In the beginning there was no baseball.
But ever since there have been few beginnings as good as the start of a new baseball season.
It is the most splendid time in sport
-- B. J. Phillips, Time magazine 1981

Sorry I'm a little late this week - there was some kind of problem logging onto MLB Blogs that was finally resolved.

Here’s this week’s most splendid list:

1. Always the bridesmaid: Rockies OF Seth Smith, who had  a couple of important AB’s off the bench during the Rockies amazing march to the World Series, is once again competing for a spot on the bench backing up the likes of Matt Halliday and Brad Hawpe.  That’s nothing new for Smith who spent his college career backing up Super Bowl champion Eli Manning at Ol Miss.

2. Don’t tell the Rangers marketing department about this one:  The Florida Marlins are looking for some “plus sized” men for a cheerleading squad they are calling the Manatees.  The actual manatees are referred to as “sea cows” – they can grow to be over 1,000 pounds and are some of the slowest of underwater creatures.   If the Rangers want bring back some dancing: I liked the Rangers dancing ushers in 2006 - they were fun to watch.

3. Sunday Afternoon Baseball:  This week MLB and TBS announced their schedule for nationally television Sunday afternoon baseball games – and guess what – there are games featuring teams other than the Yankees and Red Sox..  The Cubs, Braves, Tigers, Phillies and even the Mariners will make appearances – what in the name of Fox and ESPN is going on here? You mean there are actually other teams that fans will get a chance to watch – wow what a concept.  All kidding aside – I enjoyed the TBS playoff game coverage and I’m looking forward to seeing how this new venture works out- even if I do have to put with Chip Caray as one of the announcers – thank goodness for the mute button.

4. This one is for Baseball Mom: Al Kaline watched his grandson Colin Kaline play  in a exhibition game against the Tigers the other day.   Colin is a freshman playing second base for Florida Southern.  Gee Mom, seems like only a short time ago we were stopping at the A &W in Flat Rock for a root beer and foot long hot dog after watching Al play at Tiger Stadium, doesn’t it?

5. Kudos to Anthony:  Did you know the Startlegram has a baseball blog?  No really, they do – it’s a well kept secret called Foul Territory.   For those of us with real jobs who can’t listen online or leave game day open on our browsers at work – Star Telegram beat writer Anthony Andro has been blogging with timely and interesting updates during the first couple of Spring Training games – it’s much appreciated (and much, much, much, much, much better than the blog on the well known Dallas paper).

6. A rose by any other name:  The Chicago Tribune boss Sam Zell said that the Tribune Company, who own the Cubs, are thinking of selling the naming rights to the hallowed ballpark.  Hmmm, here’s an idea Mr. Zell – why not approach the Wrigley Gum Company?  Just a thought….

7. Name that former Ranger Prospect #5: Pictured on the left.

As for RHP Andy Pratt, from the 14th’s blog:   Andy spent four years in the Rangers minor leagues,  traded in 2002 to Atlanta for RHP Ben Kozlowski, made his major league debut with the Braves. He was then traded to the Cubs in 2004 pitching a few more major league innings with Chicago.  Claimed on waivers by the Brewers and subsequently traded to Milwaukee in September 2004 for Ben Grieve.  Andy logged two more seasons in the minors, and at last report was now scouting amateur players in the Phoenix area (and I can’t remember for which major league team).

8. Hockey Talk: I was surprised, no make that shocked,  to read that someone named Brad Richards had been traded to the Dallas Stars.   Brad Richards is my brother in law,  married to my middle sister Jeanne the New Mexico Bean.  I thought they were living in Albuquerque, and that Brad was a licensed psychologist as well as violinist with the New Mexico Symphony.  He wasn’t missing any teeth or wearing a hockey sweater last time I saw him – is there something my family isn’t telling me?

