Pudge calls it quits

When Ivan Rodriguez announced his retirement last week, he bid farewell to the DMBL for good. He had 137 plate appearances in MLB last year, leaving him 67 short of DMBL eligibility for 2012.

He certainly will be on the ballot for the DMBL Hall of Fame by 2017, and as a longtime catcher, likely will get heavy consideration on his first try. If it's not Pudge leading catchers in a career batting category, it's Mike Piazza.

Pudge spent much of his career with his original franchise, the now defunct-Columbia Crusaders. He was the face of the franchise since being selected in the 6th round (50th overall) in the 1993 draft and spent 12 seasons with the Crusaders/Rattlesnakes. He was a two-time all-star (1996 and 2001) and appeared in a DMBL-record 18 seasons.

After Columbia left the DMBL, Pudge was a bit of a vagabond catcher -- left unprotected but usually being drafted -- playing for five different teams in his final six seasons. Much of his final three years was spent as a part-time player, logging 190 games with three different squads.

Most impressively, between breaking into the DMBL in 1993 and 2008, Pudge played no fewer than 130 games a year with the exception of one season (2002, 102 games, and of course, the strike-year of 1995). He leads catchers in career hits, at-bats, doubles and games played (tantalizingly close to 500 doubles, and 2,000 "official" games), and trails Piazza in most other categories.

Entering the 2012 season, he ranked 6th all-time in games played with 1,991 -- only Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, Manny Ramirez and Vlad Guerrero have "officially" played more. He also finishes 4th in doubles with 490 (surpassed only by Edgar Martinez, Chipper and Manny).

(Games played wasn't an official stat in the early days of the DMBL and many old-timers have incomplete records for the category. Rodriguez certainly played more than 2,000 games but the 1994 and 1996 seasons are incomplete, and he likely played as many as 300 games in those two years considering his number of at-bats.)

Other career stats for Pudge:

Batting average: .282
On-base: .313
Slugging: .439
OPS: .752
AB: 8,318 (7th)
H: 2,370 (7th -- ahead of Roberto Alomar, 2,207, behind A-Rod, 2,436)
HR: 263 (30th -- ahead of Javy Lopez, 260, behind Bobby Abreu, 264)
RBI:  1,100 (18th -- ahead of Rafael Palmeiro, 1,099, behind Larry Walker, 1,103)
Runs: 821 (29th)
Strikeouts: 1,359 (19th; only 378 career walks)

Home run No. 300 for Berkman

Lance Berkman became the 21st player in DMBL history to reach 300 career home runs, and doing so against the franchise he broke in with more than a decade ago. Just after teammate Adam Jones was picked off first base by rookie Michael Pineda in the second inning, The Big Puma launched a homer deep down the right-field line.

Next up on the home run list is Rafael Palmeiro at 20th, with 330 home runs, so Berkman has an outside chance at catching him if he can reach 38 round-trippers in 2012.

Berkman had been a stalwart in the Arkansas offense ever since being a 1st round pick (13th overall) in the 2001 draft. He hit no fewer than 24 home runs (4x) in 9 of 10 seasons with the Golden Falcons, including a career-high 39 in 2007, and never hit lower than .800 OPS (if you round up his .799 OPS in 2008).

Released by Arkansas at age 34, Fat Elvis was selected in the 13th round of the 2011 draft by Sardine City but eventually released and ended up scuffling most of last season with Carolina (now Rowdy), where he's manning right field this year.

"Hear that?  Yeah, that was No. 300."

Behind Berkman on the all-time home run list is a real horse race, with four active players closely jockeying all season. Currently, David Ortiz of Hoboken is ahead at 283 homers (8 on the year), followed by a tie between Philly's Ryan Howard (6) and Bridgewater's Carlos Beltran (5) with 281, and Vancouver's Todd Helton at 279 (3).

Reyes first to 100 triples

Jose Reyes became the first player in DMBL history to reach 100 triples for his career when he collected his fourth three-bagger of the season in a 9-8 win on Sunday. Reyes tripled in the 6th off Livingston's Jake Arrieta to drive in Ruben Tejada and later scored on a Victor Martinez single.

Reyes has reached double-digits in four of his six DMBL seasons, including a career-high 24 triples in 2007 -- and in 2006, splitting time between Westwood and D.C. -- and another 20 last year. He missed 2010 due to injury. But Reyes doesn't hold the season record for triples; that's Curtis Granderson, now with Las Vegas, who hit 33 in 2008 (and MicroLeague record holder Deion Sanders, who hit 62 of his 75 career triples in 1993).

The Bridgewater shortstop is off to a blistering start in 2012, leading the league in batting much of the year, thanks in part to a league-high 19-game hitting streak.

