Well, There's A Lot, A Lot Of Culture There

Terry Francona returns to Philadelphia, where he was hated. ... Two articles about Johnny Damon.

Roy Halladay beat Baltimore Thursday night (his 11th victory) as the Blue Jays took three of four games, allowing the idle Red Sox to move within one half-game out of first place. In New York, the Devil Rays won 9-4, also winning three out of four. Tampa Bay is now 8-29 on the road and four those wins have come in the Bronx. In fact, Yankee Stadium is the only ballpark in which the Rays have a winning record this year.

            W   L   PCT  GB
Orioles    42  30  .583   -
Red Sox    41  30  .577    ½
Yankees    37  35  .514   5   
Blue Jays  37  36  .507   5½
Devil Rays 26  47  .356  16

In case you were wondering, Yankees blogger Larry Mahnken does not like Tony Womack. Read that post and marvel at the fact that Joe Torre bats this guy #2. He makes Edgar look like Rogers Hornsby. ... And a fellow poster at Larry's blog offers this:

How to build a loser
By SG

A) Sign Jaret Wright
B) Sign Carl Pavano
C) Trade three valuable players for one over-the-hill veteran
D) Sign a below average 2B for two years, then make him your LF

Then wonder "what is wrong?"

Heh.

The nuisance of interleague play finally ends this weekend. Baltimore visits Atlanta and the Yankees host the Mets (Pedro / Mussina tonight).

"Seasons on line"? The small print caption reports that both the Yankees and Mets "are frantically trying to stay in contention in their division races."

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia:

Friday: Tim Wakefield (4.41) / Jon Lieber (4.63), 7:00
Saturday: Matt Clement (3.48) / TBA, 1:20
Sunday: David Wells (4.73) / Brett Myers (2.66), 1:30

Cheesesteak.