Baseball On The Radio!

Today marks the first radio broadcast of Giants baseball from spring training. One of the greatest joys of winter is listening to the first game. Oh, what a day. Can't wait!

Baseball 2008

Happy New Year. It's now 2008 and that means that pitchers and catchers will be reporting next month. This should be an interesting season for fans. It's now the post-Bonds era for Giants fans, and the baseball world has yet to know what will happen with all the steroids crap that we've been hearing so much about. This will be Yankee Stadium's last year. The House That Ruth Built will be no more. It's fitting that the All-Star game will be played there. A new Evil Empire has risen in Boston and will surely be the target of the rest of baseball. They've now won two Series since the Yankees last time. We'll surely be hearing more about instant replay. Five new ballparks will open in the next three years, leaving Skydome as sixth in seniority in the bigs. A new park in Washington will open this year. Opening Day is three months away!

Short Winter

Opening Day is almost here. At the end of last season, I thought I'd have a lot more posts than I have. So much to write and all winter to do it. But it didn't happen that way. Maybe if I brought a laptop to the game...

This Time Of Year

Years ago when I started traveling to other ballparks, I got into the habit of writing to every major league team to ask for a pocket schedule, so I would have the complete major league schedule in advance. This made it easy to plan trips. I also made a point of finding odd occurrences so I might be able to go for a look. Nowadays, each team posts its schedule on its website so I don't have to buy a bunch of stamps.

But it was fun to see each team's marketing skills (or lack thereof) at work. Each had a different design for its schedule. Some sent ticket order forms, some didn't, even though I requested them. Some teams sent additional little souvenirs like window stickers or iron-on patches. Some came within a week. Some didn't show up until the start of the season. Some had easy-to-read schedules with clear fonts and color schemes, lining up the months vertically so one month blended into the next; some were a real chore with a million different colors depending on what time of day the game started and information scattered all over the place. There were a variety of abbreviations for teams' names. Pittsburgh could be either PIT or PGH. PGH? Huh? Philly could be PHI or PHA. PHA? Do, Re, Me, Pha? Montreal could be MON or MTL, Houston as HOU or HSN, Boston as BOS or BSN.

Giants Sign No. 2 Starter...

Or so I heard today in the men's room at work. A co-worker and cynical Giants fan stated that the Giants today signed a number 2 starter. "Oh, yeah? Who?" was my response. "Milt Pappas" was his answer. I countered with "Doc Ellis." Stupid humor about baseball isn't quite as fun as baseball itself, but it can help on a cold winter day.

Hot Stove League

Well, we're only three months or so from spring training. This isn't nearly as long a time now as it was back when I was much younger. But we'll have the anxiously restful offseason to hear about this year's awards, next year's hopeful rosters, and the anticipation of resurrection on Opening Day. Oh, and putting all this year's ticket stubs into the photo albums.