Yep, four Rangers. What can you do? Bradley, Hamilton and Kinsler are killing the ball. I debated a few positions. I wasn't terribly comfortable voting Bradley as an OFer, but the way he's hitting, he's on my team somehow or another. He has played about 15 games in the outfield anyway. DH was hard, but ultimately I let favoritism win out and took Huff over Oritz, who is slightly better but has played less. Plus he's on the DL, so screw Papi. Plus DH is pretty weak.

First base was between Giambi and Youkilis, and it's a toss-up. Mauer was a no-brainer. Young isn't terribly good but he's the best of the bunch. Boy does Jeter stink.

You don't get to vote pitcher, obviously, but I'd take Cliff Lee for throwing about 30 more innings than Justin Duchscherer, who has been off his nut starting for the A's with a sub-2 ERA. Most of the AL's best pitchers have crap W-L records, but Lee is both legitimately great all of a sudden and 11-1.

The DH should be Pujols. Hard to leave him off, but Berkman is just a little better. The OF was weird to pick. Burrell, LUDWICK??, and Bay? Sure, why not. Volquez over Lincecum at SP for me, but that one's tough, too. McCann by a hair or two over Soto. Utley over Uggla was another tough pick.

No-brainers: butt-fugly Chipper Jones and Hanley Ramirez.

Who ya got?

We don't play this game on paper!

Shut it, Squinty. You give hating the Yankees a bad name.

This is sort of a "random thoughts" idea, although I really don't like how "random thoughts" sounds. I don't like the word "random." It gets used too much. That, in itself, is a random thought. Or, really, I guess it's pretty on-topic.

...

1. Who was that umpire with the hemp necklace? Way to rock your fashion within the confines of your outfit, dude. Let's go see some Daaaaave.
2. On the topic of attire, Gary Thorne about made me pee last night. No man should ever wear so much beige at one time, and his complexion just isn't fit for it to begin with. As for his atrocious tie, let's just say that I hope it was given to him by a young relative for his birthday or something. I'm so catty!
3. Z got to even up Cabrera Bowl '08 with Danny's killer start. So many times I thought he was about to implode, but he manned up. Like a man. I hope Z kicks my ass at the game of Cabrera.
4. LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE!
5. Luis Hernandez and Melvin Mora make some of the most God awful fielding mistakes you will ever see on the left side of our infield. Mora is turning into Derek Jeter, making a good amount of highlight reel plays and falling short on what should be the routine. But Mora also has the added boner factor of frequently wanting to throw the ball home when he should just go to second or first and not worry about the run. And then he makes his Melvin Face. You know the face. And Hernandez's arm is dubious.
6. Randor Bierd is just plain cool. You know what I mean?
7. Who would win in a fight: Brandon Fahey or Edwar Ramirez?
8. After all the talk about how Markakis is walking a lot and you don't want your 3-4-5 hitters to walk (despite that the plate discipline of Millar is really his greatest asset and it never ever ever ever ever ever hurts to get on base instead of making an out), it was refreshing to hear Jim Palmer say the following words: "He's going to walk a lot. And why not?" Jim, you have bested Buck. Markakis was 3-for-3 after walking in the first inning.
9. If you haven't noticed, ol' Brian Bob is in a 1-for-17 funk.
10. Yankee fans still talk about their lineup as being the best in baseball a lot of the time, apparently not noticing flaws like Jason Giambi now being exactly as good as the end of the line days of Jeremy Giambi, and only being able to score two runs against the Orioles, both off the bat of Chad Moeller. This is just picking at them while they're down, really. I'm aware that they're going to score their runs.
11. One extra. Even if he goes down as the greatest player to ever lace up a pair of cleats, Alex Rodriguez's ability and all the nice things he does for charity and things of that nature will probably not outlive how big of a tool he is. But I will root for him to break Bonds' home run record, regardless of his toolness. I was a big Bonds fan for a long, long time, and found him to be funny in many ways, but the dude got to be too much. Is baseball missing him or Roger Clemens right now?