Long Distance Dedication

This one goes out to Travis in Dunedin...
[That song is about baseball, right?]

The People United Will Never Be Divided

Cue the groundswell of anti-Wells-in-CF sentiment among the people. Seems everyone -- the Drunkards, The Tao, even Bastian himself -- are calling for the removal of Money Earnin' from the vast expanses of centre field, to be shifted right (or left, as per Bastian's suggestion, with Lindy in RF) in order to allow Rios to take the middle. I'll throw my support behind the proposal; I love me a grassroots movement. I'll be the shivering idiot in the sandwich board out on the 115. Hell no, we won't go! Or something.

Wells is too valuable a hitter to let the wear and tear on his legs keep him out of 50 games a year. Rios is a damn gazelle out there, let him run -- his long, slender (and healthy) gams evoking happy memories of other, similarly-endowed CFs from the Jays past. If, as Blair says, the only way the brass move Wells is if Wells asks to be moved, then we have to appeal to the man himself. Send mail to:

Vernon Wells
c/o Toronto Blue Jays
1 Blue Jays Way, Suite 3200
Rogers Centre
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1J1

I figure the best approach is something along the lines of, Dear Mr. Wells, I love your work, etc., but there comes a time in every man's life when he must ask himself how he may be of service to others, and I believe your skills would best be put to use in left field, etc.

If that doesn't work I'll start circulating the petition.

Power to the People.

The Chronic

Aw, shit. Vernon's glass, er, hamstring makes me nervous. Like the Southpaw says, it isn't that Money Earnin's going to miss anything crucial this time, it's that it seems increasingly likely that this thing will happen again. And again.

Shut Up Shut Up Shut Up

Shut up Scott Miller I am not listening to you shut up I don't want to hear anymore of this shut up shut up shut up.

Five Things to Know About Scott Miller:

5. Hates babies and puppies.
4. Doesn't even like baseball.
3. Has to produce these things for all 30 teams before Spring Training is over, so he's tired, and alright, maybe doesn't have time to do, y'know, research, so leans pretty heavily on whispers and unsubstantiated rumours.
2. Two Ts, Two Ls.
1. Needs to shut up.

How long, Scott Miller? How long will Doc last in Toronto? Until the day he dies. That's how long.


Also:

If'n I had the means to do so, I'd be eager to see Brett Cecil make that start on Wednesday. Do we see him in The Five this season?


Elsewhere:

Ichiro loves Griffey! Quite honestly, this has the power to make me feel differently about the signing.

And I know it's easy to heap superlatives on someone's writing when their views mesh so well with your own, but USS Mariner's coverage of this whole thing has been great reading. And yes, Ichiro is a future HOFer (if there is any justice in the universe, which isn't a given, of course).

How in the Hell Did We Survive Before the Internet?

Most of my baseball reading -- like about 90% of it -- takes place online now, and you're probably the same. It isn't that the MSM have completely failed in their coverage, or their quality has declined, or anything of the sort, but rather a matter of expedience and convenience, e.g. I can get Bastian's comments on life at 'The Mattick' as soon as he writes it. But as a kid, I lived for that point in the winter when the season preview magazines hit newsstands (er, the shelf at the convenience store). The things carried the weight of some mysterious authority. Before I knew that the cover images were tailored for different regions, I thought that seeing a Blue Jay featured on the cover meant that the editors, in their seasoned baseball wisdom, foresaw a Toronto World Series victory. And that carried a lot of import with me.

I picked one up recently -- specifically this one (I was at the airport in Atlanta). I wanted something lighter than the book I had, and frankly I wanted to think about baseball for a while. So I sat back and tore into it. But what struck me pretty quickly was how out of date it already was, owing to publication dates. They didn't know where anybody was. (It made me think, with great fondness, of those "Now With..." baseball cards -- do they still make those?)

It wasn't terrible, of course, and I suspect I'll make a bunch of notes in the magazine and keep it handy during my fantasy draft. But the discovery made me a little sad, too. I think I'm a tactile person, I like the object for its very object-ness, and realizing that something tangible no longer suited my purposes as well as did information on a screen felt like a loss, however minor.