Right behind Reyes is Amityville's Carl Crawford who, with three triples this season, now has 93 for his career. After that, it's a bit of a drop-off with three retired players (Kenny Lofton, Sanders and Roberto Alomar) in the 70s, and even further for active players, with Livingston's Jimmy Rollins and Bridgewater's Carlos Beltran in the high 60s.

Halladay -- it would be so fine!

Roy Halladay, the DMBL's active leader in most every pitching category, entered rare territory after a masterful 2-0 shutout of Arkansas on Thursday night. He limited the Golden Falcons to three hits while striking out five and walking just one.

The game featured a number of career milestones for the Philly ace. It was his 19th career shutout, breaking a tie with Curt Schilling for 4th all-time, and moving into a tie with Pedro Martinez for 3rd place. The only pitchers with more DMBL shutouts are Kevin Brown (24) and Greg Maddux (32). It also was the 65th complete game of his career, breaking a tie with Randy Johnson and moving into 5th place all-time.

Halladay passed Andy Pettitte into 9th place all-time in innings pitched, and is just a trio of outs from John Smoltz for 8th place. He now stands within 1,000 innings of Maddux, the all-time leader, with 3,415 1/3 innings pitched.

Halladay set career highs last season in wins (21), innings (250 1/3), complete games (12) and shutouts (4). He originally was selected by Philly in the 9th round of the 1999 draft, pitching for the Endzone Animals in 2000. He was the 11th overall pick of the 2002 draft by Carolina, where he spent the next eight seasons, before being shipped to Philly in a blockbuster trade in January 2010. Incredibly, Halladay has made no fewer than 30 starts in any of his 11 seasons, including 10 straight, every year since 2002.

Verlander near perfect, K's 13

It was all about pitching Friday night, with four of the eight games ending in shutouts -- another two games had teams held to just a run -- but none better than Justin Verlander, who put up the most dominant start of the season so far in a near perfect game.

The Hillsborough ace tossed a one-hitter, defeating the Floating Fish, 2-0. He walked none and struck out 13, including the side in the 1st and six of the first seven batters. Just four outs were recorded via fly ball.

An error by first baseman Billy Butler to start the fifth and a single by A.J. Pierzynski leading off the sixth were the only blemishes that kept Verlander from achieving a perfect game. After Pierzynki's hit, Verlander proceeded to strike out six of the next eight batters, including the side in the sixth inning.

Verlander improved to 4-1 and lowered his ERA to a league-leading 1.23. The 13 Ks also gave him the league lead with 53, two better than Bridgewater rookie Brandon Beachy.

There were two no-hitters in the DMBL last year, most recently in June when Brett Myers, then with Las Vegas, beat New Jersey, 1-0, and in May Carolina phenom Stephen Strasburg shut down Philly, 5-0.

Sabathia reaches 15th all-time in wins

An efficient outing by C.C. Sabathia Saturday night moved the big left-hander up the DMBL record books. Sabathia shut down the Hoboken Cutters for seven innings, scattering five hits and one run against the franchise that initially drafted him, in Rowdy's 5-3 road win.

Sabathia improved to 3-0 this season for the Roddy Pipers, earning his 109th career win, to match David Cone and A.J. Burnett for 15th all-time in DMBL victories. It was his 274th career start, which matched Andy Benes for 20th all-time, and broke a tie with Bartolo Colon. Originally an ineligible 14th-round pick in the 2001 draft, Sabathia also moved into the top 20 in all-time innings pitched, also passing Colon, and now with 1,675 2/3 innings.

Colon returned to the DMBL this season after a five-year absence, having last pitched for Hillsborough in 2006. He was a supplemental fifth-round pick by Blue Ridge in this year's draft, but so far has spent the season on the Bombers' reserve list.

Pujols passes Chipper into 8th place

Philly slugger Albert Pujols leapfrogged Chipper Jones into 8th place on the all-time home run list with two homers in Wednesday night's 11-9 loss at home to Amityville. It was the 5th and 6th round-trippers of the year for Pujols, who now has 413 home runs. Chipper has one so far this season, for a career total of 412, good for 9th all-time.

The first overall pick of the 2002 DMBL draft, Pujols is far from the active league leader in home runs. Ahead of him, and still playing this season, are Vlad Guerrero of Rowdy (436), Newark's Jim Thome (514) and Alex Rodriguez of Las Vegas (563).

Guerrero needs just 10 home runs to reach slammin' Sammy Sosa for 6th all-time with 446, and another dozen to catch the legendary Ken Griffey, Jr. for No. 5, at 448.

Manny Ramirez, who has decided to take the year off to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and get back in shape for the 2013 DMBL season, ended last year stuck with 498 home runs; only three others have more than 500 career home runs: In addition to Thome and A-Rod, Barry Bonds, who finished with more home runs than anyone in DMBL: 683 home runs.