Congrats Jim Thome!

Hello,

Yesterday Jim Thome hit career home runs number 599 and 600, he becomes the 8th person in MLB history with at least 600 home runs. Thome reportedly is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Also there never has been the hint of him ever taking steroids. Finally he's also a great home run hitter. Congrats Jim Thome, may you have a few more home runs left in your career.

The other 7 members of the 600 HR club include such legends as Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. There's also Ken Griffey Jr. Then having hit 600 home runs but having steroids taint all over them is Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa.

Also congrats to the Milwaukee Brewers for completing a triple play yesterday. Since they were playing the Dodgers that takes a bit of excitement out of their feat. Speaking of the Brewers, they remain on fire. They've won 9 of their last 10 games and they are running away from the rest of the NL Central. They lead second place St. Louis by 6 games.

St. Louis lost to Pittsburgh yesterday 6-2, the Pirates move to 57-63 this season. They trail those on fire Brewers by 13 games. It was a great dream just a few weeks ago that the Pirates could qualify for the playoffs. Now that looks highly unlikely (although I'm still hoping for them and being an optimist). Over the season's final 40 games I'd like to see them work on playing hard and never giving up. I'd also like the Pirates to use this time to get into the habit of winning. Practice these skills and then hopefully they can challenge for the NL Central title next year.

Boston and New York are tied for first place in the AL East, both have 73-46 records. Keep it going Boston. I see those two teams playing in the ALCS in what should be another classic match up.

Meanwhile Atlanta is doing all they can do to stay within range of the ferocious Phillies. The Phillies have one of the best pitching staffs in the history of MLB. They play like they aren't going to be denied. There truly is a feeling of destiny surrounding their team.

The Braves are probably going to make the playoffs, which they definitely deserve. In spite of Atlanta being 20 games above .500, they still trail Philadelphia by 8.5 games. Thankfully Atlanta is dominating the NL Wild Card race this year. Thanks to MLB Network I was able to watch the bottom of the 9th inning of the Braves-Giants game. The Braves scored three runs to come back and win, they beat closer Brian Wilson. Atlanta leads the Giants by 5 games in the NL Wild Card. The Giants and Diamondbacks will probably be fighting for the NL West title for the rest of the season, with the loser almost certainly not making the playoffs.

Also since I had some of my kids with me yesterday, I took them to the movies. My daughter went to see "The Smurfs" which has received horrible reviews. There was no way I was going to go watch that. But "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" was playing about the same time. I went and saw that with my middle son. That was a lot better movie than I expected. Previews don't capture what that movie is about at all. However the end of the movie was much longer than it needed to be. In this year of very bad movies, this "Planet" was one of the best movies I've seen this year. Again by this year's standards, that's faint praise.

Although when I read that the people behind the movie have planned a trilogy, that did make me nervous. We don't need two more of these movies. Also in watching previews, there's yet another movie about aliens trying to take over the world. This one is set in Moscow. When the previews showed party scenes from Moscow, I had no idea that this was another aliens taking over the world movie.

"In Time":



The above movie looks like it has some potential. Justin Timberlake is a pretty good actor, I can definitely buy him as an action star. I still laugh at the previews for the new Taylor Lautner movie. He has as much action credibility as Ryan Reynolds. Anyway I didn't like how much of a neutered character Timberlake was forced to play in "Bad Teacher". He should stick with truly funny and action roles. Also he was amazing playing the character Sean Parker in "The Social Network". I say character because I have no idea how Sean Parker really is.

themusicaddict