9. Things you do when you are sick:  as mentioned last week, illness laid me low for almost ten days.  I spent way too much time having a 1970’s TV fest including selected espisodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (Chuckles the Clown), "WRKP in Cincinnati " (It’s the phone cops!) and a Masterpiece Theatre series near and dear to the Czajka cousins called “Poldark”.  I also caught up on my reading – Richard Goodwin’s “Remembering America” – a chapter of this book  was the basis for the movie “Quiz Show”.  He is the husband of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (who wrote the terrific account of her childhood as a Dodger fan in "Wait Till Next Year").  Astronaut Michael Collins remembrance of the Apollo program “Carrying the Fire” and Anthony Bourdain’s “Nasty Bits”.  Anthony is the host of the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations”.  I long to be a world traveler, but realize that watching Anthony's shows is the closest I'll probably get to globe trotting.  He's not your average travel host, can be a bit snarky and a bit of an acquired taste, but is also one the top 3 shows on my TIVO season pass list.

This is the week that was and is:  It was windy, cold and miserable most of this week, but  didn’t a little bit of warmth and sunshine come into your life when  you turned on the car radio on the way home from work on Wednesday  and heard that the Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals 6-1?

Friday afternoon I’ll  take a late lunch just to hear  Eric Nadel say “hello everybody from Surprise Stadium in Surprise Arizona. . ."   

If you are as lucky as I am, then you are counting the days until you are at Spring Training, sitting in the backfields listening to the sounds of cleats running on gravel, baseballs popping into mitts and fly balls heading for the White Tank Mountains.

Baseball is back – and all is right with the world - it is indeed a splendid week –- Marla Hooch

Influenza type “B”  is some very nasty stuff – I got it and it has put me on the DL this week.  Too sick and too tired to think much about baseball, so let’s get this short list over with:

1. Last week’s name that former prospect was correctly identified as RHP Andy Pratt.  More about him – and a new prospect picture – next week.

2. Tamiflu and Duraflu tablets are miracle drugs – I’m not kidding.

3.  Darn those cloudy skies over eastern Tarrant county blocked my view of the lunar eclipse. By the way – does anyone remember the lunar eclipse over LF on the Friday night in September 1996 when the Rangers clinched a tie for their first division title? 

Finally: What really made me feel better? Reading this in the notes on MLB.com:

"The Rangers will at least consider the possibility of going back to red uniforms,  vice president Jim Sundberg said...That's an item that will make its way onto Nolan Ryan's agenda at some point after he officially begins his new duties as club president on Thursday."

I’ll start the online petition in favor of the red uni’s  and present it to Nolan.

Ranger ownership has been paying lip service to the notion of  building a “baseball tradition” in Arlington since the new owner took over in 1998.  Let's remind the owner: 3 division championships, 3 MVP awards, 4 winning seasons – all in red uniforms.   

Here’s a lesson in baseball tradition for all those hockey and tuna fish marketing types in the Rangers front office – the teams you want to emulate stay with one uniform concept: the Yankees never change the pinstripes, the Tigers never change the old English D, the Dodgers never change the blue script, the Rangers should never, ever, have changed colors in the first place.  Now is your opportunity to correct that error, to bring back the red, the uniforms that are a reminder of just how good this franchise was…. and could be again.

I’ll be back next week with my game face on and ready to play two.

[Insert hacking cough sound here] –- Marla Hooch

“The yin-yang is a symbol for cosmic duality and balance, a synthesis of mutually dependent polar forces. Each force exists only in relationship to its opposite, each is "completed" by its opposite, and each gains life and expression through the patterns generated by the perpetual interplay with its opposite. The two fundamental principles, one is negative, dark (yin) and the other (yang) positive, bright, active. The interactions and balance of these forces in nature influence behavior and fate.”

This maybe the only blog where you’ll find the overture to the 2008 Texas Rangers season defined in terms of Eastern Philosophy.

Here’s the Yin and Yang for this week:

February 14th:  The Yin is that today is a holiday I absolutely scorn.

The Yang is that the best day of this baseball year falls on that loathsome date. Most are waiting to hear from their sweetheart – I’m waiting read and hear the sweetest words of 2008: “Pitchers and Catchers reported to the Rangers Spring Training camp in Surprise Arizona today.”

