Caught Looking

Caught Looking recaps the most memorable moments and accomplishments from the 2010 season. Here are moments six through ten.

10. Cliff Lee‘s blanking the Yankees in Game 3 of the ALCS
With the American League Championship Series tied at one game apiece, the Yankees were looking to get a leg up on the Rangers with the series shifting to Yankee Stadium. Cliff Lee had other ideas. Lee was on his own stratosphere when he took the mound for Texas in Game 3 as he fired 8.0 shutout innings with just two hits, one walk while striking out 13 Yankees on the night. The Yankees missed out on acquiring Lee mid-season, and they realized the consequences quickly in that Game 3. The Rangers won by the score of 8-0 to take a 2-games-1 lead, and the Yankees never recovered in the series and were promptly sent home in six games.

9. The National League finally wins an All-Star game.
It only took 14 years and a 12-game winning streak by the American League before the NL finally broke through with a victory in the All-Star game. The NL defeated the AL 3-1 on July 13 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim to break the amazing AL streak. Braves catcher Brian McCann ripped a three-run double in the seventh inning to give the NL all the runs needed in this one and was named the game’s MVP. The game would feature the AL’s only run as unearned along with some questionable managing by Joe Girardi in the ninth inning.

8. Ken Griffey Jr. announces his retirement
Following two months of the 2010 season, Ken Griffey Jr. announced his retirement in early June. The man who was destined to break Hank Aaron‘s home run record never reached that accomplishment due to various injuries that derailed Griffey’s career from the premier power hitter he was in the mid-90’s. If you grew up watching baseball in that decade, that’s the guy you wanted to be when you played baseball in the backyard. Despite the injuries, Griffey still played 22 seasons with a total of 630 home runs. He was a 13-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner and will soon be a Hall of Famer.

7. Trevor Hoffman opens the 600 save club
Thanks to some poor pitching to start the season and some poor decision-making by the Brewers coaching staff, it took Trevor Hoffman almost a full season to record nine saves in 2010 to total 600 saves for his career. But he eventually got there. On September 7 against the Cardinals, Hoffman finally had the opportunity to close the door again and tossed a scoreless ninth inning to become the first closer with 600 career saves. It’s a terrific accomplishment that was sort of overshadowed by the Brewers decision to not allow Hoffman to sniff a save chance for the majority of the season after some blown saves earlier in 2010 despite the Brewers being out of contention long before September. At any rate, Hoffman will be remembered for his stellar career and being the first to the 600-save club.

6. A-Rod hits home run No. 600, Ichiro’s and Pujols milestone
Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez went into a little home run drought (12 games) between number 599 and 600, but he eventually joined the 600-home run club with a blast off of Blue Jays pitcher Shaun Marcum on August 4 in Yankee Stadium.

The hit machine Ichiro Suzuki continued to pile up his list of accomplishments as he became the first player to record 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons in 2010. Like A-Rod, Ichiro’s milestone also came against Toronto with a single on September 23.

A-Rod hit home run number 600, but one day he will be joined in that club by Albert Pujols. Pujols hit his 30th home run of the season on August 15 against the Cubs to become the first player to record 10 straight seasons of 30 or more home runs to start a career. Yep, that’s more than Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Ralph Kiner, Barry Bonds…OK, you get the picture—Pujols stands alone in this category. He later hit his 400th career home run in the season.

Yesterday, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki agreed to a seven-year $119 million dollar extension with the Rockies that will keep him in Colorado through 2010 2020. The extension along with the remainder of his current deal will guarantee Tulo $163M through the lifetime of the contract. At the age of 26, life is good for Tulowitzki. Or is it? On the heels of the announcement, Yahoo’s Jeff Passan wrote a ridiculous article that I have to vigorously disagree with.

It’s one thing to give your opinion and say that the Rockies made a big mistake by committing a quarter of their payroll to one player when they probably won’t spend above $80M a year on the entire team, but to go out and chastise a player for wanting to stay in Denver where he’s built a life and will make $20M per year is pretty ridiculous. It seems outrageous to me that he will regret this extension at some point of his career. The Rockies may regret it later down the road, but I don’t think Tulowitzki will.

Tulo told the media in the presser announcing the deal that his goal was to play for one team his entire career like Derek Jeter and Cal Ripken Jr, two stars that he looks up to. How can you blame him for wanting that and getting paid at the same time? How dare he for being unselfish and leaving some extra money on the table that he probably could have picked up from the Yankees or Red Sox! Passan comes off like a whiny Yanks or Sox fan that is confused beyond belief of how this guy wouldn’t run to Boston or New York to squeeze every million he can out of some team. Tulowitzki obviously enjoys playing for the Rockies, enjoys the city of Denver and wants to be the guy for an entire franchise for the remainder of his career. How can you not respect that?

Passan’s opening line reads “Troy Tulowitzki did not want to be Alex Rodriguez. He didn’t want to be Nomar Garciaparra, either. So he carved his own path. The wrong one.”

Come on, seriously? There’s no way of telling that this is the wrong choice for him at this point, but I find it refreshing that there are still players out there that aren’t like A-Rod and the guys that just go for the highest dollar. If anything, I applaud Tulowitzki for making this decision.

Passan also asks “oh, what could have been” for Tulo with multiple championships coming every year had he gone to New York or Boston! Yeah, how many World Series championships has A-Rod seen since signing his landmark deal with the Yankees? One in seven years with the pinstripes. That’s not exactly a trophy case full of championships. And is it so far out of the realm of possibility to think the Rockies couldn’t win a championship in the near future? This is a team that went to the World Series in Tulowitzki’s rookie year and followed it up with a playoff appearance in 2009. They have another young star in Carlos Gonzalez that they want to lock up and, oh yeah, they have an OK pitcher by the name of Ubaldo Jimenez. It’s a fairly easy argument to say they have a nice core of young players that will help them compete in the National League for years.

It’s impossible to predict how this extension will play out, but it’s nice to see a player who wants to stay with his original team, still take very good money and play out his career in the mold of Ripken. And despite what Jeff Passan says, there’s nothing wrong with that.