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May 11th: And, here we go again. The first player standings (fifth computed stndgs, actually) have been up-loaded to the site this morning, and the leader is... Steven Richard of Long Beach, CA who currently holds a seven point lead over Ginny Whiteley also of Long Beach, CA and ten point lead over Andrew Hazlewood also of Long Beach, CA. It must help to live in Long Beach this week. We once lived there but that was a loooong time ago.

As the data was being developed and I was using late April MLB standings, Charles Kovac of Fullerton, CA was the early leader. Steven took the lead on May 8th and two days later had opened up a 13 point lead. In the five early runs we have had nine different players appear on the leader board and Steven Richard has appeared each time not a good sign for the rest of us.

Early keys to the game would include Cleveland last in the AL Central (10 players), Oakland last in the AL West (21) and San Francisco 2nd (w/LAD) in the NL West (16). The Keys page will be added to the site at the All-Star Break.

This year, with yet another new ISP, I have had to create three e-mail distribution lists totaling 185 e-mail addresses (and one snail-mail). I will be sending out a brief e-mail message every Monday morning (PDT) for the rest of the season, unless you hear otherwise. If you would rather not be bothered with this weekly message please let me know and I will edit my lists.

May 18th: Not much apparent change among the leaders as the same Long Beach Trio continue to hold the top three spots. Steven Richard now holds a three point lead over Andrew Hazlewood and a seven point lead over Ginny Whiteley. There were, however a couple of lead changes during the week as Jim Wood of Holly Springs, NC grabbed the lead briefly last Friday. Steven has yet to be removed from the leader board and has now made seven straight appearances.

Each of the leaders has at least one division correct and Andrew has both the AL West and the NL East right. His NL East picks (NY,Phil,Atl,FL,Wash) represent the consensus picks and 70 players have it right. A couple of new keys are staring to take shape as Toronto (2 players) now leads the RedSox by 3 games in the AL East and Texas (9) swept the Angels over the weekend and has opened up a 4 1/2 game lead in the AL West.

May 25th: Another week, another lead change as Charles Kovac of Lower Fullerton, CA has moved back in front and currently holds a two point lead over Andrew Hazlewood of Long Beach, CA and a six point lead over Easy Freeman of Niceville, FL. Easy, a veteran player since our first days at Vandenberg AFB on the Central Coast in 1981, is to the best of my knowledge is one of just three players that do not have access to the internet but he will get a copy of this weeks player standings as it is scheduled to be distributed via USPS (if I can remember) and Easy is the only player on distribution.

This week we not only entered the first of the phase of inter-league play but we also breezed past the one-quarter mark of the season and it is time to take our first look at the big picture. Thus far we have focused on the keys that just a small number of players have made, like Cleveland, Oakland and Texas but there are a few bigger keys beginning to take shape that may have some long term effect on the shaping of the field. The first two to surface are Washington last in the NL East by six games and Los Angeles first in the NL West by seven and one-half games (and have led by as many as nine games). Most player have these teams listed correctly but not all so here we focus on those that have missed them. Thirty players did not pick Nats last while sixty-one did not pick the Dodgers first and ten players have missed on both teams. All but two of this last group of players can be found on page five. Gonna be a long season.

Please note that there is currently a five way tie for 49th place so there are really fifty-three players on the first page rather than the fifty players that are listed.

June 1st: No lead changes this week as Charles Kovac of Lower Fullerton, CA now enjoys a seven point lead over Jerry Slagle of Fallbrook, CA, Ginny Whiteley of Long Beach, CA and first time player, Liam Hall of Endicott City, MD. There have been some changes on the leader board though as three new names now appear there. For Jerry Slagle, the youngest of the Slagle clan, he is right where he finished last season. Jerry has also finished third twice (see Prior Winners). Note that all three leaders have Detroit (last in 2008) in first place this time. That must be important. Thirteen players have the Tigers 1st while over 160 players have the Tigers 4th or 5th.

