by Sam Kluender

The Los Angeles Dodgers have been short of stellar so far this season. In fact, they have been downright awful. The Dodgers came into this season with the 2^nd highest payroll in baseball at just over $215 million dollars, trailing only the New York Yankees and their $230 million dollar payroll. A team with that type of payroll should be an extremely good baseball team, or at least .500. Yet the Dodgers, as of May 23^th, are sitting on a pitiful 18-26 record. They are at the bottom of the NL West and have the 23^rd worst record in the MLB.

Matt Kemp, in a way, personifies the entire Dodgers offense. When he struggles, the Dodgers tend to struggle, and Kemp has been in a season long slump. The Dodgers star centerfielder is hitting .270/.319/.356/.675 with only 2 home runs and 15 RBI's. Oh, and he also has 50 strikeouts which put him in the top 10 in the NL. Likewise, the Dodgers have not been hitting for power. Compared to the rest of the NL, they are down in the dumps with only 31 home runs. You can blame part of this on the ballpark they play in, but even taking the ballpark into consideration, they're still lacking big time in power.

A team doesn�t have to hit a ton of home runs to be good, and a team who hit a lot of home runs aren�t necessarily great either(see the Rockies). Their lack of power isn't the reason why they are struggling so mightily in the offensive category(although it doesn't help). It's their god-awful hitting with RISP. The Dodgers as a team actually have a pretty good batting average and OBP. They rank 13^th in BA at .256 and 10^th in OBP at .328. They are hitting the ball just well, but they aren�t getting any runs.

Their BA with RISP is at .219 which is towards the bottom of the MLB. Even worse, they are currently running a .293 SLG w/ RISP which ranks dead last. In fact, they are the only team in the MLB with a SLG w/ RISP under .300. In today's world of baseball, pitchers rule the game. Teams aren�t getting as many hits as they used to, so when there are RISP, teams must cash in.

Many notable Dodger players have/have had slumps this season which has lead to this low production of runs. Injuries, however, have played the largest role in this downward spiral. It seems like every player on their team has faced injuries that have either put them on the DL or have been nagging at them for quite sometime. Josh Beckett, Jerry Hairston Jr., Mark Ellis, and Hanley Ramirez, Ted Lilly, Stephen Fife, Chris Capuano, Chad Billingsley, Scot Elbert, Shawn Tolleson, and Zack Greinke have all been on or are on the DL. Adrian Gonzalez has also missed some games with random issues with his neck and a crazy skin infection. Matt Kemp is interesting though. There has been no public knowledge of any injuries with Kemp, something looks wrong. He isn�t playing like himself, He isn�t driving the ball much at all and is hitting more ground balls than he ever has.

Let's look on the positive side. Most of the injured players are back and those who are still on the DL, notably Hanley Ramirez, will be back soon. Once Mattingly has all his players back, he can finally set up a pretty scary looking lineup card. The Dodgers have also had some pretty good starting pitching. Kershaw has been pitching like a Cy Young winning all year, Greinke(when healthy) has been great, and their young Korean pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu has been phenomenal.

Right now it is hard to watch the Dodgers play. They still aren�t scoring runs and their committing too many errors, especially in the outfield. That said, there is still a great amount of optimism to be had. Their pitching should stay relatively consistent throughout the season. It is hard to believe Matt Kemp is going to continue to struggle like he has. So when he finally comes around, expect the Dodgers to start winning more series.

Be patient Dodger fans, there is still a lot of season left.

by Sam Kluender

As I'm writing this, Harvey just completed a 7.1 IP/2 ER gem against the Cubs. Almost any pitcher would love to have a performance like that, but for Matt Harvey, it actually brought his ERA up. After his game against the Cubs, Harvey is right now sitting on a 1.55 ERA, 0.72 WHIP, and a 5-0 record.

Harvey's main strength is his ability to constantly throw 4 different pitches for strikes. He relies mostly on his fastball at about 56% with a velocity in the mid 90's. When it comes to his other pitches, it could be anything from a slider, to a curve ball, or a change up. His best pitch by far is his four-seam fastball. He consistently can throw it for velocity, even late in games. If he can command that fastball, it is one of the best pitches in the MLB.

