Sorry for the lack of questions lately, folks. Carp has been on vacation and without my sparring partner, it’s been a little slow.

That said, I don’t want things to get too stale around here, so this question just came to me: How many Halls of Fame have you been to and what is the best one?

The reason I’m asking is that I’m currently in Cooperstown with my dad and one of my brothers, on a little father-son voyage to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The last time I was here was on a camp trip nearly 20 years ago, and we decided it would be a nice mid-summer trip.

I’ve also been to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., as well as the Bowling Hall of Fame in St. Louis (it’s right near Busch Stadium). Where have you guys been and what stands out?

Read this.

Uh …

Actually, here’s a question: What’s the oddest name you can come up with that’s not completely inappropriate?

I mean, can you imagine someone saying, “Hey, Larry, have you met my son, Carryon Luggage? Or his buddy, Sandy Beaches?”

This sort of reminds me of that great children’s geography game, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” in which the villains had names like, “Miles Long” and “Ken Hartley Reed.”

So, the other night I was exhausted. I mean, brutally tired. Just done.

The next morning, however, I had to be up early – like, 6:30 a.m. early – and so I made sure to set two alarms when I finally put my head down just before midnight.

Now, if you’d asked me before I went to sleep, I would have guessed that without an alarm clock to wake me, I would have probably been able to sleep 10 hours easily. That’s how tired I was – I’d only gotten a few hours sleep the night before, had been up early that day and been outside in the sun for much of the afternoon before then going to write a column that evening. So, without interruption, I figured I’d be in for a Rip Van Winkle-style slumber.

Yet when I opened one eye for the first time the next morning, the clock’s red numbers said, “6:25.”

Amazing. My body and brain just knew what time I had to be up. And this happens all the time. Whenever I have an appointment or something in the morning, I just seem to wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off. Does this happen to other people? And why do we do it?

I guess it’s a good thing. Certainly it’s better than the alternative of sleeping through alarms on a regular basis. Though, frankly, my first thought when I woke up that morning wasn’t happiness over the knowledge that I wasn’t going to be late. No, it was more irritation with myself:

Stupid internal clock. Why did I have to gyp myself out of five more minutes of sleep?

OK, so I was inspired to use that headline by the excellent editors at Newsday, who used a similar vein on their back page about recently-traded Giants TE Jeremy Shockey. For some reason, I like it.

Anyway, I wrote about Shockey in today’s Journal News, and the gist of my opinion was that regardless of what you think about the Giants’ skill level without Shockey – you could argue they’re better off with or without him, I think – the team made a strong decision to pull the trigger on a deal now, instead of allowing this saga to stretch into training camp.

Anyone out there agree?

Sad to see Shockey go?

Judging by the reaction in this story, it doesn’t seem like too many G-men fans are shedding tears over Shockey’s departure. Then again, they might still be mourning their lost dollars after the whole PSL disaster …

The Mets won their first game of the second-half last night in dramatic fashion, coming back against the (horrific) Reds late in the game. The Yankees start up their second half tonight against the A’s. The Mets are currently tied for first place in the NL East, the Yankees are 6 games out in the AL East.

So, will there be October baseball in New York?

I say there will. As bad as the Yankees have looked, I wrote them off in 2005 and 2006 (both years that I covered the team), and they came back to play in the postseason. So, having learned my lesson, I say they’ll grab the wild card (and then lose in the first round).

The Mets? I do think they’re closer to this team that’s won 10 in a row than the one we saw for most of April/May, and I think they’ll end up winning the NL East comfortably—say, 3-4 games. How would a Mets-Dodgers NLCS look? Joe Torre back in NY? Tasty.

What say you, Wise Carp?

Carp says:

Wise? I think you may be confusing age with wisdom.

Anyway, I have my doubts about both teams. The Mets bullpen has been walking on a wire throughout this whole 10-game winning streak, and we still don’t know about Pedro, or Ryan Church, and we can be fairly certain that Fernando Tatis and Damion Easley will come back to Earth to some degree. I agree with you, I expected them to be in contention all year, and I thought they were much better than they showed in the first half.