June 8th: No lead changes this week as Charles Kovac of Lower Fullerton, CA now enjoys an eight point lead over Jerry Slagle of Fallbrook, CA and a nine point lead on James Rover of San Francisco who has made his first appearance on the leader board this year. Will have to cut this short this week as I have some other pressing needs. Maybe I just need more rest after sweating out an overtime in Game 2. I promise too do better next week.

June 15th: Another lead change this week as Steven Richard of Long Beach, CA re-passed Charles Kovac of Lower Fullerton, CA on Sunday and now leads Charles by seven points and Ginny Whiteley of Long Beach, CA and James Rover of San Francisco by eight points. This is the first lead change in nearly a month as Charles had held the lead since May 22nd. It is our fifth lead change over all.

There are two keys that have gotten very little ink to date but both appear to be very important to our contest. They are Boston/New York in the AL East and Philadelphia/New York in the NL East. While it won't appear anywhere else in the game, there was a lot of day-to-day movement when these four teams hooked up in inter-league play over the weekend. As an example: I had dropped to 132nd place at mid-week before inter-league play resumed. By Friday I was up to 86th place and on Sunday morning stood just one point and two positions behind a couple of players that I regularly compete with. With Santana going for the Mets I felt pretty good about moving up again this morning. Not to be! Santana got bombed, I lost both games and dropped all the way to 115th. It's still too early.

June 22nd: No lead changes this week but it's gettin' close as Steven Richard of Long Beach, CA now holds a Tie Breaker lead over Pat Morris of Irvine, CA and a ten point lead over Ginny Whiteley of Long Beach, CA.

This was moving week for a lot of players and some players made some major moves, so this seemed like a good time to get out last year's Player Moves file and here is what I found. Led by Bruce Brown of Columbia, MD and Blake Vasquez of New York City, who each moved up 74 places, a total of ten players improved by fifty places or more and another twelve players moved up at least forty spots. Those now in full reverse were paced by Scott Hurst of Princeton, IN, who dropped 96 places, eleven players fell fifty or more spots and another six players dropped forty or more spots.

June 29th: A couple of more lead changes last week. Last Tuesday, despite only four games played the day before, Pat Morris of Irvine, CA took the lead. Pat's lead didn't hold though as Steven Richard of Long Beach, CA now holds an eight point lead over Pat and a 23 point lead over Ginny Whiteley of Long Beach, CA.

New Player Standings page status: Well I guess that all of the votes are in, 18 of them at least. Here are the returns from last week:

Clearly the majority of those that have an opinion like the single page format and most of those felt strongly about the new format. Of the three people that like the old multi-page format only one was strongly in favor of the old format. Those that showed no preference left it up to me so it will be up to me to convince the lone dissenter that the new format is best and move on. For those that thought they were doing me a favor by sticking to the multi-page format, well, the single page does take more time to prepare but it takes a lot less time than four or five smaller pages.

So here is what we'll do: I will maintain both the single page and multi-page formats for one more week simply to give viewers a chance to transition to the new single page format but I will not maintain both formats past that time. After that and by the All-Star Break (July 14th) we will move to one page. I hope that this meets with the approval of the majority of players.

I am left with just one question. What took so long? I've been doing this (on-line) for nearly nine years and until two weeks ago no one had ever suggested going to a single page. Had I not been forced to move cable last Spring I would never have given it a thought, but who knew.

July 6th: Another lead change this week and a lot of other changes as the gap between 2nd and 3rd continues to widen. Pat Morris of Irvine, CA now leads Steven Richard of Long Beach, CA by two points and Jim A. Slagle of Irvine, CA by 25 points. Jim is Jerry Slagle's older brother. There was also a lot of movement among the rest of the troops as well as the Redsox and Yankees begin to pull away in the AL East. This a major key to the game now as 142 players have either Bos/NYY or NYY/Bos one/two while 100 players do not and it is worth ten or twelve points.

