Fan News

Now that I've had a few days to unwind from my spring training travels, I thought I would share one of my better stories from my trip.

Last Monday, at the Orioles vs. Mets spring training game, my brother, Evan, left Tradition Field with a pair of Carlos Delgado's game-worn pants.

Jose Reyes is at it again. Already back from an early exit in the World Baseball Classic, he has resumed his support for the Mets to re-sign Pedro Martinez. Martinez, 37, is coming off a season to forget with the Mets. The right-handed Dominican player pitch just 109 innings last season and posted a dismal 5.61 E.R.A. "Unbelievable, unbelievable," said Reyes of Pedro. "He's fantastic. He's loose, comfortable on the mound. He threw a lot of strikes, bro. He throws hard, too. He looked great."

This update comes from the Yankees via Peter Abraham:

This probably won't be a popular article in Maryland, all the more so because a lot of baseball people are creating some irresponsible hype around the Baltimore Orioles.  I say irresponsible because Oriole fans deserve better than to be grossly misguided like that.

Make no mistake about it—Baltimore is done.  DOA.  Forget one fork, the Os have four protruding from their collective corpus.

One from the New York Yankees, one from the Boston Red Sox, one from the Tampa Bay Rays, and one from the Toronto Blue Jays.

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The New York Yankees played a split squad double header today beating the Huston Astros by a score of 3-1 at The Boss and Beating the Pittsburgh Pirates at McKechnie Field 13-10.

This is a projection on the players that I believe will make up the Texas Rangers 25-man Major League roster come Opening Day.

Since Spring Training is still not over, obviously this is not my final list and I will make adjustments by the week and as we get closer to Opening Day.

Those players that are italicized are players that I believe are locks for the 25-man roster, and the stats listed with them are their 2008 season stats.

STARTING ROTATION

Kevin Millwood- 9-10, 5.07 ERA, 168.2 IP, 125 K, 49 BB

“Mr. Epstein,” said the ace reliever, Jonathan Papelbon. “There is a cancer on your baseball team.”

It sounds like something out of the Nixon Administration so many decades ago.  Back then it took a brave man named John Dean to go into the lion’s den and tell the President of the United States that his Administration was suffering from a fatal disease.

A failure to act condemned Nixon and his tenure in office.

Ruth and Gehrig...Mantle and Maris...Mays and McCovey...Aaron and Matthews.

All superstars in their own right, all capable of carrying a team on their backs. Put them together and you had dynamite.

The Minnesota Twins' Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau don't yet belong in this rarefied company. But they've accomplished a lot in their short careers.

Houston Astros right-hander Brandon Backe entered Spring Training with a chip on his shoulder. The 30-year-old Galveston native finished 9-14 with a 6.05 ERA in 31 starts last season. 

After undergoing career-threatening Tommy John surgery Sept. 7, 2006, Backe perservered through intensive rehabilitation and returned to the mound toward the end of the 2007 season.

The Dutch were clutch in the WBC, sending the DR straight to the ER! 

Okay, that was a poor attempt to sound 'hip'.  However, let not anyone underestimate the profoundly stunning result that 2-1 victory by the Netherlands over the Dominican Republic was. 

The Dominican Republic was a team loaded with MLB all-stars (Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz, Jose Reyes, and Pedro Martinez...to name a few); however, the Dutch had not a single player on its roster who is currently signed with an MLB team.