Power Rankings: Foes are guinea pigs as Phils experiment with dominance

Updated July 21

As I always do before putting pen to paper/fingers to keyboard for the Power Rankings, I flipped over to MLB.com to see what the schedule has in store for us this week. What caught my eye, however, wasn't the imminent Padres-Nationals battle for the bottom or the White Sox entering the big-boy portion of their 2009 campaign.

No, it was the rodents.

Each of the game's 30 teams are scheduled to play on Friday, as they are on every Friday between April and September. However, on this particular Friday, baseball has chosen to share the stage with G-Force, a flick in which genetically engineered super-gerbils get all up in Hitler's bid-ness (there's a chance I'm confusing this with the new Quentin Tarantino film). The movie features lots of celebrity voiceovers and a demographically diverse slate of ferret protagonists; members of the (literal) rat pack go by the handles of Agent Darwin, Agent Blaster and Agent Juarez. They are fearless.

I just wonder whether Major League Baseball ought to be associating itself with such randy content. According to the movie's MPAA rating, it features "mild action and rude humor." Sure, there's a chance you'll experience something like that at the ballpark, especially if you live in or around Kansas City. But mostly baseball has managed to remain free of the depravity that has pervaded pop culture. Baseball is pure, its parks and players bathed in a heavenly halo of light and warmth. G-Force threatens to compromise this hard-won purity of purpose.

Nonetheless, I, for one, welcome our new gerbil overlords. I look forward to their hijinks and triple-caloric fast-food tie-ins. I will be sure to make G-Force the centerpiece of my weekend plans, just as you should yours.

And now, here are your 92.5 percent hamster-free Power Rankings:

RANK	TEAM		MOVE (LW)