One thing they have going for them is that it won’t take a monster record to get into the postseason in the NL.

The Yankees, I suspect, will miss out this year. Everybody is shocked by their lack of offense, but I don’t think it’s a total fluke, especially with Matsui and Damon banged up. Robinson Cano is playing down a level, but Jason Giambi is playing over his head. Their outfield produces almost no power, and if they continue to have to play Molina behind the plate, they will have to remove a bat to do so. I think Richie Sexson will win a few games for them, a la Dave Kingman in the late 1970s, but that’s what he is. Dave Kingman. He can’t play every day with all those holes in his swing.

The Yankees hitters seem to put up huge outings against lousy pitchers, then get completely shut down by good pitching, which makes their poor stats look even better than they really are. They do NOT hit with men in scoring position (A-Rod).

And I’m still not sure their pitching will hold up, either. Mike Mussina can’t be as good in the second half, can he? Darrell Rasner is pitching his way out of the rotation. Do you really trust the bullpen to be able to get the ball to Rivera in crucial situations late in the season?

Finally, in a difficult stretch of the season is where they will miss Joe Torre, especially when the loudmouthed son of the owner starts bellowing his ultimatums.

I just finished a column for The Journal News and LoHud.com tomorrow on the Giants’ personal seat license program.

I spoke with John Mara, and with some long-time fans who will have to pay a lot more if they want to go to Giants games in 2010.

 Jeff Gold provided the basics on the new seat prices and PSL costs.

The letters are going out tomorrow, Friday, in batches of 5,000 letters at a time. The Giants promise that they are doing it in batches so that they can handle the questions that season-ticket holders are sure to have, and that nobody will get any first-come, first-served priority until all of the current season-ticket holders have received their letters and everybody has had time to have questions answered and to return their forms and requests for 2010.

But, if you want an early preview on what to expect cost-wise, seat-wise, PSL-wise, stadium-wise in 2010, click here.

I hear that the football Giants are going to have something new to say about their personal seat licenses tomorrow. I’ve already heard from some of you and what you think about the idea of paying between $1,000 and $20,000 for the right to then buy season tickets, which by the way, are going to be more expensive, in the new stadium.

I’d love to hear from more of you guys. As you can imagine, most of the mail and email I’ve received is extremely negative, and I’ve already written that I think it’s a disgrace for the Giants to treat their fans this way, and that in my opinion this would not have ever happened if Mr. Wellington Mara was still alive.

So, what do you have to say about it?

11:44 p.m., Sam says:

I don’t think there’s a sports fan alive who likes the idea of paying for PSL’s, other than maybe the ones who are on the decades-long waiting list for Giants season tix and can now purchase a PSL from someone else and, thus, finally get their own season tix.

That said, my reaction to PSL’s in general is the same as it is most of the time people complain about the cost of sporting events these days: Blame America.

The truth is that it’s hard to fault any business for doing something that makes money in a capitalist society, particularly if the consumer allows it to be done by participating. This isn’t gasoline or milk or bread we’re talking about – Giants tickets (or any tickets) are not life staples. No one forces people to buy them. So if the Giants do PSL’s and they’re able to get people to pay for them and still fill up their brand new stadium, how upset can I really get? Are they alienating fans? I guess they are (because I hear from plenty that are upset) but they clearly aren’t alienating so many that their fan base has completely eroded. Clearly some fans are willing to go along with this whole thing. A lot of fans, in fact.

A decade ago the Oakland Raiders did PSL’s and some fans snapped them up right at the start. Years later, the Raiders had to abandon the PSL program entirely (too bad for those folks who’d already paid) because they couldn’t sell out their stadium. The fans had stopped coming. In other words, the fans let the Raiders know that PSL’s wouldn’t work – and so they disappeared.