Listen to me, now I'm a Luddite.

Mike Maroth: Cartoon Horse

God bless poor Mike Maroth, who's come up lame but won't go quietly to the proverbial glue factory. Is he deluded or just a gamer? I love Cito's quote:

"It's not good," Gaston said. "You can't do a thing about it. It's another body, we've got to move on and see if we can find a different one -- somebody else. You feel bad for him, that's for sure. He's not done yet, but it's one of those things where you do need to be doing something in order to certainly make this team."

You get the sense that Cito'd be only too happy to administer the fatal shock himself, if only they'd let him. Sometimes it's the more humane path.

Also, there's this: Thanks to Joanna (via Canoe), I now know that Rod Barajas likes him some Law & Order. This is strange, because I have a theory that there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who prefer L&O, and those who favour CSI. I'd always pegged Barajas as a CSI man.

Breaking the Silence

One by one the reluctant bloggers emerge to the pale light of a late winter sun. Hell, even Joanna's awake and alert, shaking off her crushing ennui. Rumour has it that despite the immediate evidence of snow falling outside my window, the venerable spring rituals are underway. Bastien says so. So I figured I owed it to my legions of readers, not to mention my lone Blogger Follower (big up, Lloyd), to drag my carcass out of hibernation and say a thing or two about baseball, specifically but not exclusively about the Jays, because that's what this here blog's reputedly about.

• General thoughts: Toronto's not going to win the World Series this year. There, I said it. If I'm proven wrong, I'll be deliriously happy. But let's be honest. Does that mean it won't be worth watching this team? Well, so far as I'm concerned, even if they lose 100 games (which they won't), it'd still be worth tuning in every fifth game. And the ongoing theatre of the maturation of Lind and Snider will be fascinating. Will Overbay rebound? Can Rios put all the tools together at the same time? We probably know what'll happen with the reclamation projects (Clement, Maroth, Burres and to an extent Takahashi), i.e. nothing more than an all expenses paid tour of the Pacific Coast League, but who knows? Maybe Michael Barret wakes up and takes Barajas' job, the way Barajas wrested it from Zaunnie's calloused hands? And in the rotation, in what's become an annual ritual in Toronto, who steps up and surprises us all? How will Lil Litschie handle the pressure of being a number 2 guy? These are the storylines, among others, and they're the reason I watch. If I lost interest everytime this team wasn't picked to win the division, I'd be a Yankees fan. (Besides, Lloyd posits this team could overperform like the '03 Mariners, and it's that kind of longshot optimism that makes me love baseball and baseball fans.)
  

• Jesus God, I love Roy Halladay. I love him and his "BBs in the dark." And let's instigate a total and complete ban on any and all talk of trading him this or any other season, deal? I want this man in a Toronto uniform until the day he dies at a ripe old age. I'm serious -- pitching coach, bench coach, eccentric clubhouse institution, spinning nightmare scenarios about the end of days and unhittable cut fastballs. Never leave us, Roy!

• Kevin Millar, huh? What the hell, if he can make this team a little more interesting, I'm all for it. Because let's face it, we're Jays fans, but even we have to admit that there isn't a lot of character in this clubhouse.

• Did we know about Robbie Alomar's health issue? Is there anything to know? Because I had never heard this, and you'd think it would've come out in the coverage of his addition to the Rogers Centre's Ring of Honour last spring.

• G'bye Russ! G'bye Curtis!

Elsewhere:

• Is A-Rod an idiot and an asshole? Of course. Would I scoff if he was available during my fantasy draft? I would not (lest you accuse me of possessing morals). And I'm still convinced this is Selig's fault more than anyone else, mostly because he looks like Emperor Palpatine.

• With or without the approval of Willie Mays and, er, Harold Reynolds, I don't feel convinced that Griffey can provide anything more than feel-good vibes for people who haven't been to a game at Safeco for several years. But at least that whole thing is over. Now if only Manny would sign (Dodgers) or go to Japan for a year, then I could open my feeds tab in the morning without cringing.

• Ichiro pitches! The legend grows.

That is all.