The REAL Sign That Spring Has Arrived

Don't put my trust in groundhogs to tell me what the weather will or won't be. They are just vermin, after all, and have no university degree to back them up as they prognosticate.

The true sign of spring? When Major League Baseball players return to Florida and Arizona. When the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues are in full bloom. Now THAT'S a sure sign that spring is right around the corner.

Pitchers and catchers reported last week, but spring training began in earnest this week with full squads reporting.

Was in for an eye appointment this week and Doctor Timmy asked what I thought of the Milwaukee Brewers upcoming season while we waited for my eyes to dilate.  Strong core of Jackson Chourio, Garrett Mitchell, William Contreras, Brice Turang, Christian Yelich (if healthy after his back surgery). Pitching needs to come through (doesn't everybodies?). So my verdict? Optimistic but with questionmarks.

• Left side of the infield. With Willie Adames gone, who takes over at shortstop? Would be a BIG mistake to move a Gold Glove (hell, he won a Platinum Glove) secondbaseman like Brice Turang over. Shift Joey Ortiz from third? Maybe. He came up as a shortstop, as did Turang. But then you have a hole at third that needs filling. Ahhh. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.
• And regardless of what you do at short and third, can you get the kind of home run power there that you had with Adames?
• Not totally sold across the infield, either. Rhys Hoskins had better produce, especially for the money he's making.
• Where are the free agent signings to strengthen a squad that has made the playoffs 5 of the last 6 seasons? Owner Mark Attanasio has kept the purse strings pretty tight. This despite the fact that the value of the franchise has grown from the $223 million he paid in 2005 to Forbes saying the team is worth $1.605 billion as of March 2024.

But I don't fault Attanasio for being a little bit frugal. Keep this in mind, Brewer fans. He stepped in, bought the team and kept it in Milwaukee. And thanks to a big deal with the state, the team will stay here at least until 2050. 

MLB needs to get it's head out of it's ass before it kills itself. This is a soapbox I've jumped on before. Am referring to salaries and the need, though it will be ignored, for a salary cap.

The New York Mets threw $765 MILLION dollars at Juan Soto in the offseason. A lot of that money is deferred, yet the Mets have a team salary of  $321,700,000 this season, tops in baseball and just ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers at $313,351,665. Lots of salary on this team is kicked down the road as well, north of a billion bucks in all. Signing Otani is part of it, but then in the off-season the Dodgers seemed to be bent on signing every big star they could and win the World Series in May.

Philadelphia heads a group of five teams in the $200M-$300M range with $279,332,617. Next up those hated New York Yankees at $275,626,666 -- of course the Yankees' payroll would end in 666, the mark of the beast!

Five more teams are in the $190M-$200M bracket.

And where are the Milwaukee Brewers? Back in 23rd at $99,958,000. Hell, even a couple other small market teams (Kansas City, Minnesota) are above them. 

Down in the cellar, you find Miami dead last at 47,130,000. Just above them the Athletics at $55,250,000.

Can MLB survive being that top-heavy, and throwing around that much money? I hope so.

It's no coincidence that the teams with the lowest payrolls do the worst at the ticket window. The Athletics averaged 11,528 as a lame duck team in the Oakland Coliseum. They will mark time in Sacramento at a Triple-A facility that seats 14,000 while their new home in Las Vegas is built. Probably should change the name from Athletics to Travelers...

Likewise Tampa Bay, 26th of 30 teams in attendance, will move over to the spring training facility of the New York Yankees for the regular season. The largest stadium in the Grapefruit league seats 11,076 -- quite a comedown from the 42,735 capacity stadium the Tampa Bay Rays call home. Unfortunately, that home was severely damaged during hurricane season, forcing the move.

But the Rays only averaged 16,515 per game and should feel right at home.

Speaking of attendance, the Green Bay Packers have not had that issue for 65 years. Hell, they have sold out every home game since 1960.

There are professional franchises in many sports that would kill for a streak like that.

Rename The Lomdardi Trophy? Don't Think So!

Bill Belichick suggests the Lombardi trophy, awarded to the Super Bowl winner, be renamed to say, honor Tom Brady.

WTF?

Don't think so Billy Boy. Yes, you were a successful NFL coach yourself -- with, shall we say, several questionable moves. Moves that got you fined, the New England Patriots fined and cost the team draft picks as well. And Tommy Boy? Well, there's Inflategate, the infamous football tuck rule and, to be honest, the smug entitlement that comes across.

Vince Lombardi was hired to be Coach and General Manager of the Packers on Feb. 2, 1959. All he did in the 1960s was win, going 9-1 in the playoffs and winning titles in five of seven seasons. His Packers won three straight NFL titles (1965-66-67), the last team to threepeat -- and the only other team to do so were the Packers (1929-30-31).

In Lombardi's era, players were paid a pittance and often worked off-season jobs.

No, Belichick, I doubt if your suggestion to rename the trophy will hold water. Today's players, and today's NFL, stands on the shoulders of giants named Lombardi, George Halas, Lamar Hunt and Pete Rozelle, to name a few.

And I keep wondering how objective Brady can be as a color man on Fox. After all, he's now part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and, from all reports, has been key to getting Pete Carroll to come on board and coach the franchise. Do we really think he can be critical of the league if the situation calls for it?

Doubt that Super Bowl LIX -- 59 for those of you challenged by Roman Numerals -- will be boring.

On the one hand, there's the hard-charging Philadelphia Eagles led by a strong running game. On the other are the Kansas City Chiefs, winners of a remarkable 17 straight one-score games.

Happen to be suffering from a bit of Kansas City fatigue. Nothing against Coach Andy Reid or quarterback Patrick Mahomes, etc. Have liked KC since their AFL games, and have a personal letter from Coach Hank Stram after the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV (beating the Vikings 23-7, no less). Just tired of seeing them in the marquee title game over and over again. Five of the last six, for example.

Well, that and the fact that it seems EVERY friggin' officials' call seems to fall KC's way.

Kansas City is going for three straight Super Bowl wins, a feat no other team has done in the Super Bowl era -- though I will argue the Packers could have done that had they met the AFL Champion Buffalo Bills in 1965. At that point, the Bills had won their second straight AFL title and would fall to Kansas City going for a third.

The EAGLES are going to block that threepeat try,, winning 36-31. Philadelphia is a talented squad and, I think, has the horsepower to notch the win. Thinking of super fans Jack & Theresa, whom we met on on vacation last November, here.

The Baseball Hall of Fame welcomed Ichiro Suzuki, the first Japanese player to be inducted. He was not unanimous, and I questions how one voter failed to check his name!. He finished his MLB career with 3,089 hits. Add in another 1 ,278 from the Nippon Professional Baseball league and that's good for a total for 4,367 -- well past the 4,192 hits the late Pete Rose got to lead the MLB.

We saw Ichiro get his 2,000th MLB hit while attending a game at the Oakland Coliseum on 9-6-09. We were visiting San Francisco and took the BART under the bay to Oakland. The BART ended right at the Coliseum, so it was a brief walk to the stadium. In his first at-bat that day, Ichiro stroked a double down the right field line for a stand-up double, becoming the second-fastest player to get to 2,000 hits in MLB history.

An addendum to my weather story a few days ago. Just months after moving to Louisiana, a squall came through and produced sneaux flurries, total accumulation maybe an inch. EVERYBODY at the newspaper was gathered at the windows, watching it sneaux and commenting. As I walked by I said something like "people, this isn't snow, this is a dusting. My Dad would call this 'three flakes to the acre' kind of snow."