Some baseball thoughts, two weeks into Spring Training....
- An article appeared in Sports Illustrated a few weeks back that I meant to comment upon, but didn't at the time. The gist of the article was that it was time - long past time, actually - for baseball on the Major League level to standardize its rules and put the Designated Hitter rule in place in the National League. Oh, I can hear all the purists wailing and gnashing their teeth out there, but consider the ludicrousness of having two sets of rules in place, that puts teams at serious disadvantages, not only during interleague play (which will be come more pervasive come 2013), but during the game's most important event, the World Series. It is beyond ridiculous.
- Also, consider the the two prime free agents this past winter, Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, were lost the the NL, and it was not insignificant that their new AL teams knew that they would be able to employ these players as DH's during the back end years of their contracts.
- Not to mention that 2012 will be the FORTIETH season since the DH was adopted by the American League. Like it or not, this is no longer a fly-by-night experiment. It ain't going away, so standardize the rules for crying out loud.
- Ryan Braun. The guy got off on a technicality (he himself never once said the the test that showed the amazingly high volume of testosterone in his sample was wrong), and that is far different from being "innocent" or even "not guilty", and he then proceeds to trash the reputation of the guy who conducted the test and handled his samples. Another reason to not like Ryan Braun.
- As might be expected, Braun is starting to hear the taunts from the opposing fans. Ironically, they came in a game against the Giants from those same fans who cheered and supported Barry Bonds for all those years.
- The A.J. Burnett Affair. One of the points that the Pirates trumpeted upon acquiring Burnett was that fact that he was durable, was never hurt, would take the ball every fifth day, and would give the team 200+ innings. Then the guy fractures his eye socket on the first day of training in a bunting drill. You said what I said, right? This stuff can ONLY happen to the Pirates.
- To their credit, the Pirates themselves, whatever they might be thinking privately, are not taking the woe-is-us attitude over Burnett's injury, which is good. The line is that he will be back come late May/early June, and that they will go with the guys they have until then. The worst thing the Pirates could have done was say "we're really screwed" because of the Burnett injury. What kind of message would that have sent?
- And to expand upon what I said at the beginning of this post, if the National League used a DH, like every other league in professional and amateur baseball, would Burnett have even been in the position to have received such an injury?
- One close friend is predicting that Starling Marte will be the sleeper of this year's Pirate training camp. I see that he did go 3-for-3 in last night's Grapefruit game.
- Nice to see MLB Network televising so many spring training games. Not that you want to glue yourself to the tube to watch the Mariners and Brewers B-squaders battle it out, but it is nice to catch a couple of innings of a ballgame while the temps are in the teens and there is snow on your front lawn here in Pittsburgh.
- Finally, today we observe what would have been the 71st birthday of one of the Pirates All-Time Greats, Willie Stargell. Happy Birthday, Cap'n Willie!!
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