It Crawled From The North

With football season only just now behind us, and just about everything north of Richmond under a blanket of snow, you might say that it's premature to start thinking about baseball season.

You would be wrong. Because today is Truck Day, Massachusetts' second-most well known semi-fake sports holiday (behind Patriots' Day).

Truck Day marks the departure of the Red Sox equipment from frozen Fenway for far-off Florida, where winter wilts in the sparkling sun (alliteration, what!). Even more than pitchers & catchers reporting day, Truck Day is the signal that the long wait for spring (and baseball) is nearly over after what has been a long winter to date.

With that in mind, we here at the GRBG declare that starting today, it's fair game to start looking over keeper lists, making unlikely trade proposals, and projecting enormous comeback seasons for J.J. Hardy while we wait for the snow to melt. We can all act as thought the season has officially begun to begin.

After all, it's either that or watching the ice dancing from Vancouver.

(At Least) Three Cheers for Cause and Effect

Last season, the New York baseball Yankees banned beer in both the home and visiting clubhouses at the House That Nanette Built. We suppose that banning post-game beer makes a certain amount of sense after regular season games--after all, there's often another game the next day, and and all the games count in the standings.

However, you'd think that spring training would be another story. After all, medical science has long known that watching the last four innings of a spring game while sober can be damaging to your health and spirit. But the Yankees appear to have carried the beer ban with them to Florida. How else to explain this?

That's Yankee designated lumberer Shelly Duncan introducing himself to Aki Iwamura's boys in a spring training game earlier today. The gesture prompted a bench-clearing brawl highlighted by Jonny Gomes's decision to demonstrate unusually sure hands (for him) by charging in from the outfield to tackle Duncan

You'd have to assume that if Duncan, Gomes, and the rest of the players known that a cold one or five awaited them in the clubhouse, they would have skipped the histrionics, played out the string, and contented themselves with making the rookies do keg stands. Instead there was a fight that served no purpose for anybody.

Indeed, although the peanut gallery over at NYY Fans thought that the fight showed good heart, sass, gumption, etc. on the Yankees' part, all it really did is set the stage for a season-long beanball festival of the sort that Tampa and Boston used to engage during the Pedro Era. And that's bad news for New York--any time a team has the more talented roster (and despite Tampa's improvements, New York still has the better lineup), it has more to lose by engaging in a beanball war. The better team has the better players at risk, and more to lose by dropping a game or two that it might otherwise have won.

So, Hank, wise up and bring back the beer. In fact, the next time the Yanks and Rays play a spring training game, pony up the money to put a keg at each base. The fans will almost certainly get their money's worth, and you just might save your self a Derek Jeter broken hand somewhere down the road.

Spring Training Thought for the Day: Eight to Grow On

Spring training has inched along from the utter meaninglessness of ping-pong and Ozzie Guillen to the merely near-total meaninglessness of games pitting big-leaguers against local colleges. These games generally serve as an autograph opportunity for the college kids, and an early tee-time opportunity for the MLB contingent. As a competitive event, they tend to end up looking something like this:

One such matchup took place today, with the defending World Champion Red Sox taking on Boston College, the defending fifth-place team from the ACC Atlantic Division. The resultant beating (22-zip Sox thru five innings) was, well, unsurprising.

However, special mention must be made of BC pitcher Steven Cadoret, who seized his opportunity to compete against the best by putting up the following line:

0.2IP 5H 8R 6ER 5BB 0K 1WP 0HR 81.00ERA

By the looks of it, "Steven Cadoret" is French for "Daniel Cabrera."

Still, though, it's a useful reminder of just how freaking good guys in the majors are. We here at the GRBG expect that Cadoret could strike us both out on no more than 7 combined pitches. Yet the big leaguers are even better than he is, and by an order of magnitude. This is why we mainly stick to the fantasy advice.

Spring Training Thought for the Day: Midseason Form

Gee goodness, what the hell could Orlando Cabrera possibly see off in the distance at White Sox spring training that would cause him to react like that? We mean, the OC is coming off of a couple of surprisingly strong years in LA, and figures to get a nice park-effect bounce in his stats before heading off into free agency after the season. And, as we've amply demonstrated in our Spring Training series, it's not as though the Grapefruit League experience is all that alarming per se.

.

So life should be good! I mean, seriously what could . . . oh.

Hey, hi Ozzie. Maybe it'd be an idea to hold off on hat-whipping your players until the games start? Just a thought; obviously, you've got to go with your gut here. Enjoy the season!

(Photo credits Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune and M. Spencer Green/AP, images originally posted here at the Tribune website.)

Spring Training Thought for the Day: Hope Springs . . . Occasional?

"You fired up for the season?"

"Yep."

"I can tell."

"Yep."

"Think we've got a shot at winning 70 games this year?"

"Nope."

"Me neither. Well, at least we get to live in Baltimore for 8 months."

" . . . "

" . . . "

"Yep."

"Yep."

* * *

(Photo credited to the AP; image originally published here on the website of the Baltimore Sun.)

Spring Training Thought for the Day: Cross-Training Can Be Valuable

Spring training is nothing if not grueling. Here Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox wisely prepares for the coming Red Chinese invasion by brushing up on his ping-pong skills in a game against Kevin Youkilis. Which makes the whole thing worse, because the only part of Youkilis that has any chance of being in shape at this point in the season is his goatee.

Anybody else ready for the games to start?

(Photo credit Jim Davis of the Boston Globe; image originally posted here.)

Spring Training Thought for the Day: Gloves Are For Sallies

The worst part (although you can't tell from this picture) is that the ball actually came from behind him. Funeral services are set for Friday; in lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the the Edwin Bellorin Memorial Scholarship Fund, which will benefit other victims of Passed Ball Sternal Chestectomyesis.

Bonus Thought:

(Photo Credits John Leyba of the Denver Post; original images posted here.)

Spring Training Thought for the Day: There's Still Time

Possible captions:

• Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano perfects his no-look, no-catch fielding style during spring training drills.
• Close enough--beer me.
• Juuuust a bit outside.

(Photo credit Morry Gash of the AP; image originally posted here on the Chicago Tribune website.)

Spring Training Thought for the Day: Everybody Dance!

Possible captions:

• Members of the Boston Red Sox demonstrate skills they learned during their offseason exhange program with the Bolshoi Balllet.
• Here come the Sharks/like a bat out of hell!
• Straight as a bunch of French horns.

Man, how can you not love spring training?

(Photo credit Jim Davis of the Boston Globe, image originally posted here.)

Important Post-Super Bowl News Bulletin

Ten days 'til pitchers and catchers. Yes, really.

Once we finsh wrapping our heads around Asante Samuel's epic case of butterfingers, we'll start in with fresh fantasy and real-world baseball content. Until then, tide yourself over with some of our favorite baseball posts from Year One of the GRBG. Enjoy!

The GRBG Interview: Milton Bradley
Our Wildy Incorrect Predictions For Our Fantasy League
Our Favorite TA Player Comment of the Year (scroll down to "Evil Empire")
Overall TA of the Year
Pat Burrell Kills The Mets
Shut Up, Matt Damon
Fantasy vs. Reality