Will that happen to the Giants? Somehow, I doubt it. If it does, then I’ll have no problem calling out the Giants for doing something that very clearly turned their fans against them. But if it doesn’t, and the new Meadowlands is packed to the brim for years and years to come, then I’ve got a hard time coming down too hard on the organization. After all, they’re just being absolutely American.

Carp says:

Is it really absolutely American to build a fanbase with trust, a fanbase so unbelievably loyal through so many bad years, a fanbase that has already been kicked around from Yankee Stadium to New Haven to New Jersey, and then to tell a great percentage of that fanbase: “If you can’t afford it, get out! We’ll go find somebody richer to take your place?”

It’s pretty sad if it is. It’s a money-grab, pure and simple. Making people pay for their love. It’s like a church that fills up every Sunday suddenly selling tickets to get in. Is that American?

THURSDAY NIGHT UPDATE:

I just finished a column for The Journal News and LoHud.com tomorrow on the Giants’ personal seat license program.

I spoke with John Mara, and with some long-time fans who will have to pay a lot more if they want to go to Giants games in 2010.

Jeff Gold provided the basics on the new seat prices and PSL costs.

The letters are going out tomorrow, Friday, in batches of 5,000 letters at a time. The Giants promise that they are doing it in batches so that they can handle the questions that season-ticket holders are sure to have, and that nobody will get any first-come, first-served priority until all of the current season-ticket holders have received their letters and everybody has had time to have questions answered and to return their forms and requests for 2010.

But, if you want an early preview on what to expect cost-wise, seat-wise, PSL-wise, stadium-wise in 2010, click here.

10:14 a.m., Sam says:

Carp, I’m not saying that PSLs are palatable or the right thing to do, just that it’s easy to get in an uproar over something that charges “the average fan” a lot of money even though the reality is that the team is simply following a principal that, for the most part, Americans encourage (and even praise). That is what business is all about and, truthfully, most fans need to be reminded that the teams they root for are in business, not some sort of sports vacuum.

Should it be that way? That’s a question we can debate at some point later this summer, but it’s the reality. You did a great job with your column about PSLs and some of the stories you hear about fans who can’t afford to keep their seats are incredibly sad (tickets that have been passed down for generations being lost, etc.); I’m not saying I don’t feel for them. I do. But I also understand the premise behind the decision, so while I can be upset at the Giants for what they are doing, I can’t be that enraged over the thought process that led them to it.

(Oh, and by the way, the church analogy doesn’t exactly work since churches are free to get into on regular basis and Giants Stadium has never been free to enter. A better example would be a country club charging an initiation fee—is there outrage over that? Essentially, you’re paying the initiation fee for the right to pay your yearly dues, much the same way you pay the PSL for the right to pay for season tickets. Is Winged Foot as wrong as the New York Giants?)

All-Star weekend, or whatever you want to call these three days, has been terrific so far, much better than I anticipated. The home run derby was shockingly good … at least while Josh Hamilton was hitting in that first round. Today the collection of Hall of Famers was amazing. I’m sure the ceremonies at the Stadium tonight will be all you could imagine and more.

But what about the game? Do you think it could be a great event on its own … say, if this weren’t Yankee Stadium. And what do you make of that “it counts” thing with the home field for the World Series on the line?

I think it’s bogus and contrived. Home field only means something if a series gets to a seventh game, and only one series has gone six since the All-Star game began “counting” in 1993. And there’s no way anybody’s going to go to extraordinary lengths to win the game because of that, especially somebody from a team that’s not going to be competing for the World Series.

I think the guys want to win, but only to a point. In other words, I don’t think Terry Francona is going to pitch Mariano Rivera three innings tonight.

PS, a lot of nonsense has been printed about Francona doing wrong by not naming Rivera his closer tonight. Francona will do the right thing. Trust me. Rivera will close it out if the AL has the lead in the ninth. Francona has known that since his roster was set eight days ago. Probably before that.

From the way I understand it, too, Papelbon’s comments were taken way out of context, and he apparently said all the right things about Rivera. So he said if he were the manager he’d pick himself, based on being the World Series champ and having more saves. So?

