MAILBAG Comments, questions or obviously unfounded criticism? To e-mail Donovan, use the form below. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

You know, the E-Bag is all about questions and answers. You do the questions. I do the answers. That's how it works. Or how it's supposed to work, anyway. If I can't find the answers, or I just get too bogged down, or I don't particularly like the answers I come up with, or if I'm just tired or hung over or something, then I ignore the e-mail. Believe me. We're all the better off for it.

The problem is -- yeah, always with the problems -- there are some questions out there that should be answered but simply can't be. At least not yet. They're not exactly the "If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it ..." kind of questions, or even "If the Yankees spent another $100 million, would anyone notice ..." variety.

But they're still legit. They deserve a little consideration.

For instance ...

Who the heck is Ken Harvey, and is he for real? I mean, come on. Hitting .350-plus? ("A lot of people think this is somewhat of a surprise," the Royals' surprising hitter told me the other day. "I don't.") Can Pudge Rodriguez handle a bat, or what? Will Scott Rolen get 90 RBIs before the All-Star break? 100? Does Lyle Overbay come back down to earth soon?

Whatever happened to all the whining about QuesTec? Is Curt Schilling's ankle bugging him more than QuesTec? And what the heck has gotten into Tom Glavine?

Sidney Ponson is an ace? (OK, so maybe that one has been answered.) The Orioles are contenders? (OK, OK.)

Richard Hidalgo can't be the answer for the Mets, can he? And David Weathers can't be the answer for the Astros, can he? Do either of those teams have any answers yet? Will either get them in time?

While we're on the Astros: Is there a cheaper home run anywhere than Houston's Crawford Boxes? Is that rhetorical?

Do you ever feel as old as the Mariners look? Is this it for the Braves? When will Luis Gonzalez just say "the heck with it" and get that elbow taken care of finally? How does Greg Maddux keep doing it?

Can the Padres really win the NL West? Can the Dodgers? Can the Giants? Can anyone?

Have you ever felt defensively indifferent? Is there a little purple pill for that?

No one will take a chance on trading for Carlos Delgado this July, right? So where does Carlos Beltran end up? And where did Carlos Lee's 28-game hitting streak come from?

Could Nomar Garciaparra, or Delgado, or Derek Lowe have picked a worse time to have a bad start to the season? (OK. With their contracts up after this season, we know the answer to that one, too.)

Norfolk, Va., Washington, D.C., Portland, Ore. or Las Vegas? Does anyone outside of those cities really care? You think baseball would have preferred contraction to this mess? Will I get letters from Monterrey, Mexico, for leaving that city out?

Who's more disillusioned: fans of the last-place Blue Jays, fans of the last-place Mariners or fans of the last-place Royals?

How is it that Aramis Ramirez magically became a player when he got to Chicago? How did Paul Wilson suddenly become a pitcher in Cincinnati? And Daryle Ward a slugger (at least initially) in Pittsburgh? The Pirates didn't really think they were in that thing, did they? Are the Reds done? Did they belong in the race in the first place?

How can the Rockies be so bad on the road? And why aren't the Phillies better, everywhere?

Do you get the feeling that Frank Robinson, a former baseball top cop, is kind of thumbing his nose at the league's tough guys these days?

Have you heard the tagline for this year's All-Star Game ("This One Counts")? Did you yawn?

Will the Rangers fall back to the AL West pack, or are they really in this thing for the long run? Are the Indians a real threat in the AL Central? What if the Devil Rays can make it to .500 by the All-Star break?

Can you believe no manager has been canned yet this year? Can you believe Larry Bowa is still around? Is that the same question?

Yeah, there are a million of them out there. Some will be answered, in time. Some never will.

And a few get answered, right now, right here in the E-Bag.

Try to keep up, will ya?

I know a lot of baseball fans and none of them like interleague play. You cite average attendance figures but I wonder what they would be if you factored out April and September when attendance is not what it is in June through August when the interleague games are played?
 -- Steve (Stats) Weitman, Brewster, N.Y.

