Major League Baseball can be forgiven for being one of the most anal sports organizations on the planet. Baseball is a numbers game, after all, and makes billions of dollars off the obsession over keeping score. However dickish the Roger Maris home-run asterisk was, it did have some statistical merit.

The career home-run record set by Barry Bonds is more problematic. Any talk of putting an asterisk next to his 762 (and counting) homers, or to wipe them from the record books altogether, is purely a moral issue. And to do so requires first and foremost indisputable proof that Bonds broke the MLB rules regarding steroid use.
Track and field athletes like Marion Jones have had career achievements officially rendered null and void because of steroids, so there is precedent for MLB officials to do the same with Bonds. But their best hope for redemption is if Alex Rodriguez breaks the record and stays out of trouble.

Cleveland rocks. The Indians have all the earmarks of a well-run franchise from top to bottom. But they won’t erase the memory of the worst season for Major League Baseball since the 1994 strike.

This was the year Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756, breaking Hank Aaron’s career record. It was met with muted enthusiasm at best. Bonds was never the fan favorite, but once he became the center of the league’s ongoing steroid controversy, MLB officials distanced themselves from Bonds as if he were made of cancer.

Next month, George Mitchell is expected to release the results of his investigation into steroid use in baseball. Names could be named. If the use of performance enhancers is as widespread as anecdotal evidence suggests, some of those names will be from the Indians.

No matter who’s side you are on, this report is already the overwhelming baseball story of the year. And it’s only going to get bigger.

We’ve got a day or two to catch our collective breath after a very interesting quartet of Division Series. Good thing, because we’ve got some outstanding pitching matchups on tap.

The NLCS breaks ground with Arizona’s Brandon Webb trading pitches with Colorado’s Jeff Francis. Webb led all NL pitchers with 236.3 innings, four complete games and a 3.35 xFIP. Francis isn’t too bad himself: 215.1 innings and a 4.25 xFIP. Both will be well rested for Thursday’s tilt.

Now check out the ALCS opener: Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia versus Boston’s Josh Beckett. These are easily two of the best pitchers in the big leagues. Sabathia led the majors with 241 innings pitched (!), striking out 209 batters and posting a commanding 3.63 xFIP. Beckett had some minor health problems, but still topped 200 innings and was a beast on the mound at 3.56 xFIP. Will anyone score a run Friday night?

Been playing the underdogs so far in the baseball playoffs? Good work, at least after the first four games. Puppies went 2-2, with Colorado winning twice in Philly to make handicappers a quick half-unit.

No reason to stop now. We were still waiting at press time for a line on Game 2 between the Yankees and Cleveland, but check out the other ALDS matchup: Los Angeles (+140) against Boston. The Angels are sending Kelvim Escobar to the mound; Boston replies with Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Dice-K’s only got a 4.42 xFIP after a lousy second half of the season (5.19 ERA in old-school terms). Escobar is at 4.31 xFIP and was strong all year, at least until September when he honked three starts. As long as Escobar’s shoulder inflammation has truly subsided, the Angels have the edge in starting pitching Friday. Amazing what you can buy for +140 in the MLB playoffs.

MLB playoff teams with relatively thin starting pitching, like the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees, are looking forward to shortening their starting rotations. But that doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods.

There is still a drop-off in pitching production the farther you go down these rotations. Look at Arizona’s first three starters: Brandon Webb (3.35 xFIP), Doug Davis (4.72) and Livan Hernandez (5.62). Now the Yankees: Chien-Ming Wang (4.35), Andy Pettitte (4.47) and Roger Clemens (4.52).

Pettitte and Clemens are holding up their end of the bargain in their advanced years, so the Yankees can survive a Wang loss in Thursday’s ALDS opener against Cleveland. The Snakes aren’t so resilient. Davis is facing a huge “must win” (not technically facing elimination, but close enough) in Arizona’s Game 2 matchup with the Cubs. You can win with two dominant pitchers like they did with Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling; one usually isn’t enough.