He apparently also said a bunch of nice things about Rivera and how he deserved to close here at Yankee Stadium.

What do you think?

Oh, one more thing. I thought of this during the home run derby, and somebody sent me an email today saying the same thing. Do you think the ball might have been juiced for the contest? I mean, did you see where that kid was hitting them? I really think, the next time Texas is here, when he takes batting practice he won’t be able to hit balls where he hit them last night.

7:44 p.m., Sam says:

Here I am, live in the press box at Yankee Stadium getting ready to watch the All-Star Game and, yes, in fact, I’m glad it “counts.” I think one of the best things about the MLB All-Star Game is that it mostly closely resembles a real game, whereas the NBA, NFL and – sorry, Carp – even NHL All-Star Games are such shells of themselves that it’s pretty difficult to justify watching.

Does home-field advantage in a potential Game 7 really make this game that much more important? Hardly. But sometimes something has meaning in what it represents as opposed to what it actually is, and this is one of those times. Having the game “count” helps make the All-Star Game even more real, which is one of the greatest characteristics it has.

Now, as for Papelbon – sorry again Carp, but I was standing right there and absolutely nothing about Papelbon’s comments was blown out of proportion. He spent the better part of an hour saying that choosing the AL closer is “not as cut and dried” as people thought and opining on how the Red Sox winning the World Series (and thus having Francona as the manager) made him somehow equally deserving of the role as Rivera. Did he backtrack later on with the Boston Globe? Yup. But you can’t erase 60 minutes of being an idiot. It doesn’t work that way.

Rivera will close tonight and, hopefully, you’ll all read about it in my column in tomorrow’s paper and on lohud.com.

Originally, Home Run Derby was a TV show. If you click on the link to the Wikipedia page about the show, you’ll learn some interesting factoids, including:

1. The show was taped during the 1959 offseason at Wrigley Field … in Los Angeles. The Hollywood version of Wrigley was a minor league park and was chosen because it had symmetrical fences – RF and LF were the same distance from home plate, meaning neither righties nor lefties were favored.

2. Players received checks for winning each week on the show. Not those big, cardboard checks you see at golf tournaments, either – they were handed real checks on the air.

3. Willie Mays preferred that the show’s host, Mark Scott, speak quietly when he was at the plate, so Scott did his best impression of tennis broadcaster when Willie was taking his swings.

Anyway, I mention all this because tonight at the Stadium is 2008 All-Star Game Home Run Derby, an event which has really become a lot bigger than probably anyone imagined. It’s also become pretty boring.

Don’t get me wrong, I like homers as much as the next guy (though give me a crisp 3-2 pitcher’s duel any day of the week and I’d prefer it), but the current incarnation of the Derby is just over-the-top to me. Chris Berman probably has a lot to do with that.

So what do you think? Will you watch the Derby tonight? And would you miss it if it was suddenly eliminated? (Not likely, since apparently it’s an incredible ratings-grabber).

Carp says:
I thought the home run derby was a cool thing when it first became part of All-Star week, especially when it was sponsored by a real estate company that would give a house to a fan who was picked to be represented by the winning home run hitter. Wow! A house.

And, Sam, I’m not going to surprise you here, but I remember Home Run Derby the TV show, although I think the memory I have of it was through seeing reruns. I’m not sure I saw it when it was originally broadcast. But that was pretty cool—back when players needed the extra cash. Mantle, Mays, Killebrew, Aaron—all the big names of the era.

Which brings us to tonight’s, ahem, event. I was looking at the eight competitors this afternoon and thinking, any one of them could step outside the midtown hotel where they were speaking on behalf of the sponsor, and walk right down the crowded 42nd Street past Grand Central and none of them would be noticed. Seriously.

No disrespect. Some of them are excellent players and legitimate sluggers and I could definitely pick Chase Utley or Lance Berkman out of a lineup, and now I know Evan Longoria and Josh Hamilton, too. He, by the way, is a great story with a great personality.

