MLB 2013!

This article by Yahoo's Jeff Passan is from July, but it's new to me. An absolutely fascinating writeup of Pelotero, a documentary on the Dominican baseball factories. I highly recommend it.

i really do to the like now.

I'm thinking of following the Giants more closely this year and it seems an MLB.TV subscription wouldn't be a bad way to go about it (via Apple TV, USD$25)? Interestingly, because I'm outside the USA & Canada, there's no blackouts :)

MLB.TV is pretty great if you're not in the local broadcast area of the team you're interested in, yeah.

What's the best place to buy a women's jersey? Is there somewhere better than the official shop? I wanna get my mother one as a gift, she's loved the O's for years and years, even the bad ones. I want orange if I can get it but the official shop only seems to have white.

Problem with women's jerseys is that they're often ... uh. Wrong. Like instead of the home jersey/away jersey options, you'll get shit like home jersey/PINK JERSEY options. Also if you do not fit whatever proportions they have decided lady baseball fans are (which I do not, alas), they're not going to fit as nicely as one would hope.

Men's jerseys are more flexible in who they fit and come in the Proper Colors, but you'd know better than me if your mom would prefer something a little more fitted in the boob area or if she'd be cool with a jersey that is baggier all around but Glorious Orange.

I kinda get the feeling that the Dodgers signed too much talent. Kinda like the Marlins last year.

RIP Earl Weaver. :( :( :(

RIP Stan the Man. A true gentleman, in or out of the game.

Truly sad news. A nice obit at Deadspin.

The Wild suck way more than expected, the Timberwolves only slightly more than we figured they would, and the Gophers are imploding on basically all fronts. We're stuck deep in the bowels of the worst month of the year, slowly being digested for another two weeks until we finally get squeezed out fof the other end.

All is well, though, because pitchers and catchers have reported and my favorite fantasy baseball blog just put up the Omega Spreadsheet for 2013.

Baseball season is nearly upon us. I freakin' need this.

So I plopped down my $19.99 for the At Bat 13 app this year after noting that this year MLB was allowing At Bat purchasers to also listen on PC.

For the life of me I cannot find a way to listen to games on my PC. I linked my MLB.com account to the At Bat 13 app and the app itself is working fine on my phone, but when I try to listen on PC, I'm told that I need to subscribe to Gameday Audio. Anyone figure this out?

Let me know if you find out. I really enjoyed being able to hear the Mariners games via the App last year with the home broadcasts. Made me feel like I was close to home with the team instead of in the middle of Twins country, and I'd love to do it via my computer at work during a rare day game during work hours.

Happy this year though. The Mariners come to play in Minnesota over the weekend in a Friday/Saturday/Sunday series, so I should be able to grab 2 out of the 3 games at least!

If only the promise of good play in the regular season carried over from spring training. (The Mariners are currently 10-1 in Cactus League play right now).

Could be worse.

Slightly OT but I stumbled onto this great article about the rise of the WBC (sadly NZ didn't make it through, we don't have great pitching here, yet).

http://www.baseballamerica.com/toda...airs/world-baseball-classic/2013/2614790.html

The NZ Softball team won the World Championship over the weekend, which interestingly has triggered the "why are we still playing softball?" debate more than anything else. Softball receives government funding (a modest $200k PA) but has a seriously declining registered player list (35000 down from 80000 a few years ago), while baseball receives nothing at all, but has rising numbers. If talkback on our major sport radio channel was anything to go by, softball needs a bullet already.

In the interim, I've queued up the Ken Burns Baseball doco and Jordan Rides the Bus on Netflix.

I put the over/under for Mets losses at 93 this year.

Well, Johan Santana has a (re-)tear of his shoulder capsule that will keep him out this season effectively ending his Mets career. This trade ended up working out as well for the Mets as it did the Twins. 6 years, $142 million, 109 games and 1 no-hitter*. Huge disappointment.

They got a few good years out of him, so I don't know what else you were expecting. How many of the huge contracts work out? It's not like you can expect to get full value - that almost never happens.

The dude's only 34 so it's a pretty big bust, though due to injuries and not flat out sucking. For comparison look at CC Sabathia and how he's worked out for the Yankees (he's only one year younger and has had much more success). In other words, expecting a lot more.

I'm just saying that when you get a guy who's coming off four straight 200+ innings seasons and is a power pitcher, you can pretty much guess that you aren't going to get fhe full value out of a six year contract. The Mets got three good years out of him and one decent season - he'll end up missing two, but after '13 he's not even under contract. And Cashman of the Yankess claimed they were worried about how he would hold up, so thats entirely on the Mets. I'll be happy if the Mariners get that much out of Felix from the contract he just signed. And what are the odds that Verlander and Wainwright will live up to the deals they just signed? Sabathia is an exception, not the rule when it comes to pitcher longevity.

Okay, just watched the 2012 Highlight Reel (Buckle Up Birds) on MASN. Now ready for this years Orioles!

Opening day! When every team is briefly in first place. Even the cubbies....



Edit: holy shit, the Astros beat the Rangers last night. Black is white, night is day, dogs and cats sleeping together, etc.

Happy Opening Day, everyone!

The good news is that newly acquired Twins starter Vance Worley has some nice cold weather and a spacious park for his first Opening Day start. The bad news is that the weather isn't going to make it any easier for the Twins to put anything up on some guy called Verlander that the Tigers are running out there.

Bummed I'm not at the stadium to cheer for Torii returning to town, even if it's on a division rival team. I'll be glad when I still have toes this evening, though.

As an Orioles fan, I get this feeling that last year happened just to make this year so much more disappointing.

Why isn't this a national holiday? And a Giants-Dodgers series opener.

Opening day, and the four members of my immediate family are following four different games in four different states. At least we still have *something* to talk about...

I'd be more excited if the Mariners weren't opening at the A's. Again, for like the thousandth straight time. (Ok, not really, but it seems like. it. They opened against the A's last year in Japan. And at Oakland in 2011. And at Oakland in 2010.) It's almost as bad as their "interleague rivalry" with the Padres.

Well, I'm going to see the M's/A's game on Thursday and I like both teams, so I'm glad they're in town. They should let the M's open at home once in a while though.

Mets win! 11-2, break them up!

POOP.

That is all. Well that and I hate Kershaw.

Breaking news: Verlander is still pretty good at throwing the ball out there.

Boo :( was at least a decent ballgame.

The Mariners decided to have an "open house" tonight at Safeco, letting people in for free so they could check out the changes to the ballpark, including the new "biggest in baseball" video screen and letting people stay and watch the game on it. Apparently they got over 15,000 to show up.

I hate him too, except that he's really, really good...probably a future HoFer. Oh and instead of playing golf during the offseason he goes to Africa and feeds and houses orphans. So I can't really hate him too much.

I wish I could though. Bastard.

Coming off their hot spring, the revamped Mariners exploded for two runs tonight in crushing the A's. Franklin Gutierrez slammed home the runs with a single in the fifth innning. High priced additions Morse and Morales combined for another single. Oh, and Felix struck out 8 and didn't give up a run.

Meet the new offense, same as the old offense.

No, I hate him anyway. He's just pretending to be a nice guy, I'm pretty sure that on the inside he's Mat Latos.

Robinson Cano has fired his agent Scott Boras. (YISS!) His new agent? Jay-Z.