Player Avg. HR Slg. OPS. Teixeira .275 37 .560 .927 Sheffield .292 36 .542 .937 Ramirez .310 43 .619 1.019 Guerrero .329 34 .573 .957 • Pete McEntegart: The 10 Spot -- Tue., Sept. 28 • Truth & Rumors: Pack's McKenzie to Saints? • Albert Chen: Baseball needs its Emmys • Bill Scheft: Backstage at the Show • More Blogs: Ballard | Whitaker | Deitsch | Habib Click here for Today's Sign of the Apocalypse, Game to Watch, Leading Off gallery and much more!

As I watched the Emmys two Sundays ago (you get pretty desperate when you're holed up in a hotel in some strange city; it was that or the 10:25 showing of Wimbledon down the block), somewhere between Elaine Stritch's incongruous acceptance speech and Angels in America's 26th award, it came to me: Major League Baseball should throw its own awards show. A soiree to honor its MVPs and Cy Youngs, held in prime time on some big network, hosted by an A-list personality (Bob Costas? Billy Crystal? Donald Trump?) with arbitrary Hollywood celebs interspersed among the major leaguers.

Expand the menu of awards to include accolades like best baseball movie of the year (Mr. 3000 vs. Hu$tle vs. Mickey) and best clubhouse presence (Jose Guillen?). Throw in the obligatory obituaries segment, a word from a black-tied Bud Selig (How about those robust attendance numbers!) and -- why not? -- a musical number or two (Nelly's a big sports fan, right?), and you got yourself a three-hour and 10 minute show.

An awards show like this must have a good upset or two, and the Adrien Brody moment of this year's hypothetical night would hopefully come in the category of AL MVP, which at this moment seems to be a tossup between Gary Sheffield and Manny Ramirez. The real AL MVP, however, is not Sheffield or Ramirez or Mariano Rivera or Vlad Guerrero but a 24-year-old Maryland native who grew up going to games at Camden Yards while idolizing Don Mattingly. The real AL MVP is Mark Teixeira, the Rangers' first baseman and cleanup hitter, a prodigious power hitter who became a switch-hitter partly because his father is a big Eddie Murray fan. Appropriately nicknamed Tex, the former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket is one of the main reasons why Dallasites have more to root for than Vinny Testaverde and Dubya as the calendar turns to October.

What has made Tex so good so soon? "Incredible bat speed," says Texas DH Brian Jordan. "He's got amazingly quick hands and speed that reminds me of [Mark] McGwire's."

It's hard to argue that a player has been more valuable to his team down the stretch than Teixeira, who, after recovering from a pulled muscle in his rib cage the first two months of the season, has hit .289 with 32 homers and 94 RBIs since June 1. No position player has been better over the past four months. This season Teixeira has driven in seven runs in a game, hit for the cycle and been walked five times in a single game.

Over the past two months Teixeira has carried an otherwise slumping lineup. All-Star third baseman Hank Blalock, after a sizzling first half, has hit .231 with nine homers and a puny .418 slugging percentage since the All-Star break; shortstop Michael Young's numbers have also dropped off since July. Though Teixeira's average (.275) is lower than Eric Young's .294, Teixeira's power numbers stack up with all the AL MVP frontrunners' (see chart, above).

Meanwhile, are Teixeira's Rangers done? Sadly, it looks that way (the Blog will be craving those pretzels at Ameriquest Field in Arlington all winter). After losing 5-3 to the Angels on Sunday, spoiling a nice start from Kenny Rogers, the Rangers slid three games back of the A's in the AL West hunt with six to play. The Rangers know they need luck on their side; during games, several players have been wearing rubber "energy" necklaces and bracelets, cheap looking jewelry that pitcher Chan Ho Park had sent in from Korea, as good luck charms. "I guess guys see it as a fashion statement, but it looks stupid," says left fielder David Dellucci. "I wore rubber bracelets when I was in sixth grade, I'm not going to wear them when I'm 30 years old."

With a pretty lousy starting pitching staff -- its 5.13 ERA rank 11th in the AL, below the Tigers, Orioles, and Blue Jays -- Texas had no business being in the hunt this deep into September. The Rangers' perseverance is a testament to the job done by Buck Showalter, who deserves Manager of the Year honors. Showalter has deployed an astonishing 16 different starting pitchers this season alone.

What to make of the rest of the AL West? One thing is certain: whatever team makes it out of the division will be an underdog in the first round. I'd rather have the Cleveland Indians' starting rotation in a short series than Oakland's, and Anaheim's Top Four of Bartolo Colon-Kelvim Escobar-Jarrod Wasburn-John Lackey doesn't inspire too much fear, either. The fashionable pick in the American League, it seems, is the Twins, whose postseason might not come down to Johan Santana (the no-brainer AL Cy Young winner) but instead to Brad Radke, who has been the victim of poor run support (he has just 11 wins despite 22 quality starts) but has quietly been one of the AL's top starters (his 3.48 ERA ranks fifth in the league). Check back here next week for The Blog's playoff predictions.

Other thoughts from the road:

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• The NL Manager of the Year has to be Bobby Cox. I spent three days in Atlanta a couple weeks ago doing a story for the magazine, and just about everyone there, from GM John Schuerholz to closer John Smoltz, credits Cox as the main reason why this team is headed to the postseason for an absurd 13th straight October. Smoltz, the lone member of all 13 division winners, says Cox has been more hands on with this team than any other because of its inexperience.

• After finishing a Philip Roth novel (big thumbs up to The Plot Against America, though it doesn't crack a top three of Roth's books: 1) The Human Stain 2) Portnoy's Complaint 3) American Pastoral), The Blog typically feels it necessary to rest its brain for a day, usually by delving into four hours of bad TV or a half-season of Madden. So last night the Blog revisited Mark Cuban's The Benefactor on ABC. This is still the most insane show on TV. For those of you who didn't watch -- and we suspect that's most of you -- Cuban gave his 10 remaining contestants $1,000. They could do whatever they wished with the money, with the goal of impressing Cuban with how smartly they spent the cash. While some players did semi-interesting things like start a fashion line or Web site, one woman, a schoolteacher, apparently went to Walgreens and must have spent about $4 on a legal pad and No. 2 pencil and wrote a "children's book". Did she pocket the rest of the cash? (Cuban, in a rare moment of clarity, axed her.) Meanwhile, a contestant who splurged on skydiving was lauded by Cuban for "taking a chance" and was one of the six to advance to next week. The show only gets more zany: next week players compete in games of H-O-R-S-E. Meanwhile, there was a bizarre appearance by Mike Piazza on last week's The Apprentice. The guy looked like he had woken up five minutes earlier, stumbling into the Crest promo event as he appeared as thrilled to be there as Dick Cheney at a Phish concert.

• From the mailbag: Last week's Blog wondered aloud what had happened to Corey Haim, the Ashton Kutcher (let's hope) of the late '80s. Canadian newspapers from a few years back reported that the former star of such classics as License to Drive, The Lost Boys and Lucas was living on his mother's couch in Ontario. Pero Kokosar from Toronto wrote in to say that Haim was spotted at the Toronto Film Festival two weeks ago trying to get into a festival party -- but was ultimately turned away. The Blog would like nothing more than to see a Jason Bateman-like resurrection from Haim. Someone find the guy a decent script.

Albert Chen is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated and writes a blog every Tuesday.