So Much for the Experts: White Sox on Top

A week into the Major League Baseball schedule, all of the experts are perplexed.

In the American League Central, Detroit was picked to win it all. They'll have to win one first.

The Kitties' much vaunted pitching staff is oh-for and the offense might be better off if it hit from a tee. The White Sox—picked to be cellar-dwellers—are sitting on top after a sweep of the hapless Tigers.

The AL East is topped by Baltimore and Toronto with the defending champion Red Sox tied for third with the Yankees. It is so bad in the AL East that ESPN has taken to commenting on how much the cold costs older pitchers like Mike Mussina.

Only in the AL West are things close to as expected, but the experts can't crow about that because they've discounted the AL West for years.

The National League is in similar turmoil.

The Mets are on the bottom in the NL East even after adding Santana, the Torre-led Dodgers are also-rans in the NL West, and the NL Central is led by the Brewers and the Cardinals. 

This just that paper strength is meaningless, and that the season has to be played to find a winner.

In the end, the Tigers may take the American League and the long beleaguered Cubs may get a second title in a century, but the season is still 162 games long.

For over 100 years, baseball commentators have been making wild predictions. But it seems like the modern experts are offended when the on-the-field play doesn't follow the script they've written. Sports reporting has become driven by ratings and rantings instead of love for the play. 

The model for this kind of reporting comes from American football where the short season makes every game a potential season ender.

But baseball—more than any other sport—can't follow that model. The season is too long, the climatic conditions are too varied, and the number of teams is too great for anyone to say with accuracy that one series in April has any meaning. 

As a writer and a fan, I like April games because they are filled with potential if not necessarily with portent.