Here's baseball season again. I guess I have to stay alive awhile longer. Were I to commit myself to Bellevue, beg them to plug me full of drugs that will zombify me, do you think they would still allow me to watch a baseball game now and then? A tiny smile could cross my usually blank, medicated face. As long as I don't watch my team, the Detroit Tigers. God knows the first predictable, bound to fail move Jim Leyland would make would rouse me from my emotional coma and the jig would be up. "Mr. Clark, you were quite lucid, not to mention, loud, when the manager came to the mound to remove Verlander in a tie game. We think you should be released immediately." So much for pleasant dreams.
That's what spring training is for, pleasant dreams. The Cubs fans (god love 'em, they ARE cute with their little bear logo) even think big this time of year. I'm no different; the Tigers have a potentially strong pitching staff, and the offense looks good on paper, and if I can just get over my jaded, had enough of Leyland attitude, I can almost close my eyes and see...another long, disappointing season.
Let's get this straight right off: I've forgotten more baseball than most people know, and I pride myself on objectivity and intelligence when it comes to major league opinions. That is to say, I'm no Yankees fan. I have no problem criticizing my team, even while living and dying with them for 162 games.
For example, could someone please shoot Brandon Inge? and Carlos Guillen? Inge, just cause he's close to worthless, and Guillen, because he's a spent horse that needs put out of his (and mine's) misery. Criticizing Inge, though, gets me the same response I've gotten for years at jobs, or in social scenes: I enumerate my problems with an individual and I'm rebuked as a hyper-critical, mean spirited jerk. "He's a nice guy," they'll say. Yeah, well, I didn't say the chick who couldn't count change at the bookstore was a bad person, and I'm not saying Brandon Inge is either. What I am saying is, Brandon Inge is a lifetime .237 hitter who strikes out on lousy pitches in clutch situations on a sickeningly consistent basis. How many games have I watched where he's come to the plate, runners on, runners in scoring position, less than two outs, two outs, doesn't matter. If it's anywhere near a clutch situation, please watch Brandon take his pathetic cut at a pitch a foot or more outside and low. I mean, bully for loyalty, Mr. Illitch, Mr. Dombrowski, Mr. Leyland, but really? He leaves you so wanting as an offensive presence, and I'm tired of hearing about his defense. Is he Brooks Robinson? No, no he's not. But I'm saddled with his ass for another season. Two more seasons actually, and why do I fear the picking up of his 2013 option?
And then there's Guillen, old, brittle, and perpetually without an actual position. Let's put him at second! Let's put him in the outfield! Let's watch him hit a few exciting, sometimes timely, first pitch homeruns and then count the trips to the disabled list.
I want to see Boesch, Jackson, and Casper Wells in the outfield. I want Strieby and, if I must, Raburn, behind them. I want Alex Avila batting ahead of Inge. I would force Cabrera to third, so Victor Martinez could play first regularly. Move Inge to second base (he's such a gamer!) but I'd prefer one of the young guys, Sizemore, Worth, there instead.
Oh yeah, shoot Zumaya, too. Never going to have another 2006. Tired of hearing about it.
I hope Verlander stays on his game, I hope Porcello rebounds, I hope Scherzer is solid and a winner, not just an innings eater. I hope, I hope, I hope. It's spring training.
Another spring hope is that the Yankees utterly collapse. And I don't even hate the Yankees. It's just that living in New York, the papers are so much more fun when the Yankees are spitting the bit.
I also hope Don Mattingly (I know, more Yankee hate. Sorry.) fails as manager. I have this problem with the Mattingly, Willie Randolph types who sit next to a Joe Torre for years, can't or won't manage in the minors, and then feel entitled to a managership. Managing is more than knowing how to sit or stand in the dugout looking stoic and concerned.
I don't see any runaway winners this year. The Phillies have the horses to start, but are they as good a team as Atlanta? By the same token, San Francisco, my lifelong second favorite team, won't repeat. Great starting pitching may win them the West, but their brutally punchless offense won't get to ride those coattails for a second year in a row. The N.L. Central? God, who cares? Cincinnati, by default, I suppose. Personally, I'm just going to enjoy the Cardinals and Tony LaRussa falling apart as Albert Pujols lame ducks his way to the MVP.
Which reminds me: Cubs fans, enjoy the increased beer prices at Wrigley once you sign Albert to that ten year, 350 million dollar contract.
Actually, I keep suggesting that the Cardinals' season will go so wrong, and with no hope in sight to sign Pujols, that they will trade him to the Yankees mid-season. You don't think it could happen? Why, cause Texeira is long term tied to first base? Let me tell you, Joba Chamberlain, Andrew Brackman and Curtis Granderson, welcome to St Louie. And then the Yankees negotiate their latest absurd, nauseatingly overpaid contract. Posada is gone after 2011, so D.H. is all Albert's next year and forever. It's a thought.
What else can the Yankees do? They won't be able to control themselves.
But they still won't make the playoffs this year. Boston gets the east, Tampa fights hard, Baltimore overachieves, but the Bosox still prevail. And only a Central team, Detroit, Minnesota, or Chicago (if Ozzie doesn't just once and for all lose his mind), playing solid and with momentum, will stop them.
I suppose the Angels come back a little from last year, but I don't have much faith in the AL West. I don't believe in the Rangers or Athletics organizations enough to believe in their teams. And Seattle? Aren't we all just waiting for Felix Hernandez to be traded or have a career threatening injury?
But I don't make predictions . I like to watch the season unfold and form my opinions from the field.
The only predictions I like to make in spring training are the fun ones, like the Yankees will miss the playoffs, cause that riles my Yankee-loving friends and tickles me.
Oh yeah, baby, baseball. It's the game for me. I've pulled out my thirty year old Mizuno glove, and traded my winter touk for my cap with the olde english D. I'll be hitting CitiField with my Mets friends and causing trouble in the Bronx with my Yankees friends. I'll be the one at the party who asks if we can get the game turned on. I'll be the one suggesting a bar solely for its multiple televisions and selection of games. I'll be the one poring over the boxscores and checking the standings after one game.
It's late, this is my first posting ever, and so everything else will have to wait til another day. I'll leave you with two last spring training hopes. One, that Barry Bonds' trial just dies away and he continues his post baseball exile, because the years and years it has taken to get him in a courtroom has rendered the whole rhyme and reason of the thing moot. He took steroids. We all know this, even if we all don't want to admit it, even to ourselves. But at this point, well, enough Barry Bonds. He's gone, let him stay that way.
On the other hand, my second and final spring training hope is that Roger Clemens does go to jail. Just cause he turned out to be a big, dumb hick with a big, dumb mouth. Does anyone remember at his Capitol Hill hearing how he sought to justify his training methods, questionable or otherwise, by elevating pitching for the U.S. in the Baseball Classic to some call to action by his country? When no one asks you to testify under oath, and you demand to testify under oath, and then proceed to lie under oath, well, give the Rocket what he deserves: a huge lesson in humility and honesty.
Okay, next time maybe we deal with contraction, or my long germinating plan for an entirely separate major league for small market teams. Or maybe I just explain why Warren Zevon was so great.
Art and Flowers, friends, Art and Flowers......e.c.
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