It's February and that means Valentine's Day is coming soon, and that can only mean one thing: baseball's Spring Training starts in just a couple of weeks!
Ohboyohboyohboy. I can already smell the hot dogs and the stale beer. Maybe this year I'll invest in a pitcher.
Not that kind, silly, the kind who throws fastballs past hitters. Randy Newsom, a pitcher from the Boston Red Sox farm system, was traded to the Cleveland Indians as the "player to be named later" in the Covelli "Coco" Crisp trade a couple of years ago. He has signed a contract with a company called Real Sports Investments to pay four percent of his major league salary back to anyone who "invests" in his potential as a major league pitcher. A "share" of Mr. Newsom will cost you $20. With baseball salaries being what they are today, that could net you a pretty penny if he turns out to be a decent pitcher with a long career.
It's so promising, in fact, that all his current shares appear to be sold. Or it could be that they don't go on sale until today. The website is a little vague about this point. But the company says they will soon sign up other young players with promising potential in *all* the major league sports, including NASCAR.
For your humor selection today, I thought this might be appropriate, considering the timing.
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WHY BASEBALL IS BETTER THAN FOOTBALL
No marching bands.
All the Super Bowls together have barely produced as much drama as a single World Series.
Big league baseball players chew tobacco. Pro football linemen chew on each other.
Before a baseball game, you have two hours of batting practice. Before a football game, you have two hours of traffic jam.
Eighty degrees, a cold drink, and short sleeves sure beats thirty degrees, a hip flask, and six layers of clothing under your lap blanket.
162 games a season is 10.125 better than 16 games a season.
Miss your favorite team's game? In baseball you may only have to wait a day. In football, you have to wait a week. Sometimes two.
With rare exception, baseball parks are beautiful; football stadiums are just concrete outdoor arenas.
In baseball the visitor bats first for the courtesy and the home team bats last for the drama. In football, it's all left up to a coin flip.
Football nicknames inspire fear. Baseball nicknames inspire chuckles.
Baseball statistics tell you everything. Football statistics are hard to decipher and meaningless for the average fan.
Baseball's Hall of Fame is next to a lake. Football's Hall of Fame is next to a freeway.
In baseball, fans can keep a ball hit into the stands. In football, they raise a net to catch the ball so you never even get a chance.
Baseball means Spring is near. Football means winter is coming.
[selections from a Thomas Boswell article in the Washington Post as published at baseball-almanac.com; edits and paraphrasing by Mark Raymond]
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Tomorrow morning Punxatawney Phil performs his groundhog/shadow annual ritual; be sure to keep your eye on that if you live in the cold northern wilderness. It will be especially meaningful here in Michigan as we will be digging out from under nearly a foot of snow the weather service says will be falling on us today. The flakes have already started accumulating as I write this in the waning minutes of Thursday evening. And then, of course, Sunday brings us the 42nd Super Bowl. Enjoy the commercials!
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WEB SITE of the WEEK: I started off today's post talking about Valentine's Day and lest you think all the romance in my soul has been struck out by a yakker, some high cheese and a good split-finger fastball, visit http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/01/50-ways-to-be-romantic.html for a good long list of some pretty easy things you can do to remind that special someone you love him or her. I offer them now because even though you have nearly two weeks, good romance often takes a wee bit o'planning.
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Mark's Musings is a daily ezine via email and Habeas-certified to be spam free. Subscribe, view past issues in the Archives, or help me defray publishing costs - please - at my web site. To contact me, click here. To make ironing easier, buy shirts that are 65% polyester and 35% cotton. You can forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. The credits are the place to learn that a yakker is a wicked curve ball, high cheese is a chest-high fastball, and a split-finger pitch takes a last minute dive just before it reaches home plate so the batter winds up swinging at nothing. Original material and commentary © 2008 by Mark Raymond. My personal mission statement is John 3:30. Is there a 12-step program to help people who need to get up early learn how to shut off the computer and go to bed before the wee hours of the morning?
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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives." (Abba Eban)
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