Meaningless Thoughts on the Eve of Baseball
It’s the most wonderful day of the year.
I started paying more attention to spring training baseball as the pre-season was winding down and I noticed that the record was pretty great. I had been reading updates and stories and paid some passing attention to the WBC (nice final at-bat, Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. Way to melt my cold, cynical heart, making me actually see some value in this strange event.)
But then as I started to pay close attention to the actual games, the Jays dropped their last four games.
And while that was a downer way to end a pretty stellar spring, those games don’t count. Until today.
The hype videos are in place
The boys look good.
New boys. Previous boys.
There was some non-convincing discussion about who was going to be named Opening Day starter before it was announced that Alek Manoah, the completely obvious choice after he finished third in Cy Young voting in 2022, was getting the nod.
The announcement was filmed and shared by the Blue Jays on social media. I have some notes: John P. Schneider, I know you are a “sports dude” who likely doesn’t care about these things and extensively decorating your office might be presumptuous as you enter your only first full season as skip, but your office…other than what appears to be a nice picture of your family on the wall, it’s…sad. I know it’s in the basement of a concrete mausoleum, but there is no need for it to look like it’s in a basement of a concrete mausoleum. Men who save choking women should have a nicer space.
Also, that “hidden camera” angle they have used to capture the action makes Manoah look about 500 lbs. I know the kid is a big dude, but goodness.
Have you heard about the new rules? There are new rules! You can read about them here.
My adult job involves communications, so I’m not just looking at what is said, but also looking at how people are writing and communicating information.
I do enjoy the “speed up the game” talk - people have been worried about how long a baseball game lasts for as long as there have been baseball games. Most baseball fans I know like how long the games are, the mix of lulls and highs.
There is talk about how the length of games is making people turn away from baseball- I would suggest that cheaper/more accessible tickets to games, better products (more teams playing to win, and not draft picks, no tanking) on the field and removing blackout restrictions on TV broadcasts.
But those things cut into bottom lines, so I guess the pitch clock will have to solve all of it.
The end of shifts is another major change, as shifting and defensive alignments have defined a lot of baseball over the past decade or so. I like this- banning shifts will “allow infielders to showcase their athleticism with great defensive plays”. I think the defensive plays have been plenty athletic, shift or no shift. It’s like the BABIP is a present for the hitters, so the infielders need a present, too. Everybody gets a cookie!
It just all feels a little “new hat”.
And just because no one else notices these things besides me, Joey Votto, perhaps nervous about Chinese data theft or just realizes that he wasn’t born in 2005, has deleted his TikTok account. His Twitter and Instagram accounts remain.
And his chess habit from the winter has continued in the Cactus League.