Stats, you and Neil Tardy of Rochester, Minn., were both on me about this one. Neil is "tired of the media quoting MLB propaganda about fans turning out for interleague games." To be sure, MLB likes to twist the numbers. And I pointed out that attendance for interleague games is actually down over the past few years, mirroring overall attendance (not counting this season). Baseball likes to keep that little fact under wraps. But the average interleague attendance for the first seven years of its existence is 32,676 per game, which is more than 14 percent higher than regular-season games in that time span. You can crunch those numbers any way you want or blame it on the weather or time of year, but I think it shows that the fans clearly enjoy interleague. They certainly don't hate it. Maybe they don't like it as much as MLB claims. But many enjoy it. And, in a great moment reminiscent of a Woody Allen movie that I'm not going to look up because I'm too tired and I know some e-mailer will fill me in on it anyway, I have Minneapolis' own Paul Andersen right here to bolster that claim. (It was Marshall McLuhan in the movie line behind Allen in Annie Hall -- save your e-mails.)

I've come to enjoy interleague play. Especially this year, with my old hometown New York Mets coming to face off against the local Minnesota Twins. This is the only opportunity rookie phenom Joe Mauer will have to meet senior circuit traveler Mike Piazza, short of an unlikely World Series trip for these teams. The one thing I'd tweak is the home-and-home series with area rivals -- Cubs vs. White Sox, Mets vs. Yanks, Giants vs. A's, etc. I don't mind occasional faceoffs, but every year takes away from the potential intrigue of a Subway Series.
 -- Paul Andersen, Minneapolis

Yeah, Paul, I agree that those big rivalries can get a little old. I like the idea forwarded by SI's Tom Verducci and others, about forgetting home-and-home series and just going with alternating years (three at the Yanks one year, three at the Mets the next). Some year-to-year tweaks with the schedule would be fine by me.

That Johnny Damon is an idiot. You'd think the guy could possibly name the likes of Trevor Hoffman, Brian Giles, Phil Nevin, Ryan Klesko and David Wells. This just further proves that most idiots don't know there is life in the MLB outside of Boston and the Bronx.
 -- Trevor Bishop, San Diego

Damon's words -- "Does anyone know who plays for San Diego this year?" -- really weren't meant as a slight. That's just the way Damon is. He doesn't keep up with stats or who's playing where or anything much outside of his own clubhouse. It's kind of surprising for a guy who has been so involved in the business of the players union. But there are a lot of players like Damon. Most of them, thankfully, keep their comments under their hats. Tough for Damon to do.

What is the OPS stat in baseball?
 -- Ken Blankenship, Sugar Hill

Hey, Ken, you're not alone. Many scribes have begun to use OPS as a definitive hitting statistic, and I'm sure there are some longtime baseball fans that just don't get it yet. OPS is the sum of a hitter's on-base and slugging percentages (just add the two) and is considered by many to be a more accurate representation of a hitter's worth than batting average. With on-base, you take into account walks (which average does not) and hit by pitches, and with slugging you take into account a hitter's power (which, again, average does not). I like it, and I think with a little education, even casual baseball fans should be able to grasp this one. But if I start tapping on about Runs Created Above Average -- yeah, that's a real stat -- somebody, please, wrap me up and send me to a nice quiet beach somewhere.

You're dead wrong on your criticism of fans' All-Star selections, while Mike Lang, who replied, is on target: fans tend to take the long view and vote for players who are stars year in and year out, as opposed to somebody who just got hot the first half of the season (or less than half a season). It's not called the "All Players Who Have Been Hot for the First Half of the Year" Game and it shouldn't become that.
 -- John Aerni, Brooklyn, N.Y.

John, all I can say is you vote your way and I'll vote mine. One man, 25 online votes. Just the way the founding fathers envisioned it.

Did you really write "loke it"? Have you been writing for YM and Teen? Will you now be using "u" instead of the tradition "you"? Come on John! Despite your quite prodigious output of articles (many of which are quite enjoyable to read), who the heck is your editor?
 -- Ben Allaire, Arlington, Va.

Everybody's a critic, you know? All I can say is I must have been in a particularly sophomoric mood that day. I apologize. Don't take it out on my poor editors. They don't actually read.

