This is the time of year when one of two things is happening to your baseball team: Those coming back from injuries aren't doing as well as they would like (or are off getting MRI #1), or everyone is throwing well, getting along, adapting to their new positions and getting ready to hit .300.

So far […]

Here we are at the first stir-crazy point of spring training, the first afternoon that 1:30 rolls around and you think, “Can't they televise a split-squad game or something?” At least a week from now they actually will play a game. It'll even be an actual game, at least by spring training's low standards. It'll even be televised. It'll even be […]

Ah, Fonzie. You and I are never going to agree on this, and that's OK — if we wanted bloodless analysis everyone could agree with at a glance, we'd be actuaries. To me, it's pretty clear that Fonzie's bad back killed his career, or at least maimed it — his power numbers have dipped into the […]

Man, today would have been such a good day for a spring-training game.

Gray, frozen, a yawning afternoon to fill up finding something to do

besides the things I should have been doing but knew I wouldn't do. A

great afternoon, in other words, for exulting over the sight of, say,

Victor Diaz catching a pop-up or the sound […]

Not a lot to say about our boys this morning — David Wright is today's

obligatory mass profile (nice kid, drinks milk, works hard), with the

occasional side trip to see how Matt Ginter's shave went. (Randolph

says Ginter now looks cute. Really.) Chris Woodward's wife of five

years has supposedly never seen him without facial hair, so if […]

There can't be a historically minded person in Metland who didn't at

least cringe a little bit after reading Willie Randolph's rules for the

team: no beards (guy-in-the-pool-cleaning-van 'staches are OK), no

earrings on the field, 1 a.m. spring-training curfew, no booze on the

team bus or plane, etc.

Part of the hackle-rise is the reflexive little-brother rebellion

against all things […]

Spring training being spring training, the papers basically had two stories today — Mike Piazza Is Contented and Willie Randolph Is Not Art Howe. You're right — why on earth do they all write these things on the same day? If they're going to do that, why not just use a pool reporter?

Re Piazza, I […]

So Day 1 being Day 1, the papers gave us the view from the GM's chair, to be followed, as always, by Day 2 or 3's view from the manager's chair. Day 1 being Day 1 for me as well, it was time for my annual moment of being struck by how programmed spring training and spring-training coverage is. It's like […]