Giants' Huff is relieved to be out of AL East

The Yankees and Red Sox will meet tonight to open the 2010 season. Of course they will. Do you really think Bud Selig pulled the two teams out of a hat? He and his TV pals wanted these Eastern Seaboard powers to initiate the 2,430-game regular season and help divert attention from the Final Four, the NFL draft countdown and all things Tiger Woods.

And why not? The Yankees and Red Sox – who pay all that money, win all those games and brag about all those pennant races – are Selig’s biggest and baddest commodities. That’s just the way it is.

Not that everyone’s cool with that. Imagine what it feels like to be the Orioles, the Blue Jays or, until 2008, the Rays, the division’s also-rans whose destiny is to play in the shadow of Boston and the Bronx.

New Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff was there the past decade and is elated to escape.

“When you think American League East, you think Yankees-Red Sox and going against those enormous payrolls,” Huff said. “I’ve done that my whole career, playing on lower-payroll teams in that division. Having seen it from that side, it gets pretty annoying, pretty monotonous, having to compete with that much money.”

Huff broke into the majors in 2000 with Tampa Bay, where he played into the 2006 season. He was in Baltimore from 2007 to 2009. Aside from a couple of quick stops in Houston and Detroit, he has been an AL East lifer.

He loved playing the Yankees and Red Sox, especially when thousands of their followers visited Tropicana Field and Camden Yards – “the biggest games I’ve ever played,” he said – and no Orioles fan will forget his home run off boisterous Joba Chamberlain in May. Tired of the New York pitcher’s gestures (maybe tired of the Yankees altogether), Huff mocked Chamberlain by pumping his fist and shouting around first base and again at the plate.

“That was fun,” said Huff, smiling. “I like to have fun, man.”

Now he’s thankful to be in the up-for-grabs National League West, where a payroll three times the size of the Padres’ isn’t required to succeed.

“You’ve got to give it to them. They go out and spend the money and win,” Huff said of the Yankees and Red Sox. “That’s what their fans ask them to do, and that’s what they do. If you’re going to get to the playoffs in that division, you have to do what Tampa Bay did (in 2008). You have to have homegrown talent that all comes together at the same time, and you need a little magic on your side.”

It’s more of the same this year. The Yankees (additions: Javier Vazquez, Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson, Randy Winn) and Red Sox (John Lackey, Mike Cameron, Adrian Beltre, Marco Scutaro) are popular picks to finish 1-2 or 2-1, though the Rays believe they’ll contend again by avoiding another 9-14 April and getting big years from a young rotation and new closer (Rafael Soriano).

The Orioles, hoping to become the next Rays, have promising youth and some new old-timers (Kevin Millwood, Garrett Atkins and Miguel Tejada, again), and the Blue Jays are trying to survive without their only sure thing, Roy Halladay.

Sometimes it’s good to be in the NL West.



(football-news-update.com)