The one game that really stands out is his game against the White Sox on May 7^th. That game really put him in the spotlight and in the eyes of many it put him in the conversation as one of the best pitchers in the MLB. That day he flirted with history and almost pitched a perfect game. His line for the day was 9.0 IP, 1 hit, and 12 SO's. That is about as best as someone can possibly be without being perfect. If it wasn't for the light infield single by Alex Rios, Harvey most likely would completed a 10 IP perfect game. That was how good he was that day.

Confidence is not an issue with Harvey. Earlier Harvey was quoted saying that the All-Star Game was on his mind.� As a manager, that is something you want to hear from your pitcher. On the other hand, that could lead to some issues. As young inexperienced player, he may try too hard which could lead to trouble. If his command isn't doing well on a certain, it could spiral out of control for him. That said, it would be extremely cool to see a young pitcher like him pitching in the All Star game at Citi Field this July.

Harvey didn't have the fame and excitement that Stephen Stasburg did when he made the majors. Shelby Miller had more talk coming into this year. Hell, I barely even know who Harvey was until this year. He doesn't have the insane velocity like Strasburg or a Chapman. He isn't a foreign born player, nor was he ever considered a phenom like Harper or Trout. Despite all that, he has made a name for himself. He has come in and has pitched like a Cy Young winner. That is Matt Harvey. Someone who comes in and does his job and he does that job exceptionally well.

Politics today have become a very polarized environment with the left and the right facing off at almost issue. But whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, one thing that most Americans can agree unites us all is sports. America, the land of free will, certainly has its fair share of sports leagues to choose from. In the States, and including teams from the US, there are about 20 Professional Leagues who play their sports. Many of them, such as volleyball, cycling, and boxing have small but devout followings and are small but not unimportant pieces in the American sports scene. However, the top five sports that Americans tend to gravitate to are 1. American Football, 2. Baseball, 3. Hockey, 4. NASCAR/auto racing, 5. Basketball (not in any order). Other Sports such as Arena Football and especially Soccer are making a stand and attracting larger crowds around the nation (although still nowhere near as popular as in Europe), however they have not gained enough following here to yet compete with the heavyweight leagues in popularity. But that still leaves the question to be begged: What is America�s Sport? Do we even have one? Only two leagues in the United States have ever gathered enough following to challenge for the name of America�s Sport: The MLB and the NFL. But in the present day, debate rages between fanatics of both sports as to which game is truly America�s. Let�s make an argument for both.

Baseball

This is the sport that started it all, home of the midsummer classic and the game to actually lay claim to be "America's Favorite Pastime". But what makes it American? The sport's origins are still hotly debated but the most likely story of modern baseball is that it is a derivation of a common peasant's or milkmaid's game known as stoolball. This game, which has written references of it that go back 1330 AD in England, made its way the American shore with a wave of immigration in the American colonial era. It landed in the New England area originally and diffused across the 13 colonies. Modern Baseball began to become well defined around the turn of the 19th century and in 1845 the Knickerbocker Club of New York hosted the first game of baseball held between two distinct clubs. As legend goes and history tells, the Civil War was instrumental in spreading the sport across the nation and subsequently, four years after the collapse of the Confederacy, in 1869, the first true professional baseball team was formed in Ohio. They were the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Although other leagues came and went, two leagues that exist in the modern era were established during this time. The National League was founded in 1876 and the American league became a major league organization in 1901. They merged into the MLB in 2000.

Baseball has been a part of America since the very beginning. The game washed up on the shores almost as soon as the British did. Plus, the game has a certain aspect of mystery. Most teams in the league can trace their history to leagues that have come and gone, especially the Braves, Reds, and Cubs. The game grew out of tradition and a grass roots origin. It does not have a very specific beginning for history to define. To the amateur baseball fan, or any American for that matter, it would seem that baseball has always just been a part of us and our culture. It has certainly had deep influences on us. Take for example a story from WWII in which an American ship was sank in the Pacific theater. When another ship arrived to rescue the survivors, they could not tell if the men in the water were Japanese or American. The only thing saving the Yankee sailors from being shot was their knowledge of the answer to the question, "Who won the world series this year?" Which was the 1944 St. Louis Cardinals. Because of this deeply engrained sentiment about the game and the culture surrounding it, baseball makes a strong contender for being America's sport. It has affected the culture of this country more over the course of the 20th century than any other object outside of the economy and politics. In addition, phrases from the game have entered the English language. The phrase �three strikes and you're out� is a household idiom.

