Morning Line Archives: July 9-15

JULY 9-15

It’s All-Star week in baseball as the game’s stars converge on Kansas City for Monday’s Home Run Derby, and Tuesday night’s All-Star Game. You can read the position-by-position reviews TheSportsNotebook did for the past several weeks building up to this week (with some general weekly reports on the playoff picture mixed in) right here.

Now we’ll take the next two days and delve into the MVP race, with a look at the Top 10 in each league if the season ended right now. The American League will go on Monday, with the National League on Tuesday. Then Wednesday and Thursday will feature our look back at each team’s projected win total for the season, based on the Las Vegas Over/Under numbers and assess each team’s prospects for hitting the mark. Friday’s Sunday’s baseball feature will be a look at the two surprise contenders for an American League wild-card spot—Baltimore & Oakland, and then on Sunday (Friday)we’ll evaluate the top of the NL Central, in anticipation of St. Louis and Cincinnati meeting that night on ESPN. The one day we don’t have a baseball article will be on Saturday, but we will feature our weekly NASCAR race preview, as our racing consultant, my brother Bill, offers us insights into the race at New Hampshire.

Football is just around the corner, with NFL training camps set to open at end of this month. I know a lot of fans have been mostly out of the loop on the NFL, save for what their own team did in the draft and free agency, so Notebook contributor Isaac Huss is set to get you up to speed with a two-part look at how each team did in the offseason. It starts with Monday’s feature on the NFC.

In the meantime, please check out TheSportsNotebook’s Historical Museum, where we celebrate fan bases that had notable years with their teams, with coverage on each year from 1976-2007. And take a look at the bookstore as well. I’ve got two historical memoirs—Memories of March Madness and The Last New Year’s, that cover the best of the NCAA Tournament and New Year’s Day college football. And there’s two collections of blog postings available. You can follow the 2011 baseball season from Opening Day to October and The Cardinals’ Gold Ring. And follow last college hoops season from The Carrier To Kentucky.  Everything is available for $3.49 or less and can be downloaded to a Kindle or I-Pad from Amazon.