Truck Day

Woo hoo!

Truck Day!

Johan being Johan

Oh, how I missed this.

It was Day 1 of Spring Training for me in Fort Myers and while the sunshine and salty air is nice and all, it's time to get down to business. Between this and our league draft tonight, it's a big day for baseball in my little corner of the world.

For those who have never seen Johan Santana pitch, do so as quickly as you can. He gets lost in the shuffle a bit with the smaller market team, but seeing him live - and in the spring, no less - and then uploading 160 pictures from the day, it's given me a renewed appreciation on the man and his delivery.

Sure, they're not all winners, but scrolling through several series of shots from his outing to make it look like an old news reel, he hits more than he missed and looks so effortless while he does it.

Here are four picked at random and without an eye to shot composition, just to give you a little bit of the flavor.

Enjoy.





(Photos taken for Siberian Baseball)

Enough already...

Let's get one thing straight - Spring Training games are not accurate predictors of success in the regular season.

Sure, a guy who gets off to a hot start can take that momentum and barrel through April and slumps or nagging injuries that begin in March can mean a slow start, hell, I'll even say that a team that plays poorly in Arizona or Florida will probably stumble out of the gate, but when we have entire fan bases that live and die by the results of split-squad scores it's time to slow down a little bit.

Case in point are the up and down reports regarding Daisuke Matsuzaka and Carlos Zambrano, not to mention Barry Bonds and others when players fail to come out of the gate like a bolt of lightning.

Take a look at comments from the veterans - especially pitchers - who use this time to work on technique and find their rhythm and try to avoid injury - and just realize that a slow start might not be such a big deal.

I can't blame the beat reporters who are trying to scrounge for copy in the Florida sun - wait, yes I can - where a lack of creativity or journalistic chops leave two options for game stories: a.) Player X is playing waaaaay over his head or b.) Player X is in a tailspin and had an awful outing... uh-oh...

I just have to shake my head and try to avoid the column work when a player goes from the second coming of Koufax to a noodle-armed bum in less than a week.

* As a side note, fans outside of the Twin Cities should keep an ear open as the Twins rotation is set in stone. With Francisco Liriano out for the year, the returning starters are Johan Santana and Carlos Silva with younger arms Boof Bonser and Matt Garza all but guaranteed slots in the starting rotation.

Newcomer Ramon Ortiz is the big name among Twins fans here right now and he should round out the Top 5, but Glen Perkins and Sidney Ponson are outside chances to crack the Opening Day roster.

In a blind item from the St. Paul Pioneer Press last week, Ponson will more than likely wash out before the end of Spring Training. I can see him being penciled in until Garza or Bonser finds his legs and then being cut loose in June or July.

Don't forget Jason Bartlett was sent to AAA Rochester for a few months last season before he was given the starting spot, don't be surprised to see it again.

(Photo from: spokesmanreview.com)

Oh, that can't be good...

Say what you will about omens and such, but the news from Mesa can't be positive no matter how you slice it.

Kerry Wood slipping/jumping/being pushed from a hot tub and injuring his ribs to the point that he can't pitch for a few days is at best an annoyance and at worst a harbinger of the stinking wreck of a season to come.

WithLeather asked if Cubs pitchers were made from cobwebs and papier mache and I'm beginning to think he might have a point.

Really, there are three ways to get hurt on Day One at spring traing - 1.) Wrench your back taking your bags from the back of the taxi; 2.) Slip and fall; 3.) Get stuck under the rubble from a grandstand collapse.

And that's about it.

Be patient, willya?

All things considered, it's been a pretty eventful off-season.

Maybe not the crash/bang kind of moves to keep everyone riveted from start to finish, but good enough.

We've been over this all before as the big names came through and switched things up, and I hope to wrap a lot of this up before Truck Day.

In the meantime, sit back and relax before it all starts up again. The living and dying by every little game in June and July.

Breathlessly waiting to see if your team can hold on during the stretch run and hoping against hope in October if your team is one of the final teams lucky enough to still be playing at that point.

That said, I've been ordering tickets for our trip this spring to Fort Myers and just this little graphic here is enough to make me smile and not worry so much about work tomorrow.

In a little over a month, I'll be sitting in the sun with a cold lemonade, resisting the urge to call every last sucker stuck at work in Minnesota and gloat.

Baseball's almost here - are you excited yet?

(Image from MLB.com)