Nothing to Sneeze At

Yeah, yeah. Surely everyone's making fun of it. In an incident nearly as bizarre as getting caught with a corked bat last season, Sammy Sosa was held out of a game the other night because of back spasms caused by sneezing. Sosa was talking to somebody in the Cubs clubhouse Sunday when he stopped to sneeze twice. After the second sneeze, Sosa doubled over in pain against the chair next to his locker.

Sosa was laughing, but at the same time, he was in pain.

"It's like a spasm," he said in Spanglish, pointing to his lower back.

Sure enough, Sosa became a late lineup scratch for the game against the Padres because of the spasms. Todd Hollandsworth replaced Sosa in right field.

Christ, if he gets a full blown cold, his head might explode.

*****

Who Framed Roger Clemens

They were making it sound like vengeance the other night when Piazza spoiled Roger Clemens' bid for his eighth straight win with a tying homer in the ninth off Octavio Dotel but you gotta wonder how hard up fans and the media are for vengeance when there were so many juicy factors missing.

First of all, Piazza went 0 for 2 when he actually had to bat against Clemens, including being struck out. Hardly what you might call revenge. More like continued humiliation. So when you read more deeply into the face off, Piazza failed and would have likely continued to fail had the Astros not sent former Met Octavio Dotel in to face him in the 9th.

Second of all, how does spoiling someone's 8th victory in a row equal getting beaned in the head and being humiliated in the World Series by having the guy toss the barrel of a broken bat at you?

He didn't give Clemens his first loss of the season and even if he had, Clemens is 41 years old and is having one of his best season in years, hardly a "spoiler" in the classic sense. So Piazza hits the homerun that ties the game and spoils Clemens chances for an 8th victory but not his chances for an undefeated season and doesn't do anything but scratch when he actually has to face Clemens.

Hitting a homerun off of Dotel instead of Clemens sort of reminds me of something like Piazza going after skinny little Guillermo Mota in Spring Training instead of taking on Roger Clemens in the World Series like a man. A sneaky way of vengeance. Sort of like hitting more homeruns than any catcher, but doing it as one of the worst defensive catchers in baseball history.

Please to spare me the hystrionics. Piazza had plenty of chances to make a man of himself against Clemens and time and again, he has been found lacking. Hitting a homerun against Octavio Dotel doesn't "spoil" anything for Clemens. It isn't revenge. It's just another example of Piazza going about things in a half-arsed way that makes him appear more than he is.

The only thing more outrageous to come out of Piazza in the last several days was his recent admission that

"You know what? It's funny. If I would have known the way I feel after a couple of days playing first, I probably would have thought about doing it a few years ago. Just playing the two nights in a row (at first base) and then getting behind the plate (Friday), I feel fresher," Piazza said. "I feel better receiving the ball, blocking the ball, things like that. Especially at this time. Maybe 10 years ago it didn't make a difference, but now it's essential, I think."

Yup, that's real funny, Piazza. You sacrifice the good of the team in your selfish pursuit of Carlton Fisk's record and then you turn around and say, wow, you know what, haha, I should have been playing first base all along....

Well, the funniest thing of all might be yet to come. The comedic justice of the year will be to see Piazza catch Clemens in the 2004 All-Star game in Houston.

Blog Watch

El Lefty Malo notes that

"Sorting through the stats this morning, I thought to myself, "Hmm, is Neifi Perez truly the worst hitter in the major leagues?"

Of the 189 position players listed in ESPN's sortable stats, Neifi indeed ranks last in OPS at .512. The second worst is Derek Jeter, at .528...

Boomer Goes Boom

Don't look now, but David Wells has found yet another way to injure himself.

The lefty, now pitching for San Diego, cut his right wrist and left palm, apparently in an "accident" at home, and is expected to miss his next two starts.

"It was not a fight," Padres GM Towers felt compelled to clarify. "It happened at his home. It sounds like he cut himself with some glass. How he did that, I don't know."