We grimaced at the Florida Marlins' and Chicago White Sox's make-players-rich-quick, get-good-fast schemes. We nodded at the Baltimore Orioles' savvy improvements. We expressed awe over the potential in Los Angeles and Seattle, and intrigue at John Hart's machinations in Cleveland. We wondered whether the St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees could repeat improbable seasons.
And we got bored with Atlanta.
Atlanta - the team that's always in contention, that's always winning 3-2, that's almost always losing the World Series. Atlanta - constant as the daily newspaper, exciting as a Bud Selig news conference.
Those perceptions usually proved true in the past. They have become outdated. This year's team in Atlanta has added the exciting dimension of speed to a lineup that previously played station-to-station baseball.
Kenny Lofton, once one of the most disruptive players in the American League, has been a hit in the NL, too. Now, Atlanta has complemented baseball's best rotation with an aggressive offense. The result: 19 victories in April, the most ever by a major league team.
That record is due partly to the ever-expanding schedule. Then again, nobody else broke it this April.
Six clubs previously had won 18 games in April. Two - the '89 Oakland A's and the '84 Detroit Tigers - went on to win the World Series. (The other teams that won 18 games were the '87 Brewers, '81 A's, '71 Giants and '73 Giants.)
'I think everyone is a little surprised at how good we've done,' third baseman Chipper Jones said. 'But deep down, we've just stuck to the formula - pitching, defense, a little more team speed.'
Since moving from Milwaukee in 1966, Atlanta has had better months only six times. The 1995 world champions posted a 20-victory July. All other Atlanta 20-plus-victory months (1966, '69, '91, '92 and '93) have come in September.
'In spring training, they made some trades,' first baseman Fred McGriff said of team management. 'It was important for us to get off to a good start. If we got off to a bad start, guys were going to start having some doubts.'
Atlanta, rather than standing pat with a championship-caliber club, aggressively pursued improvements that could bring it a second World Series title. General manager John Schuerholz dealt outfielders Marquis Grissom and David Justice for Lofton and lefthanded reliever Alan Embree. Although Justice entered this weekend hitting .402 with nine homers, Lofton's brilliance probably will continue to give Atlanta the advantage in the deal.
Schuerholz also dealt promising outfielder Jermaine Dye to Kansas City for outfielder Michael Tucker and infielder Keith Lockhart, addressing a prime need - quality depth.
Rarely do deals pay off so quickly. Atlanta lost its first two games, then went 19-4 the rest of the month, outscoring opponents 140-73 during that stretch. In fact, only twice during the run did Atlanta have to come back in the final three innings to win.
'I think it's great,' manager Bobby Cox said. 'Really, every game you lose in April, you got to win two to make it up. I've always said that ever since I started managing.'
(Author's note: This is the longest string of uninterrupted paragraphs lauding Atlanta to avoid mentioning baseball's best pitcher, Greg Maddux, or baseball's most consistent lefthander, Tom Glavine. OK, Maddux has an ERA of 1.13, Glavine is 4-0 with an ERA of 1.64, and Denny Neagle is 4-0 with a 4.15 ERA.)
Key comeback
The Rangers went 14-10 in April without Juan Gonzalez, last year's AL MVP. But he'll help.
Without Gonzalez, the Rangers ranked among the league's bottom three in runs, slugging percentage, batting average and on-base percentage.
Gonzalez missed 85 games because of injuries in 1995-96. The Rangers averaged 5.22 runs a game without him. In Gonzalez's 189 starts during that span, the club averaged 6.18 runs a game. This year's club has averaged 4.52 runs a game.
Gonzalez does make that much of a difference, which makes the Rangers feel they're in a good position, being within a game or two of the Seattle Mariners.
'They've got Junior [Griffey], and we don't have Juan,' first baseman Will Clark said. 'They're a half-game ahead of us. I'll take that.'
Death march
The White Sox have a $55 million payroll and the worst record in the American league. That's why rumors are swirling that manager Terry Bevington could be fired soon.
'I've done a lot of evaluating,' GM Ron Schueler said. 'It's time we go out and get some wins.'
While blaming the players more than Bevington, Schueler didn't downplay the possibility that Bevington's job is on the line. '[The blame] is always put on the manager,' he said. 'It should be put on me as much as Bevington. You never hear of any players getting fired.'
Schueler blamed the players for not always hustling. Asked if he put a time frame on his evaluation of Bevington, Schueler replied, 'I don't think you can put number on it. If you are running balls out and hustling, good things will happen.'
Said Bevington: 'I learned a long time ago in this game you might as well take the blame, because you're going to get it anyway.'
No respect
The San Francisco Giants finished April with a surprising 17-7 record, yet the team's flagship TV station, KTVU, chose to reduce Tuesday's game against St. Louis to a small box in the righthand corner of the screen when it ran long and conflicted with the movie 'Mask.'
Cher beat out Barry Bonds.
Giants officials were livid, yet despite more than 100 calls of complaint, station managers were unapologetic, saying the movie had three times the ratings of the ballgame.
What's even worse for the Giants - KTVU is a part owner of the team.
Watch your back
After his two homers Wednesday, Oakland slugger Mark McGwire had hit 65 homers during a 162-game span.
Not only that, he became the first player to hit a shot off the scoreboard at Cleveland's Jacobs Field - a blast many players present said was the longest they had ever seen.
'If that hadn't hit the scoreboard,' said catcher Sandy Alomar, 'it would have gone around the world and hit me in the back of the head.'
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The quote
'Deion Sanders has been consistent ... and Marty (Brennaman) and Joe (Nuxhall) have done a consistent job, as they have done year after year in the radio booth.'
- Jim Bowden, Cincinnati Reds general manager, when asked for positives about his team
