Catching up on the past week

So many things I didn't get around to commenting on, for medical and other reasons:

The George Steinbrenner plaque
dwarfs all others in Yankee Stadium's
famed Monument Park.

* The bigger-than-life George Steinbrenner plaque unveiled last week at Yankee Stadium is a fitting memorial to him. How else to mark a life of mindless excess and ego? Let no one imagine that he had any sense of humility, or that anybody close to him has good judgment.

* Speaking of the Yankees: I was really hoping, as I watched the game Sunday night, that the Red Sox would win and raise at least the specter of a New York collapse. Alas, Mariano Rivera's blown save was matched by Jonathan Papelbon, and the Yankees clinched at least a tie for the wild card.

But the big takeaway from it for me: When Ryan Kalish and Bill Hall can each steal second and third off the Rivera-Posada battery, the rest of the playoff field should take notice. And duplicate. (Assuming that they can get anybody on base against Rivera.)

* Josh Hamilton didn't celebrate with his teammates when the Rangers clinched their division title. Good move, given his notorious problems with addiction.

* Of more recent vintage: Check out the size of the Rangers' new TV deal.

*Aroldis Chapman, the Cuban defector now pitching for the Reds, hit 105 mph on a stadium radar gun. Wow. We don't know what Bob Feller or Walter Johnson would have hit on a modern gun, but it's difficult to imagine throwing at greater velocity.

Unless you buy into the legend of Steve Dalkowski. Which I do.