But, again, if you’re going to have a home run derby without the legendary power hitters in the game, guys like Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols, it’s a joke. And if you’re going to have one last derby at Yankee Stadium before it closes and you don’t have Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz involved, you might as well shut it down.

Oh, I’ll watch. I’ll watch because I still love to see moonshots into the upper deck—especially the rarely-reached upper deck in left. Hamilton was half-joking, I think, when he said today that it’s possible somebody will hit one completely out of the stadium, which has never been done (although there are rumors of it happening in a Negro League game, if I’m not mistaken by Josh Gibson). Hamilton said to keep an eye on that area over the old Yankees bullpen in right, where there’s an opening and you can see the subway.

But Chris Berman will make it painful as he starts screaming with the first jack and amps it up for each of the next hundred or so homers. I also remember last year waiting for the first eposiode of ESPN’s “The Bronx is Burning” and having the home run derby run an hour late, delaying the show which had been hyped for a month.

But it’s here to stay. As long as somebody will sponsor it and ESPN needs an All-Star Monday program and MLB can sell it to 56,000 fans at jacked-up prices, it’s here to stay.

The Yankees and Mets apparently have both determined they need the same thing—corner outfielders with some pop in their bats. As for the Yankees, if they are expecting Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui both back, another corner outfielder is going to make it awfully crowded in the dugout, especially with Jorge Posada getting time at first base/DH with Jason Giambi.

The Mets probably need a corner outfielder more than the Yankees do, but probably also don’t have the prospects and/or young players to get a Matt Holliday type unless they are willing to split with a Beltran or a Reyes. That wouldn’t make sense—to rip open one hole in order to fill another. And I’m not going to get into the whole Barry Bonds thing again.

Yeah, the Mets are getting by just fine with what they have, and I happen to think that Damion Easley could be the regular second baseman. But with Ryan Church’s future still a complete unknown, and Moises Alou finished, they really do need to add some pop in the outfield.

The Yankees might go after Richie Sexson, released by Seattle, and why not? He would cost almost nothing in money, and nothing in prospects or players. If you’re old enough, you may remember when the Yankees brought in a similar player, Dave Kingman, in the late 1970s. Kingman had a bunch of whiffs and a bunch of late-season homers and helped them win a pennant and a World Series. Sexson isn’t in the Yankees’ mold. He doesn’t work pitchers. He’s up there hacking and mostly missing. But maybe he can win a couple of games. Who knows?

I keep hearing, too, that Bobby Abreu won’t be coming back next year. I think that’s foolish. The guy is a pro hitter, a run producer. And while not cheap, he also won’t be terribly expensive to keep. The question is: for how many years? If he wants three or four, then forget it.

What do you think?

Shameless plug: I’m working on a column for The Journal News and LoHud.com Sunday on Ken Singleton’s memories of the 1977 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

10:45 a.m., Sam says:

First, definitely check out Carp’s column tomorrow – it’s going to be great, as will The Journal News’ All-Star Game preview section, produced by our intrepid editors, Susie Arth and Joe Erwin.

As for corner outfielders, I think both teams have a greater need: bullpen help. To me, it would be pretty tough for Cashman to defend not trading big prospects for Johan Santana, then turning around and dealing what would surely be a premium package for Holliday. Starting pitchers are infinitely more coveted (and less available), so if you wouldn’t pull the trigger for Santana, you can’t then do it for an outfielder.

Beyond that, I think both teams have glaring holes in their middle relief. Do I think Aaron Heilman has been pitching well lately? Of course. How about Jose Veras and Kyle Farnsworth? Same for them. But I have little faith in any of them continuing that, so if there was an option to trade for an established reliever – Rockies closer Brian Fuentes is one, and how about Seattle’s Brendan Morrow, who has been tearing it up in place of the injured J.J. Putz? – then that would cost less to the Mets and Yankees but ultimately be worth a lot more.