Uptons Pack The Trop

Tonight when the Diamondbacks play the Rays, it will be the first time young stars brothers B.J. and Justin Upton will play against each other. B.J. was the second pick overall by the Rays in the 2002 draft. He broke into the bigs in 2004 at 19-years-old. I fell in love with Bossman Junior during the magical summer of 2007. He hit 24 home runs, 82 RBI, 22 steals and had an .894 OPS while playing second base. A star was born and I won a fantasy baseball title. Since 2007, he has 27 home runs, 151 RBI, 109 steals and an average OPS of .733. Sadly, my fantasy teams have still not recovered from the heartbreak.

Justin was the top pick in 2005 and broke in at 19-years-old with the Diamondbacks in 2007. He had 26 home runs while hitting .300/.366/.532 last season. I've never owned him on a fantasy team so I'm fairly indifferent about the younger Upton. He does strikeout quite a bit which makes me happy.

Oh wait, I buried the lede. Upton family and friends will pack Tropicana Field to near capacity tonight for this glorious event...

About 65 friends and relatives of the Uptons will be at Tropicana Field for tonight's first-ever meeting of brothers B.J. and Justin. Most noticeable will be mother Yvonne, who has a special split jersey shirt with both of her sons names and numbers that was made by a family friend.

"This is the easy part," said Manny, their father. "The hard part was making sure everybody got into town.''

Ugh, those jerseys are so tacky. Why can't one parent wear the jersey of their favorite kid and then the other parent has to wear the jersey of the loser kid? We're getting too damn politically correct, America. I hope B.J. doesn't get nervous playing in front of that many people at The Trop. Zing. You might need to put some Neosporin on that burn Tampa Bay fans.