Who was that guy? The Yin:  Alejandro did a very good job as no one recognized the Rangers 1995 5th round draft pick Shawn Gallagher – although I did get a couple of e-mails asking why I put a picture of Charlie Sheen on the blog.  I don’t see the resemblance.  My good friend Mike Hindman checked up on Shawn’s post baseball career – which included attending MIT – in his 2002 “Hindsights”  article (here's the link) on the Newberg Report.

The Yang: Name That Ranger Prospect #4 might be a little more recognizable – there is a hint in the picture on the right.

Kevin Mench returns: The Yin is a simple question: why?  I meditated, read the Book of Tao, searched the wisdom of Buddha, and even surfed through Baseball Reference.com  to resolve my query, but to no avail. Then as I put another load of towels in the dryer the answer appeared to me from the musings of the Oracle of the Sage and Sand: “There is an institutional inevitability, inexorable expediency and irresistible obsequiousness in the Rangers renewed interest in Kevin Mench.  As St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote in Summa Theologica, ' The more deeply something is impressed upon the soul, the less does it drop out of the soul.'”

The Yang – well, there really isn’t any with Kevin Mench. I had thought the Rangers were moving forward with Nelson Cruz and Jason Botts but they always seem to have one foot firmly planted in their dismal past.

Spring Training in Surprise:  The Yin is called Bell Rd. if you’ve been there you know. If you haven’t –  as they say at the Nebraska Zen Center: “True patience, or endurance, is sitting in and through every moment of our lives, whether we like it or not.”

The Yang is called the White Tank Mountains.  They are a spectacular background as you drive along Greenway Rd (the secret way to happiness and an alternate to avoid Bell Rd) and a majestic back drop as you sit on the backfields watching the Ranger minor league players.  Just west of Surprise where Bell Rd intersects Hwy 303 is White Tank Mountain Regional Park where you can watch the Lunar Eclipse in the desert sky next Wednesday night (February 20th).

KRLD:  Knowing that Michael Ogulnick’s not so good post game show is waiting in the wings in April is Yin. 

Listening to Eric and Victor every weekend in the Spring and every night for the entire summer – particularly the late night West Coast games – is the definition of  Yang.

Warm Summer Nights: If you haven't been to the Ballpark in Arlington since last September let me prepare you for the Yin. There is construction everywhere as the beautiful Ballpark is swallowed up by Greed…er Glory Park and the monument to Jerry Jones that is big enough to block out the sun.  Unfortunately, that  includes same kind of mess along I-30 and the exits right in front of the ballpark.  That is going to get much worse before it gets better. 

However, there is Yang elsewhere, along with plenty of easy to reach parking  in Frisco, where we’ll watch the future blossom while teaching Erin and Mia to cheer “Go Elvis!” There’s also the Yang of  those lovely evenings in Bricktown Ballpark Oklahoma City as we watch Eric, Doug, Luis, AJ, Chirs,  Josh, (maybe) Taylor, Travis, and German as they prepare take the next big step to achieving Nirvana in Arlington. Although there is a little Yin in OKC since they are scheduling night games on Sunday this season – which I imagine makes get away days a nightmare and more importantly deprives me of my beloved Sunday afternoon jaunts to OKC for just one game.

The 2008 Season: Yin means a rebuilding program the Rangers have never fully committed to – until now – maybe – I hope.  At times it is hard to watch.  Ask a Rockies or Tigers fan what it was like the two years before their teams went the promised land of the playoffs.  Detroit had a record of 72-90 in 2004 then 71-91 in 2005.  Colorado fans endured seasons of 67-95 in 2005 and 76-86 in 2006.  The Rangers  had similar  records the last two years at 80- 82 (2006) and 75- 87 last season.  Young pitchers and young hitters often struggle before finding the path to enlightenment, higher batting averages and lower ERAs.   It will be a season of high expectations as well as uneven results,  but as the Buddha has often reminded us: the obstacle is the path.  The question is: will the owner and the GM be able to find their way to that path and through that obstacle? Will they find the patience to understand that DFW fans are only interested in buying tickets to see winners, which could mean empty seats? Wll they find the inner peace and fortitude to withstand constant harangues from the ink stained wretches and electronic wailers?

