The Flippity Floppity

The man pictured above is Rod Barajas, who you'll notice is not wearing a Toronto Blue Jays uniform. He has never worn a Toronto Blue Jays uniform, and had you asked just about anybody with passing knowledge of baseball dealings before today, they'd have told you that after last year's fiyahsco, he would never ever ever wear a Toronto Blue Jays uniform. Ever.

Well, hmmm. Turns out that he has a date with the Jays' seamstress any day now.

So. The catcher who may or may not have been pressured by the Players' Association to renegotiate his contract (with the ink still wet, mind you) with the Jays, and who subsequently pulled out, only to sign a lesser contract with the Phils, will apparently be backing up Gregg Zaun this season.

Those might have been the strangest negotiations in the history of the game, reminiscent of that time when that girl told you she'd love to go to the grade 8 dance with you, but then the next day in Geography she said, nope, sorry, Brian Simmons asked her, so she's going with him instead, but then the next day you heard that Brian Simmons was taking some other girl, so the first girl came up to you before homeroom and said she could go with you after all. And like a fool, like a sucker, you agreed. In this scenario, you are the Jays, and Barajas is the fickle girl (in case that escaped you).

There are several downsides to this. One is less Sal Fasano, and the world needs more Sal, not less. Another is less major league action for Curtis "Snakepants" Thigpen, which might prove detrimental to his development.

I can't wait until the season starts and we can quit with all this hotstove talk and start talking about games. Twenty days until pitchers and catchers report, says MLB.com.

Twenty days...