My predictions for the 2010 baseball season

It’s time to play ball! The first pitch will be thrown in anger tonight as the 2010 major league baseball season begins.

For years the tradition was to have the Cincinnati Reds play the first game (since they were supposedly the first team). But now that television runs the sport that tradition has been obliterated in favor of the Yankees playing the Red Sox. Christ! I’m already sick of the Yankees playing the Red Sox.

This is the time of year when everyone makes their predictions even though no one has any idea who’s going to get injured, what trades are going to be made, who will be suspended for steroids, and how many Minnesota Twins home games will be snowed out (the over-under is 50)?

So here are my educated-stab-in-the-dark predictions for this season.
The Atlanta Braves will be better than most people think.

Bud Selig’s suit will come back into style.

The Texas Rangers are to be applauded for standing behind Ron Washington when he confessed to using cocaine.

Ron Washington will be the first manager fired.

Joe Morgan will not say anything he hasn’t already said five thousand times. You’d think that just once he could say it grammatically correct.

No one will go out to the Oakland Coliseum (or whatever the hell they call it now) to see the A’s, no matter how good they are.

The worst giveaway will be the Giants’ wearable blanket night.

The Yankee-Dodger series will sell out.

The Padres-Mariners series will not.

When Manny Ramirez returns to Boston with the Dodgers he will receive a standing ovation. And a second one when he drops a routine fly ball.

Mark McGwire will get booed everywhere he goes (but not enough for my money).

Roger Clemens will be caught having sex with Bombshell McGee.

Steve Phillips will be back in sex rehab after trying to get the Phillie Phanatic drunk.

Pedro Martinez will be back by August. So will Bobby Valentine.

Bruce Bochy will do a great job managing San Francisco and get no recognition.

One idiot in every fantasy league will draft Joe Nathan.

By June Dick Enberg will be rethinking this idea of announcing 100+ Pares games a season.

The Cincinnati Reds may surprise some people.

Pitcher Brian Matusz (who???) of the Orioles will be the AL Rookie-of-the-Year. That’s only ‘cause there’s no 35 year-old eight-time Japanese batting champion joining a US team. In the NL it’ll be Atlanta’s Jason Heyward.

Comeback players of the year – Tim Hudson of Atlanta. And Julianna Margulies of THE GOOD WIFE.

At least one player will be out for the year as a result of a horrible bar-b-queing accident.

Clayton Kershaw will win the Cy Young award. Maybe even this year.

The happiest day of the season for me will be when my former partner Jon Miller gets inducted into the Hall of Fame. He makes the fourth broadcast partner of mine to go into the Hall. Meanwhile, Pete Rose will get in before I do.

Out of 2430 games, the National Anthem will be butchered 2421 times.

It’s worth spending $120 to sign up for the MLB gameday package just to hear Vin Scully call Dodger games.

NL MVP - Ryan Howard. AL MVP - Carl Crawford.

The games will seem too long but the season will go by too fast.

I’ll be co-hosting Dodger Talk again this year with Josh Suchon on Talk Radio 790 KABC, KABC.COM, and iTunes radio after every Dodger game, home and away.

People always ask me why I am so in love with baseball. I think George Carlin said it best: “Baseball is the only major sport that appears backward in a mirror”.

What are you predictions? I'll hold you to yours as much as you hold me to mine.