These Races Are Worth Watching

August! Baseball! Crucial! Big trades! Pennant race!

All of a sudden I’m turning into Joe Piscopo here.

Angels? Athletics? Orioles? Indians? Expos? Astros? A championship team that doesn’t start with a vowel? Pat Sajak for commissioner. Only one World Series winner since 1974 has begun with a vowel (Orioles, 1983).

Baltimore has done a complete turnaround from last season. Now the Orioles are threatening to lose their last 20 games instead of their first 20.

Angels? Expos? Astros? Is it time for a championship team that has never even been to a World Series?

Red Sox? Indians? Cubs? Is it time for a championship team that hasn’t won the World Series since baseball had 16 teams?

Or how about those Mets, going out and getting Frank Viola like that, minutes before the Aug. 1 trading deadline? Is everybody else standing pat? Do the Yankees think Walt Terrell will help them leapfrog over five teams? Are the Texas Rangers the only guys with guts?

Fun time of year, this. Four divisions, four division races. As of Wednesday, no division leader in baseball had an edge wider than two games. Sneaky teams such as Milwaukee have crept back into it. Even the Cardinals, who have been short of pitching ever since Danny Cox beat up that guy at the St. Louis airport, keep hanging in there.

That’s probably a tribute to the managing of Whitey Herzog, but I am reluctant to say so, since I don’t like Whitey Herzog.

I’ll tell you who I do like: Buck Rodgers. The manager of the Montreal Expos is an OK guy. If this long-suffering franchise finally wants to win something, it’s all right by me. I just hope for Canada’s sake that the Expos don’t win the World Series and then get disqualified for steroids.

Too bad that if Montreal wins it would be at the expense of the Cubs. Last time the Cubs won the World Series, most people traveled to it on horseback.

Now that August is here and the Cubbies annually turn into 24 Greg Louganises, it will be interesting to see how they do. They don’t have that day-baseball meltdown to blame anymore.

Besides, the Cubs happen to have the best road record in baseball. Good thing they installed lights, or the commissioner would have made them play their World Series home games on the road.

I am pulling for Don Zimmer as well as Buck Rodgers. Zim has done a great job. He also makes me laugh, because he looks like Uncle Fester.

By the way, did you hear Tom Lasorda’s joke about Zimmer? Flat-tummied Tommy took a look in the chubby Cubbie’s direction one day and said: “It’s a shame to see a guy let himself go like that.”

The Dodgers, incidentally, are facing the prospect of finishing in fifth place three times in four seasons. Considering the fact that Kirk Gibson’s career is in jeopardy, the only good news for the Dodgers is that nobody in the commissioner’s office has figured out yet that Atlanta, Ga., is not a city in the West.

Who’s going to win this division? Certainly not Cincinnati, although we hear rumors that a federal judge is going to forbid the firing of Pete Rose until the turn of the century. And certainly not San Diego, because the Padres remained shackled by Major League Baseball Rule 18-A, which forbids the use of Tony Gwynn at all nine positions.

The San Francisco Giants look great, don’t they? Will Clark. Kevin Mitchell. Robby Thompson. Brett Butler. Big Daddy Reuschel. Little Daddy Lefferts. I tell you, this is one great ballclub Roger Craig has put together.

I’ll take Houston.

In the National League East, the Mets, who once rivaled the Dodgers as the team most likely to use a seven-man rotation, are no longer as deep as they were. Roger McDowell, Rick Aguilera, David West, Kevin Tapani, they’re all gone, and Doc Gooden has turned into Patient Gooden.

Viola is a very nice fellow--a little money-mad, maybe--who is cocky enough that he believes: “I might go out now and win 10 games in a row.” He might, too. He had better hope Howard Johnson stays healthy, however, because without him, the Mets would be the Mariners.

I can’t see the Mets or Cards catching up. The Cubs have everything going for them, including rookie outfielder Jerome Walton, who is dangerous to opponents at the plate and in the field and dangerous to the Cubs on the bases. Jerome is going for the cycle--he’s trying to become the first player picked off first, second and third base.

I’m picking Montreal, and if I’m wrong, I’ll commit Harry Caray.

After all, you know what they say: Harry Caray is either an institution or belongs in one.

Cleveland is going to win the American League East, I am happy to say. Wait till you see those crowds of 70,000-plus at the Series. Wait till you see Charlie Sheen throw out the first pitch and hit Bart Giamatti in the head. Wait till you see Felix Fermin, who is not to be confused with Felix Jose, who is not to be confused with Junior Felix.

Wish I could say Boston could win. OK, maybe I will. Boston could win. Too bad it won’t.

The American League West is going to be won, naturally, by California. I just haven’t decided whether it is going to be Oakland, Calif., or Anaheim, Calif.

I’ll let you know when I decide.