along with David Clyde, Joe Charboneau, and Brien Taylor? Or will he come back and continue (in 2012) on the amazing trajectory he has been on this year?

Destiny is an evil bitch sometimes.

This past weekend, I was down in the Baltimore-Washington area with the family. The main reason we went there was to see the Red Sox play the Orioles on Sunday. On a whim, we also went to see the Washington Nationals game in their somewhat new stadium on Saturday evening (vs the Cincinnati Reds).

With these visits to these two MLB stadiums, I took a few pictures, including stitching together a series of photos of each of the stadiums to create panoramics of each one. So here they are. Click on the images to view larger versions.

Nationals Park – Home of the Washington Nationals

Camden Yards – Home of the Baltimore Orioles

Some new footage was of Babe Ruth was recently discovered in a home movie collection from a family in New Hampshire.

The latest Babe Ruth film, unseen publicly until now, is part of a 90-second clip shot from the first-base stands at Yankee Stadium. There is no sound. But there are sweeping views of the park. And there is Ruth, obvious by his shape and waddle.

I saw this post on Chad Finn’s Touching All The Bases blog titled “Guess That 1970′s Baseball Player”, and the first player listed was none other than Steve Garvey of LA Dodger fame. Chad noted Garvey’s troubles in his post-playing days and it got me to thinking of a random interaction I had with Garvey many years ago.

When I worked in the Advertising industry, I was regularly taken out to lunch or dinner or whatever by magazines and TV networks. Once, the now defunked Sport Magazine took me and a female colleage out to lunch. The Sport Mag rep brought along to this lunch their “honorary” publisher (or whatever his fluff title was) at the time, Steve Garvey. Obviously, Garvey had no flipping idea how to run a magazine and his purpose was nothing more than for publicity and promotions as Sport was trying (and failing) to compete for advertising business against Sports Illustrated.

Now, the female colleage that was also at this lunch was, shall we say, very easy on the eyes. And wouldn’t you know that Garvey could not keep his toungue in his mouth throughout the lunch. When the lunch ended, he gave us each an autographed baseball (a little cheezy, I must say) and I distinctly recall him saying something to the effect of “you sweet young thing” to my colleage.

So when I see all the troubles Garvey has had since leaving baseball, I recall is this incident and say: Why doesn’t this surprise me?

So baseball and their genius PR managers pulled out another brilliant move with their “marketing” deal with Sony Pictures and Spider Man II to put ads on the bases across all MLB stadiums. This is easily one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard of from a marketing perspective. Not only did it violate the sanctity and history of the game, but practically speaking, did they really think that fans in the stands would actually be able to see the ads on the bases, which last I heard, is a critical aspect of advertising? Its like Spider Man II’s target audience was really millionaire baseball players who run or slide, because they would be the only ones who would actually be close enough to see the damn things. Add to this the fact that teams like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox (Disclosure: I am a lifelong Red Sox fan.) would get more revenue from the deal and it just makes the whole think reek.

Baseball has once again shot itself in the foot. I love the game, I follow it passionately. But they have to get these idiots out of the front office and get some people to run the show that can effectively balance and build on the storied history of the game while at the same time market the sport to fans young and old. That is not an easy task, but I am confident someone is out there that could do it. Bob Costas for Commissioner!

I am a Minnesota Twins fan this week.