It Never Ends.

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Francona did an interview with ESPN radio this morning wherein he essentially accused his pitchers of being alcoholics and himself of being their enabler.

"I think if a guy wants a beer, he can probably get one. You know, it's kind of the old rule ... If your coach in football says no hard liquor on the plane -- I mean, you serve beer and wine -- somebody's going to sneak liquor on the plane. If you furnish a little bit, it almost keeps it to a minimum."

Oy.

Though, the idea that some of them might be barely functional alcoholics does make sense.

Kaizen.

(AP Photo)

As I see it, one of two things is happening to me: the first possibility is that I'm a total pushover and it doesn't take much more than a little bit of snark to get me on your side or the second possibility is that I'm growing and maturing as a person and have suddenly developed the ability to look beyond Bobby Valentine's super creepy teeth and hear what he has to say.

Did I giggle at his lean management technique for running spring training? Absolutely. Mostly, I think, because he doesn't realize the lazy morons he's got working for him and how spectacularly that's going to backfire.

But when he snarks at the media? I may have just become a Bobby Valentine aficionado.

Asked today: Where do you see Jose Iglesias?
He replied: Right between second and third.

*Ba-dum-bum.*

It's Today!

Fine.

I may not like any of the players on this team and I may not be overly fond of the management. And because I may not want to get pulled down into their vortex of collective jackass-ery and general suck-age again, I may have tried to steel my heart against the siren call of the game. This winter, I dredged my heart in anger and coated it in bitterness. (Note: That didn't start out as a chicken joke but it did evolve into one.) They don't care? I don't care.

Or so I told myself. It turns out that hope and baseball spring eternal. And turns out that despite the fact that I wouldn't mind all that much if the majority of these pitchers took a flying leap, pitchers and catchers reporting is enticing.

Since I can't give up baseball, I will be a reluctant fan.

But Beckett and Lester can go suck an egg.

It's Over.

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Me too, kid. Me too.

Awards.

So, somehow, I totally forgot about it but last night the Oregon Sports Awards were held at Nike and Ellsbury took home the Professional Male Athlete of the Year. Congratulations to him.

Richer Than the Bees Are in Honey.

Rather than going through the arbitration process, David and the Front Office types have settled on a salary of $14, 575,000 for the season. Everybody wins! David makes mountains of money and the front office doesn't have to detail why he doesn't deserve all that money.

A Little Twinge.

NESN has announced it's spring training coverage. Twelve games and lots and lots of talk.

Game Schedule:

Saturday, March 3 Boston College 7:00 PM
Sunday, March 4 Minnesota 1:30 PM
Monday, March 5 at Minnesota (Fort Myers) 7:00 PM
Friday, March 9 Pittsburgh 7:00 PM
Saturday, March 10 Tampa Bay 7:00 PM
Sunday, March 11 at Baltimore (Sarasota) 7:00 PM
Sunday, March 18 at Tampa Bay (Port Charlotte) 1:00 PM
Tuesday, March 20 Toronto 7:00 PM
Thursday, March 22 New York Yankees 7:00 PM
Saturday, March 24 Philadelphia 1:30 PM
Sunday, March 25 at Toronto (Dunedin) 1:00 PM
Sunday, April 1 Minnesota 1:30 PM

Dingers!

It's been a long weird winter and to be completely honest I haven't really been able to muster all that much enthusiasm for them upcoming baseball season. But this is kind of neat.

Camden Yard is commemorating it's twentieth anniversary this year (even though it's the twenty-first season that they've played there) and to celebrate the Orioles have put up a special website. One feature on the website is video of every home run hit out onto Eutaw St. in the park's history. They've got video of Mo Vaughn (7/7/96), Troy O'Leary (6/22/99), Carl Everett (5/11/00), and Papi (9/9/03).

Makes me miss baseball a little bit.

Remember the Maine.

I think that I've told the story about how when I was a kid I had such a thick Maine-uh accent, that I ended up in speech therapy because my first grade teacher couldn't understand a word I said. It made no sense because I didn't know anyone who spoke like that but there I was, I could have strolled out of Acadia. So I've got a soft spot in my heart for the hearty souls from Vacationland.

So when a boy from Maine asks for help, you help him. (Because he talks like that and nobody ever corrected him and, apparently, it's hard to understand.) A group of students at Emerson College are trying to produce a documentary on Fenway Park for the hundredth year anniversary and the one hundred and first season played at Fenway Park. Unfortunately, they are short on cash. They need to raise over five thousand dollars in a week to get the project off the ground.

Normally, I wouldn't advocate just handing money over to college students and expect that it wouldn't go astray but he seems very sincere.