Matt Holliday didn’t touch home plate. No matter; his Colorado Rockies are in the playoffs, with a National League Divisional matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies. That series will garner the least attention of the four first-round matchups, but it certainly won’t lack for offensive firepower – these are the two top-scoring teams on the senior circuit.

The Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks will get the lion’s share of NL attention. Which isn’t saying much. Believe it or not, Arizona led the league with 90 regular-season wins despite being outscored 732-712. Sad, really.

All the talent is once again in the American League. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are both in, but we’ll have to wait until next week to see them do battle, if they can make it to the ALCS. New York is favored against the Cleveland Indians, as are the BoSox when they take on the Los Angeles Angels.

Baseball handicappers are blissed out this week. Football is taking over the betting landscape, softening lines for those still paying attention to what’s happening on the diamond.

And what’s happening has become a lot more interesting of late. The Seattle Mariners are falling back to earth, losing five in a row at press time. They’ll have their hands full in Toronto; promising Dustin McGowan (3.59 ERA since the break) is scheduled to pitch Saturday, followed by A.J. Burnett (1.63 ERA in four starts since coming off the DL) on Sunday.

In the NL, watch for Tim Lincecum and the surprisingly hot San Francisco Giants on Saturday against Washington. The Lincecum Express has slowed down of late; the rookie has a sore arm and is showing signs of fatigue after a torrid summer. The Senators will be happy to return home after a lousy West Coast swing, so they should have all the value in this matchup.

The decline and fall of the Houston Astros has been a sight to behold. Two years ago, they were in the World Series. Now they’ve dumped both their manager and their general manager.

You could have said the same thing about St. Louis, but the reigning NL champions are back in business in the milquetoast Central Division. They still have something to play for, which makes them a solid bet as underdogs this Wednesday in demoralized Houston – Roy Oswalt’s seven straight trips to the pay window notwithstanding.

Other underdogs worth looking at include Oakland (hosting Toronto), Baltimore (hosting Tampa Bay), and Arizona (at San Diego). The Snakes are barely holding off the Padres in the NL West, but San Diego has some injury concerns, and Arizona probable starter Micah Owings is coming along nicely in his rookie season with quality starts in his last three appearances.

We’ll need to change his name to Micah Earnings. (Now are you ready to bet on baseball? Try Bodog Sportsbook!)

Perhaps you’ve noticed the power outage that has plagued Major League Baseball this year. Alex Rodriguez just hit his 40th home run on Monday; Prince Fielder (39 at press time) should join him soon, and that might be it for the 40-homer club this year. Eleven players reached that milestone in 2006.

The easy explanation is the MLB crackdown on steroid and amphetamine use. But that just doesn’t wash. Commonly forgotten in the focus on big-hitters like Barry Bonds is that pitchers are athletes, too, and just as likely to reach out for that bottle of “Vitamin B12.”

The fact is, we don’t really know if steroid usage is up, down or sideways, because we don’t have the raw facts on who’s using. But we do know that Jesse Barfield led the majors in home runs with 40 back in 1986. Maybe baseball players were listening to too much Kenny Loggins.

As usual, the American League is kicking its older brother’s ass. But look who’s doing the kicking: the Seattle Mariners. They’re easily the top MLB team from a handicapping perspective, racking up 22.4 units of profit as of press time on a record of 69-52.

Buyer beware. Like the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League, Seattle has done it with smoke and mirrors. The M’s have barely outscored their opposition (604-589) and have just 59.6 third-order wins, compared to 65.8 for the criminally unlucky 61-64 Oakland Athletics.

The “real” contenders in the junior circuit, not surprisingly, are the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. We know the Yankees are quickly catching up after a bizarrely poor first half, but the 74-50 Red Sox are also better than their record would indicate, posting 78.1 third-order wins and a shade under five units in earnings. Looks like another Yanks-Sox playoff classic in the works.