After a week of fine pitching, timely hitting, yet no stolen bases, the Mighty Choppers have been in 1st place for two days. The "Chops" had drifted as low as 5th place with a season low sixty-some points. This morning, their second day as the lead dog, the Chop's point total stands above 90. "Everything's working as it should," said Dick De Bacle, C-Hop manager. "If we could steal a (expletive) base nobody would be near us." To remedy the situation, the Chops have added Willy Taveras OF (HOU) who has 10 SBs on the year and Brady Clark OF (MIL) who has a handful of SBs. Neither has a SB but Clark is hitting .450+.

The cause was furthered when Mike Hampton (ATL), Kenny Rogers (TEX), and Roger Clemens (HOU) combined to pitch 24 shutout innings over the last two days. The closer combination of Cordero (TEX) and Lyon (ARZ) are tied for the league lead in saves. De Bacle picked up John Garland (ChiSox) off
waivers. Brad Radke was dropped earlier in the year by mistake but was re-claimed when fellow league owners didn't realize he'd been let go.

The D-Hacks won last week's match-up 6-3. De Bacle was still unhappy about the week before when the D-Hacks hit .385 and lost to a team that hit over .400. "That (expletive) Tejada kicked our butts. The kid hit a home run every (expletive) time he stepped up to the plate. Nobody could get the (expletive) out." The D-Hacks are off to a good start this week with wins by Mulder (STL) and Wakefield (BOS) and the return to form of the wonderful Albert Pujols.

Re the Nash/Shaq racism claims: Apologies to those who suffered the true, matter-of-fact racism because their struggles have been cheapened and trivialized by a silly, shallow, provocateur. But that's the state of today's thinking, right? Institutional and cultural bias are to blame whenever we don't get our way.