Time to Switch From Snow Balls to Calls of ‘Play Ball’

February 19, 2015 @ admin → No Comments

And so it begins. Hello, spring training (or at least pitchers and catchers reporting, if not the full-blown roster). The warmth of spring envelops the baseball fan — psychically, if nothing else. It does serve as some solace for those of us enduring sub-zero temperatures and double-digit snowfalls.

Video below of Playboy’s Jasmin to warm things up for frigid folks. And others, too.

* OK, so maybe spring training doesn’t diminish wind chills as much as some of us would like. It does signify hope. Hope that winter will end with us around to celebrate survival. Hope that our team will be worth watching in spring, summer and fall with an accompanying new-found success. Hope that all the players who enjoyed success in 2014 will be at least as good in 2015 and preferably even better. Regression? Such thoughts will be cast aside thanks to your basic sport fan’s mental suppression. Hope that all the players who stumbled and bumbled in 2014 will perform at a significantly better level. Hope that the players on your team enjoy healthy seasons. Never mind that every other fan of other teams is hoping the same things. If you cannot dream now, then when?

* And now, we get to enjoy tales of players reporting early, looking better than they ever have. Stories of young phenoms (where have all the old phenoms gone anyway?), of journeymen playing exhibition games and looking like all-stars, of offseason additions looking like bargains. Words of hope. Nothing negative? Nope. A bit delusional perhaps? Not any more than anticipating warm weather and vanished snow to spring up by day’s end. If nothing else, we can congratulate ourselves of making it to the start of spring training. And hope to be in the same position a year from now.

* Speaking of congratulations, congrats to Jason Goff on his return to WSCR, where he will be midday host with Matt Spiegel. He should increase the station’s NBA IQ significantly at the very least.

* Speaking of NBA media coverage, Comcast SportsNet has hired Vincent Goodwill as its Bulls “Insider.” Goodwill is a Detroit native who most recently was the Pistons beat reporter for the Detroit News.

* If it’s Thursday (and chances seem excellent that it is because yesterday was Wednesday — provided that you are reading this on Feb. 19, 2015, or a subsequent Thursday), then it is time for another edition of “Sports & Torts” with co-hosts David Spada and Elliott Harris at noon Central time on Talkzone.com. This week’s guest is former Baylor University and Cleveland Rams/Dallas Cowboys lineman Jim Ray Smith. Podcast of the program will become available later Thursday (and be archived in the Talkzone.com vault where it should be available for years to come).

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Here is where to go for a daily dose of non-gratuitous video (thanks to the occasionally excessive efforts of the editorial and video departments at ElliottHarris.com):