By the numbers however, baseball has seen stronger days. The least watched world series ever (by ratings) occurred only last year. Critics of baseball call the game too slow paced for the modern American. They cite the long games, which average 2 hours and 50 minutes in 2010, as a part of baseball�s slipping popularity and the United States� shift to faster paced games like hockey and football (although football games only have the ball in play for about 12 minutes of the hour clock.) However, the MLB has been moving to change that time by initiating rules that speed up the game. And as a result, the average time of game fell by ten minutes between 2000 and 2010. The game of baseball is strongly based in tradition and had been slower than other sports to adjust to the changing sports climate. But recently the sport has been making moves to return more prestige to itself and become more positively influential on America.

Football

Compared to baseball, the sport of American Football (not to be confused with European Football [soccer]) is the new kid on the block. The game is derived from Rugby football and association football. Two sports originating in England in the mid-19th century. Mob Style football began in the late 1820's in the New England area on University Campuses in Ivy League Schools between class levels. The lack of rules and the heavy violence caused its banning in several schools. But while not growing at college, school boys on the Boston common played a hybrid of rugby and mob football called the Boston game. This game received press coverage and expanded the ideas of football in the 1860s. The sport's true birth is a result of several changes to the Boston game and mob football by Walter Camp, who is widely credited as the father of modern football. The introduced changes were the incremental progress idea and the downs-to-distance requirements. The game developed in colleges to take advantage of the idea of the forward pass, a concept not permitted in rugby. And so the sport of American Football was born. The first professional football game was played in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with the Pittsburgh Athletic Club against the Allegheny Athletics Association as early as 1892. The real development of football however remained in the colleges. The nature of the game remained highly violent during this time and was only reigned in in 1905, by President Teddy Roosevelt no less, due to 19 deaths that year in the sport. Shortly thereafter, in 1906, the collegiate teams revolutionized the game to closely resemble modern football. Injuries were reduced by making illegal mass formation plays and interlocking arms and by fully permitting the forward pass. Over the next 10-15 years the game was revolutionized and the NFL was formed in 1919. Football grew steadily but took off after the 1958 Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and Chicago Bears. The NBC Televised game brought new prestige and audience to the league, who merged with the 4th American Football League in 1970 to create the modern NFL.

Though lacking the deep mysterious past that baseball can claim, the undeniable fact is that football is a true product of America, being developed at American colleges. The sport, being much younger, is outpacing baseball�s growth in the states presently. The Super bowl has been the biggest television event of the year almost every year for the 46 years in which it has existed. The 2012 Superbowl is the most seen sporting event in American history, with 1 in 3 Americans (111.3 million in all) sitting in on the game for its 4 hour duration. It is also the second most seen annual sporting event globally behind only the UEFA final match. That kind of culture surrounding the season, playoffs, and especially the championship is an indelible rubber stamp of the game�s status as a real American game. The 2013 game viewership fell slightly, but still roughly a third of country saw the game live. The league and the Superbowl are also a huge tie to the American economy. In 2013, the average price paid just have a 30 second commercial aired during the big game cost $4 million dollars. Just as in Baseball, the ideals of Football have become more than just a game. Gestures of the referees such as the hands in the air for touchdown symbol are widely used by common folk Americans for every sort of reason. The sport is immensely popular across the country and contributes to intense loyalties in both college and the NFL leagues. The sport�s high passion and intensity mixed its requirements for agility and skill and coupled with a healthy and often frenzied fan base embodies the American spirit of competition wholeheartedly.

The sport does have its fair share of criticisms however. The violent nature of football has lead to hundreds of tragic deaths and countless concussions and injuries. The cry against football has existed since the sport has existed. Opponents against football see the sport as a barbaric game that is far too risky for the players. In the earlier days of the game padding was at a minimum and as a result many veterans of the sport suffer from the aftereffects of years of abuse on the body and mind. Critics site these long term injuries as evidence of the overly violent side of humanity manifested. While that may seem dark, it is not so much as it might sound. The critics� common argument is, �Should we Americans attach ourselves to such brutality? In the sporting world is this what America should declare as its sports stereotype?� While opponents of the game have said that we should not, Americans in the modern day have for the most part either responded resoundingly �yes we should� or have not been opposed to the idea. In addition, the NFL and technology in general have helped to make the game a safer place with new equipment and far tighter rules and regulations. The game has also been evolving to give out a more positive influence on the community (look at the Play60 movement for example.)