Thursday, April 12, 2012

Opening Day

How many Opening Days are there? Is it still Opening Day? I've been making way too much use of my MLB.tv subscription over the last week. I swear every day, somebody tries to call it "Opening Day." I'm confused. And angry. As I understand, the Mariners and A's "opened" the season on Wednesday, March 28 in Japan. The following Wednesday, the Marlins "opened" the season by hosting the St. Louis Cardinals. Bummed that I couldn't watch it because nationally televised games are blacked out on MLB.tv, I decided to see what else was available. Guess what! The Oakland A's were now playing a spring training game against the Giants. After they had played regular season games. Then on Thursday, most teams played their first games. But still not all of them. The rest waited for Friday. By my count, that's four opening days.

But wait, there's more. Some people refer to a home opener as "Opening Day" too. There may be a few of those left, too, but I think by this weekend we've safely reached the normal weekend/weekday series pattern. I've made the most of the bizarre schedule with lots of day games- and being between jobs - to watch way too much baseball. Yesterday, my day of baseball began with Johan Santana laboring yet somehow not giving up that many runs. Nearly ten hours later, Joe Nathan blew a save throwing a bunch of junk instead of his fastball.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Clubhouse Guys

On Friday night, I watched the Marlins play the Nationals. I have noticed a few sources praising the Nationals and suggesting that they are contender in the NL East. One in particular contrasted them with the Marlins. The basic premise was that the Nationals improved more in the offseason and had a better year last year.

For Friday's game, only the Nationals had a broadcast crew, so I listened to their announcers. They interviewed the general manager during the game. Both the announcers and GM repeatedly described various players as good "character" or "clubhouse" guys to have on the team. Meanwhile, the Marlins brought in Ozzie Guillen as manager and they're banking on the enigmatic Hanley at third base. Does this sound familiar? The Twins had plenty of clubhouse guys over the last decade. The White Sox weren't quite as fan friendly. The Sox won something that counts. This is exactly why I like the Marlins.