The Yang  is if JD, the fans, and especially Mr. Hicks can practice Zen and The Art Of Not Knee-Jerking every time this young team loses a few games in a row or there's an injury or a slump by young player. They must remember what the voice in the field said: “if you build it, they will come.” –  the voice wasn't talking about buildings, streets and video boards. The voice was talking about laying a foundation of homegrown players who will grow together and I fervently believe will start a winning tradition that this franchise so desperately needs on the field. 

Finally: If you love baseball as much I do, you know that every season there will be winning streaks and losing streaks, players who break out and players who break down.  As a fan there are days you want to give up on your team  and nights you don’t want the game to end – the season is a long road. You have to go with the flow, take the good with the bad – the most important thing is to enjoy every day, every game, every inning, every pitch and at-bat as it is happening, I know I will.

Happy Pitchers and Catchers Day everyone, let’s play ball.

Namasté. –- Marla Hooch

Since Toby is busy on tour helping T.R. promote his new book,  we’ve awakened our friend Alejandro the Armadillo from a deep winter sleep to browse through another page of his almanac.

Alejandro ascends from digging beneath the gardens and front lawns of your friends and neighbors to take look at the eve of 2008 Spring Training.

The week ahead:  The equipment truck left Arlington for Surprise on Monday the 4th. Several players including the likes of Jason Botts and Ian Kinsler are in transit and will arrive in Arizona this weekend.  Pitchers, catchers, the owner, the new president, the GM , assorted front office types, a few hearty fans as well as the hordes of media officially report one week from today.  To badly paraphrase the prolific Paul Simon:  Spring Training is only a moment away.

To err is human, to forgive is divine:  Marla was wrong about Nolan Ryan and the Rangers on the last blog entry. Here’s hoping Mr. Hicks has an epiphany, steps out of the picture and allows Nolan and JD to do their jobs. 

Who were those guys?: Last week’s Name Those Former Rangers Prospects picture was correctly identified early on by Hefe300 as Jason Botts, Laynce Nix and Jose Morban. As everyone should know by now, Jason Botts just completed a very successful stint in the Mexican Winter League where he helped Obregon win the Mexican League Winter Championship. By the way, Scott Lucas has a sequence of pictures of Jason hitting a HR for Obregon on his website, scroll down to the 1/27/08 entry.

Laynce Nix remains with the Milwaukee Brewers organization where he’ll be competing with former Ranger heart throb Gabe Kapler as well as Corey Hart and his sunglasses for a spot on the 25 man roster this spring.   

After being picked by Baltimore in the 2002 Rule V draft, Morban was sent back to the minor leagues in 2004 playing for Baltimore, Cleveland, Seattle and returned for a very short stint with the Rangers at AAA OKC last season.  Jose was last seen playing with Aguilas this winter in the Dominican Republic.

Name That Former Prospect #4:  Alejandro knew last week’s picture was too easy, he dug deep – something he’s an expert at – to find this week’s prospect pictured on the left.

More Prospecting: Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus and Keith Law at ESPN.com both published their Top 100 Prospect Lists. There were seven Ranger prospects on each list, only Tampa Bay and the Red Sox had more.  But none of the Rangers prospects were ranked in the top 10.  RHP Neftali Feliz, who is only 20 years old, came in at #30 on BP’s list, while  another 20 year old - IF Elvis Andrus - ranked #31 on the ESPN list. Both players were acquired from Atlanta in the Mark Teixeira trade.   

Respected minor league evaluator John Sickels has two top prospect lists: 50 position players and 50 pitchers. Three Ranger position players and pitchers made his lists with RHP Eric Hurley at #12 on the pitchers list and C Taylor Teagarden at #15 on the position player list.  Baseball America also published its top 10 list of Ranger prospects this week with Elvis Andrus in #1 spot. 