Players on the move: Yes, this was moving week for a lot of us. Twenty-eight players, led by Warren Morris (Pat's dad), 69 places and Doug Slothower (68) improved by 30 or more places. Meanwhile, Bryan Kilmer (69) led a group of thirty players that dropped 30 or more spots from last week's standings.

Next week is the All-Star Break and I will be taking an extra day to work the data so the player standings will be posted on Tuesday. I will add the Keys page to the data base next week and will try to get the CumStats updated (a lot of work here) at that time. Also, please note that the multi-page player standings format will be replaced by a single page set of data next week. If anyone has a problem with this, now's the time.

July 14th: We are at the All-Star Break and Pat Morris of Irvine, CA has opened up a 20 point on Steven Richard of Long Beach, CA and a 27 point lead over 1996 winner, Shawn Dunaway of Columbus, OH. Pat is now in his 13th year and his best prior finish was 19th in 1982. He owes his current success to having solved the tough NL West where he has just four points, eighteen better than Steven.

This week the CumStats have been updated. We now have 180 active participants that have been in the game for three years or more, including eighteen new three year players. Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA continues to be our CumStat leader. Josh is also currently 6th in today's standings. The SABR Survey has returned to the game this year and has moved into 3rd place overall in the CumStats. There are also 132 inactive players currently listed. The game keys page has also been added.

July 20th: Pat Morris of Irvine, CA continues to widen his lead and now holds a 24 point over Jim A. Slagle, also of Irvine and a 28 point lead over Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA. Not much to report this week but we should note that the pennant races in three divisions have tighten up some in the brief time since the All-Star Break. Gonna be an interesting second half.

July 27th: Not much to report this week as there was no apparent change at the top but there was a brief shift as Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA slipped past Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA and into second place. It didn't last. Things did tighten up just a bit though and Pat Morris of Irvine, CA now leads Jim by thirteen points and Josh by fifteen points. The biggest gap now appears to be between third and fourth place, unless you want to look a deeper in the standings.

August 3rd: Another uneventful week for most of us as the leader board remained the same. Things did tighten up a little bit as Pat Morris of Irvine, CA now leads Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA by 11 points and Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA by 21 points. A year ago we were entering into a very competitive stretch where there was a very close contest and a lot of lead changes. Not so sure about that this time around but we'll play out the season anyway.

August 10th: A fun week for some, not so much for others. Pat Morris' once commanding lead (Pat led by 24 pts just three weeks ago) has vanished with a weekend four game sweep by New York over Boston. With the Yankee sweep, Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA has moved ahead of Pat and now holds a two point lead over Pat Morris of Irvine, CA and a nine point lead over Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA. Richard Mear of Mesa, AZ has also moved into contention and is ten points back. Jim only our fifth different leader this year and this is our ninth lead change.

August 17th: A couple of more lead changes this week, our tenth and eleventh this season, but other than that not much change. Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA now leads Pat Morris of Irvine, CA by seven points and Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA by nine points. Pat slipped ahead by two points on Friday but Jim surged back into the lead over the weekend. There might have been a few more lead changes during the week but there seems to be a loss of interest here on the home front.

Irvine, CA, population 116,000, deep in the heart of conservative Orange County. I often wonder when players are from the same community if they know each other, like we have two Todds from Plano, TX. Do they know each other? Probably not but in the case of Jim and Pat, both from Irvine (California, not Texas), they have much more in common than the same home town. First of all, their dads, both long time players of our annual baseball game, both spent long, (over 30 years) and distinguished careers with North American Aviation/Rockwell International in Southern California. Before that both of there dads hailed from the great state of Ohio where they both graduated from an obscure mid-western university noted mostly for its Football and Buckeye Balls. Small world!!

August 24th: Another interesting week with a another pair of lead changes and a new player has has moved into 3rd place. Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA now holds a tie-breaker lead over Pat Morris of Irvine, CA and a one point lead over Sharon Clark of Long Beach, CA. Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA and Bryan Kilmer of Long Branch, NJ are nine points back. Pat held a two point lead last Friday. Jim and Pat have traded the lead five times so far this month.

