Thumbs down on new playoff schedule; Rocket redux

	Short of a return trip to the postseason, it will be hard for the Yankees to justify the money they are shelling out for Roger Clemens. Al Bello/Getty Images

Not a question, but I have to vent about MLB pushing back the start of the World Series to even-later October. I mean, after the freezing weather in Detroit last year, it is the exact opposite of what makes sense. Playoff baseball is the best, but the game wasn't meant to be played in adverse weather conditions. How can we as fans provide input that is in the best interests of the game? Shorter season (start in mid-late April, end early-mid Oct.), fair scheduling, player transactions based on actual baseball needs rather than financial considerations ... I could go on and on.
-- Craig, Seattle

Hey, we're here for venting, too. I feel your pain. How many baseball people do you think were in the room when they came up with this postseason schedule, which pushes a potential Game 7 into November? Seems like a TV deal all the way. As many as eight days between the NLCS and World Series? Two or three days off after the season ends before the Division Series? Three days off among seven LCS games? You can win the World Series with a three-man rotation and four-man bullpen now. Staff depth means less. And look how the NBA kills postseason momentum with so many days off. Why does baseball want that? Maybe there is another ploy at work here: a plan to expand the first round to best-of-seven. Seems like they've built in the days to slip it in soon.

I do not understand all the hype around Roger Clemens returning to the Yankees. The maximum number of games that he will start will be 25. Of those we can expect that with him pitching well the Yankees will win about 18 -- without him the Yankees would still probably win 13 of those games (slightly over .500). Is five wins really worth $25 million? Will this really make such a huge difference to the Yankees' season? Especially when, based on the past, he will not be a big innings-eater?
-- Chaim Gelfand, Moreshet

Don't even try to make the money work. It doesn't. I'm going to say Clemens makes 22 starts and he wins 11 of them. Maybe the team is 14-8 in those starts. With Kei Igawa or somebody else making them, they probably go 10-12. That means Clemens is worth four more wins. Is that worth a prorated $28 million? Hard to justify. But I would venture to guess that the Yankees, if they make the playoffs, won't be getting a playoff spot by more than four wins. So every one of those wins will be needed -- and even then it might not be enough.

Can you feel the choke? That is the inevitable choke of the Brewers in the next six weeks. How many teams have we seen have a hot May and suddenly we're dubbing them the 1927 Yankees. J.J. who? That average should drop off quite a bit in the coming weeks and I'm still waiting for the annual Ben Sheets season-ending injury. Bottom line is that the Brewers will be in the basement of the NL Central when this whole thing is over.
-- Brian Brenn, Fort Wayne, Ind.

Skepticism is understood. I mean, it's the Brewers. What have they done in a generation? That said, my point is that bad teams don't play this well for this long at the start of the season. They're legit. I still think they can win 82-85 games. But you know who just might win the Central? The Cubs. Lou Piniella is driving them nuts with his intensity, but it's shaking them out of their comfort zone and I think they'll be better for it in the second half.

Seeing the Braves at the top of the standing this year reminds me how potent a combination John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox have been over the years. Are they the best GM-manager combination in baseball? And what other twosome is even close?
-- Andrew, Vancouver, Wash.

You'd have to say they are the best because they've done well with mixing in young players and trades year after year. After that? I like Minnesota's Terry Ryan and Ron Gardenhire, Milwaukee's Doug Melvin and Ned Yost, Boston's Theo Epstein and Terry Francona, Detroit's Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland, and Omar Minaya and Willie Randolph with the Mets. I'll leave the Yankees' tandem of Brian Cashman and Joe Torre out despite the titles only because Cashman has been a true GM (running the daily operations with almost full authority over the Tampa faction) for just about two years (not long enough), and his track record there is either incomplete or checkered.

I find it offensive that you would indicate you don't believe Barry Bonds is the true home run king when he's never been convicted of steroid abuse. In fact, he's never tested positive. I believe we live in a society that believes in innocent until proven guilty.
-- Ben, McLean, Virginia

Oh, my goodness. Are we still dragging the intentions of the Founding Fathers into a discussion about what's right in baseball? Wake up, people. You're talking about criminal cases. I'm talking about what's right and ethical in the framework of a professional sport and its history. This is not a trial, folks. Nobody is sending him off to jail. The burden of proof is your own common sense. Read Game of Shadows, a book filled with fact after fact after fact that lays out the most comprehensive, detailed account of massive doping that we have seen in professional sport -- and none of the facts were couched with "allegedly" or "sources said" and none of the facts since have been challenged by the player in question. And as for "never testing positive," the book's authors are in possession of a tape in which Bonds' trainer brags that he can beat any drug test. Actually, it's not a drug test. It's an IQ test. You have to be really dumb to get caught. But I guess if you need a high-def, Blu-Ray disc with super slow-motion video of the needle going into somebody's butt to believe he used steroids, then baseball must have been amazingly steroid-free all these years when players bulked up before our eyes.