However, Alejandro’s preferred list is from someone who invests more time in actually watching Ranger prospects than national writers, and includes better humorous references like the one in Wilmer Font’s profile. The one, the only Mike Hindman’s Top 20 Ranger Prospect list:( Part 1 and Part 2 )on his Rangers Farm Report Blog.

The Oracle of Bell Rd: "If our guys stay healthy, everybody has a chance to put us in a position to win on a nightly basis," Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. "But health is going to be a big key."

Ranger Fans Are Not The Only Malcontents:  The Toronto Blue Jays front office's annual State of the Team meeting with season ticket holders was reportedly lively and at times rancorous.  The Blue Jays fans are restless, not having seen a playoff game since the 1980’s.   Manager John Gibbons was one of the main targets of criticism – prompting GM JP Riccardi to respond this way to one of the jibes: "We were built to have good years the last two years and we got decimated by injuries," he said. "If you brought Connie Mack back, he wouldn't get you 100 wins with those types of injuries. ... We have a lot of faith in John and I have a lot of faith in John and, obviously, you and I disagree, which is fine."

Cautionary Tale: SI’s Tom Verducci wrote an interesting article about pushing young pitchers, injuries, and protecting their arms.   He listed seven young pitchers who he thinks are at risk for injury this season. Of course, if Tom had read Will Carroll’s "Saving The Pitcher" first published in 2004 (now available in paperback) he’d have known about these issues 4 years ago.

Odds and Ends: In the one non-baseball note of the week: the Super Bowl game was actually more interesting than most of the commercials this year – although the Audi commercial was genius and probably only understood by viewers of a certain age…as mentioned last week our friend T.R. Sullivan has written a book with Mel Didier on Mel’s long and colorful career, you can read all about it on Monday's Postcards From Elysian Fields as well as place an order for the book which is now listed with MLB.com … Terry Francona on Johan Santana going to the Mets: "That ain't bad. I wish every pitcher would go to the National League," he said . "I can't lie about it. You don't want to face him five times."…Rangers OF Nelson Cruz playing for the Dominican Republic Licey Tigers in the Carribean World Series hit a game winning HR on Tuesday. Nelson’s overall winter league stats: .314 BA, .383 OBP, .476 SLG, 4 HR, 17 RBI’s… Fellow MLB Blogger Tim Kuda will interview Rangers broadcaster Tom Grieve on his sports talk show on Thursday February 14th ...Baseball America named the Rangers farm system as the #4 overall. That’s an enormous jump from last year when it was one of the worst at #28 out of 30 teams… from the Rangers press release on Nolan Ryan’s new job: “Ryan is the first Hall of Fame player named President of a Major League franchise since Christy Mathewson served as President of the Boston Braves in 1925. Ryan becomes just the third Hall of Fame Team President in Major League History, joining John Montgomery Ward (Boston-NL, 1912) and Christy Mathewson (Boston-NL, 1923 and 1925).” ...and finally thanks to Lisa Winston for mentioning us on her blog. We're a huge fan of her MLB Blog ATM: He Said - She Said as well as her work on MiLB.com

Birthdays:  Turning the page in the book of life this week:  current Ranger Scott Feldman is 25, once and future Ranger Jon Leicester is 29.  Rangers nemesis Vlad Guerrero turns 32 while Marla’s all-time favorite Ranger Pete O’Brien celebrates his 50th.  Ranger IF prospect Marcus Lemon’s dad Chet Lemon turns 53. One of the best names ever in baseball – Mookie Wilson - is 52 and “The Governor” Jerry Browne turns 42 - how many of you really know what Mark Holtz was referencing with that nickname?  Baseball's ultimate showman: the late, great, Bill Veeck was born in 1914 this week and former Yankee prospect Drew Henson is 28 – didn’t he have another job around here at some point?

Last Call: "What if I told you I've got interviews today at Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond? I heard they've got guys from the Olympics working at Home Depot. So I was, like, 'Dude, I can carry a safe.' I have to believe I'd be one of the more agile people working there."  --Yankees non-roster invitee IF Morgan Ensberg

Da mihi sis cerevisiam dilutam (even Alejandro speaks Latin) -- Alejandro and Marla Hooch