national league baseball

The suggestion that baseball should and may use instant replay gets no vote here, nor anywhere Colorado Rockies fans gather.Had replay been binding when Matt Holliday belly-flopped into Rockies legend against San Diego, maybe there would have been no Rocktober, no pennant, no World Series.

SAN FRANCISCO -- This could have been a weekend of intensified intrigue, when Barry Bonds got his first taste of the Subway Series while wearing New York Yankee pinstripes and taking his hacks against the Mets' Johan Santana in the Bronx.Or Bonds could have made his triumphant return to an N.L. yard with the A's as they played in Atlanta.

The longer the Colorado Rockies struggle on the field, the sooner management is going to have to deal with the future of Matt Holliday, among others.Holliday could become this year's Mark Teixeira, dealt at midseason a year ago by Texas to Atlanta, which was willing to give up five prospects because Teixeira had another full year of service before becoming a free agent.

Like most baseball folk, general manager Brian Sabean likes to assess his team once it completes one quarter of its schedule. The San Francisco Giants did so with a 6-3 loss to Houston on Wednesday night, and strange as it might sound, Sabean sees his team as one that can contend.Not in two seasons, not next season, but in 2008.

MILWAUKEE -- Slumping Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Andruw Jones was out of the lineup for a second consecutive game, and Manager Joe Torre announced his decision Tuesday to bench Jones for a few games.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Miguel Tejada lied to me. He misrepresented his age, stood idly by while I repeated the untruth in a book about his life and the experiences of ballplayers from Latin America.

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Pedro Martinez eagerly awaited his first start this season after a strong spring training in which his surgically repaired right shoulder regained strength.

This is the summer of their discontent.Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are secret-handshake brothers in a two-man fraternity.

Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Juan Pierre was at the park early, in uniform, on the field.He was waiting for early batting practice, a chance to work on his bunting game -- and to track some flyballs off the bat.Some things never change -- until the game starts.

Forget the money. Separate Barry Zito from that $126 million, and think in purely baseball terms. A Cy Young Award winner, a healthy young pitcher who had not missed a start or registered a losing season until he joined the San Francisco Giants a year ago, has been demoted to the bullpen.