Today's Fantasy Rx

Unlike last season's perpetual discussion of the CBA talks, no singular theme dominated baseball discourse this year other than general discussion revolving around playoff contenders and potential post-season award winners. Of course, several other notable events from throughout the year deserve remembrance, so here's a smattering of other moments that enhanced the 2002 season for us:

Discussion of Michael Lewis' "Moneyball", a sabermetric ode to Oakland, seemed to blossom throughout the spring as excerpts from the book appeared in many publications. Reporters repeatedly divided clubs into those primarily favoring stats over tools and vice-versa, essentially placing Oakland, Toronto, and Boston in a separate competition with Minnesota and Seattle to determine which method offered the most potential for club executives. Spring Training rumors suggested bad blood between Billy Beane and numerous front office opponents, including Grady Fuson, Kenny Williams, and Steve Phillips. Speculation surrounded the belief that perhaps growing resentment of Oakland would keep the A's from making significant in-season improvements. However, an off-season swap of Billy Koch for Keith Foulke stabilized the pen, the development of Rich Harden and Justin Duchscherer provided needed rotation depth, and the combination of Eric Byrnes' 1st half play and the deadline pick-up of Jose Guillen created enough offense to win the AL West again. While Miguel Tejada likely will depart this winter, Bobby Crosby looks ready to start in the majors and should prevent any significant downturn in Oakland's performance.

The death of Orioles' pitcher Steve Bechler during early workouts led to the other story that overshadowed the spring. Few people believe that the drug testing program established in the CBA negotiations will lead to any profound change in ballplayers' preparation habits, however the connection between Bechler's death and ephedra-based supplements gave the baseball world the first prominent example in years of the dangers of drugs. His passing also brought back both the recent pain of Darryl Kile's death last summer and the Spring Training boat accident a decade ago that killed Cleveland's Steve Olin and Tim Drew. Mike Hargrove managed both the 1993 Indians and the 2003 Orioles, and though neither team remained in contention long, his handling of both tragedies added welcome dignity to otherwise unremarkable seasons.

As Cubs' fans, two doubleheaders, the early-September split with St. Louis during a momentum-turning five-game series and yesterday's division-clinching sweep, will stand out as dominant memories of this year for us. With the Cubs heading to the playoffs and only the Braves and Giants likely standing between Chicago and our first World Series appearance in 58 years, hopefully the next few weeks will hold the best long-term memories of the season.

We periodically will add more memories until we post tomorrow's articles.

Opening Day 2004 is only 189 days away.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Enjoy the last games of the regular season as we won't have any one-game playoffs, relax this evening as most networks debut their fall Sunday schedules, and then join us again tomorrow as we continue to post new articles each and every day of the year.

My two-week in-depth season review begins here Monday