Meanwhile Sharon Clark has made her first appearance on the leader board in quite some time, leaping from 10th place last week to 3rd. The key to Sharon's recent success in the NL Central where the Cardinals have stretched their lead to eight games. Sharon, who finished second in 1993, gained 16 points on the leader and 15 points on Josh Sinnett, 3rd last week, during the week.

August 31st: Two more lead changes and another new player on the leader board. Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA has opened up a ten point lead over Pat Morris of Irvine, CA and a twenty point lead over first time player, Bryan Kilmer of Long Branch, NJ. Ron Mize of Lakewood, CA and Richard Mear of Mesa, AZ are twenty-three points back. Jim and Pat have now exchanged the lead seven times this month.

September 7th/Labor Day: Another week and another lead change. With just four weeks to go Pat Morris of Irvine, CA has retaken the lead and now leads Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA by eight points and Bryan Kilmer of Long Branch, NJ by sixteen points. Ron Mize of Lakewood, CA remains in 4th place, nineteen points back.

September 14th: Not much to report this week as Pat Morris of Irvine, CA and Jim A. Slagle, also of Irvine, CA continue to dominate the player standings. Pat now leads Jim by six points and Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA by sixteen points. Sharon Clark of Long Beach, CA and Richard Mear of Mesa, AZ are nineteen points back. Either Pat or Jim has been in front of the pack since early in July.

September 21st: No lead changes this week but a new player on the leader board. With just two weeks to go Pat Morris of Irvine, CA continues to show the way and now leads first time player, Rafael Gonzales of Huntington Beach, CA by thirteen points and Jim A. Slagle, of Irvine, CA by fifteen points. Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA and AJ Julian of Los Alamitos, CA are sixteen points back. Rafael and AJ are two of just four players to have listed the Mets fourth on the NL East.

September 28th: No lead changes this week but lots of activity on the leader board. With just one week to go in the regular season, Pat Morris of Irvine, CA now leads Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA by ten points and Jerry Slagle of Fallbrook, CA and
Jack Ryan of Durham, NC by eleven points. Anticipating some changes at the top we ran the Player Standings every day over the weekend and although there was a lot movemant among the leaders Pat was never really challenged for the lead. As of this posting there are five players within five points of second place and even AJ Julian, twenty-one points back in seventh place still has a shot at it, but Pat still holds a ten point lead. I will keep checking the standings this week and update the Leader Board as changes are occur.

October 5th: Lots movement within the pack but not much change among the leaders. By Sunday, Pat Morris of Irvine, CA had opened up a 21 point lead over Jerry Slagle of Fallbrook, CA. Pat has maintained his 21 point lead over Jerry and also leads Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA and Jack Ryan of Durham, NC by 27 points.

There will be a one game Play In game between the Tigers and Twins at Minnesota on Tuesday evening to decide the AL Central. One hundred sixteen players,about half, have either Detriot or Minnesota winning the division so there will be some small movement for most players with this final game. I will update the site again on Wednesday morning and then begin work on the CumStats and Final Report.

October 7th: Only one game was played last night and it just wore me out. When ever I turn on the tube to watch a ball game I want to see teams compete and last night's Play In game, well it had a lot of everything, twelve innings of it: two teams playing like there was no tomorrow. I recall thinking, one of these teams has a game at Yankee Stadium tomorrow night. What if they are still playing? Do they forfeit? Oh yeah, it did have some affect on our little venture.

Pat Morris of Irvine, CA took advantage of the Twins 12 inning 6-5 win over the Tigers to extend his lead to 24 points over Jerry Slagle of Fallbrook, CA. and 29 points over Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA and Jack Ryan of Durham, NC. Pat's 24 point margin of victory matches his biggest lead of the game held over Jerry's brother, Jim A. Slagle, back on July 20th.

I will start working on the CumStats later today (I think that Josh's lead is safe now) and hope to have them posted by the weekend. The Final Report will follow in about a week.