I'm starting to get sick of hearing baseball fans complain about how teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox are buying championships. Let's look at the last three winners of the World Series ... Marlins, Angels, Diamondbacks. Not exactly "big market" teams. I'm a Yankee fan, no matter how much they spend on players, but you have to respect the teams that have won in the last few years.
 -- Steve, Oceanside, Calif.

Steve, no question, small-revenue teams that make all the right moves can win it all. The problem is, one wrong move by these guys is often a killer. The Yanks can afford mistakes and still win everything. The Brewers can't.

How long is the AL going to be called the "junior circuit?" Most of the great players came from the AL. It's over 100 years old itself. What a shame to call anyone "junior" for such a stupid reason.
 -- Paul Lytle, Arlington, Texas

Now, now. Being called Junior's not so bad. It worked for Cal Ripken Jr. And Dale Earnhardt Jr. Not to mention Ken Griffey Jr., Roy Jones Jr. and Junior Seau. Outside of the sports world, there's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., George Bush Jr., Cuba Gooding Jr., Sammy Davis Jr. and, of course, Carl's Jr. And Junior Mints. The AL's in good company.

With Arthur Rhodes struggling lately for the A's, do you think Billy Beane has any tricks up his sleeve for obtaining a new closer? Perhaps Justin Duchscherer would be a good fit since he is dominating right now.
 -- Jesse F., Chapel Hill, N.C.

Never, ever, underestimate the length of Billy Beane's sleeves.

Even John Smoltz himself expressed his interest that if the Braves fall out of contention he would "consider" a trade. The question stands, is there no #@%&!@ loyalty in today's league? I always thought, or rather hoped, Smoltzy was above even the thought of leaving a team he was integrally a part of. Stupid, stupid me. In fact, this MLB era should be re-titled from the era of "Free Agency" to "The Sellout Era."
 -- Mike, Fairfield, Conn.

A little harsh, Mike, but understandable. If the Braves fall out of the race before the end of July and some teams wants to take on Smoltz and his salary, the Braves would be smart to let him go. Heck, they've barely needed the guy anyway -- he's only had 11 save opportunities. And Smoltz would be completely off of his easy chair not to accept that trade.

Not a question but a statement. Injuries are not the Phillies' problem. Larry Bowa is the Phillies' problem. This team will never win anything with him at the helm.
 -- Ralph T. Iannelli, Santa Barbara

I like Bowa. From a distance. He's as loud as he wants to be. But I wouldn't want to play for him. If I could play, that is.

For decades Montreal baseball fans were among the most rabid. When owner Charles Bronfman sold the Expos -- he saw the writing on the wall with escalating salaries and the difference in the US-Canada currency exchange -- that was the beginning of the end. After the baseball strike of 1994 -- when the Expos were 74-40, the best record in baseball, and were one of the best all-time teams ever assembled -- fans were devastated. The next 10 years were all about firesales, new carpetbagger owners like Jeffrey Loria, threats of contraction, you name it. Montreal simply became a farm team for MLB. [The Expos] couldn't afford to sign players they groomed into superstars and had to rebuild the team every couple of years. So the fans stopped coming out to the ballpark. They were sick and tired of being kicked in the teeth by MLB. And who could blame them? So when I read sports stories that say Montreal baseball fans gave up on the Expos, that Montreal isn't a baseball town, I make it a point to remind sportswriters that it was the other way around: It was Major League Baseball that betrayed Montreal baseball fans. I hope that's a distinction you will note when you write about Montreal next time.
 -- Richard Burnett, Editor-at-Large, HOUR magazine, Montreal, Canada

Sorry I couldn't run more of your e-mail, Richard. You make good points, and they're ones we all should remember as American baseball dies its slow death in your city. The fact is, if Major League Baseball had treated the fans of Montreal better -- including finding owners who would fight to make baseball work there -- things might have turned out differently. I'm not sure Montreal could ever be described as a great baseball town -- I'll defer to your hometown expertise on that one, Richard -- but it's clear it's certainly not as bad a baseball town as it's been recently. And baseball has no one but itself to blame for that.

Any more questions? Good. We'll do it again next week.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.