{"id":17748,"date":"2014-03-02T09:10:19","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T09:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17748"},"modified":"2014-03-09T10:08:01","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T10:08:01","slug":"weekly-hit-ground-ball-spring-training-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17748","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Spring Training begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re into March already and whilst some may be left wondering how the first two months of the year have flown by, us baseball fans have no need to get weighed down by such trivialities.<\/p>\n

March means Spring Training, which means baseball is finally back for another year after the long winter months.<\/p>\n

The games began on Wednesday with the Blue Jays and Phillies meeting in the first contest shown on MLB.TV.<\/p>\n

Whilst the MLB.TV service is generally fantastic, it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t faultless all of the time and many fans eager to start their baseball-watching year were left frustrated by paid-for subscriptions not registering and apps failing to show the presence of any live games on a variety of connected devices.<\/p>\n

Thankfully most of the problems were ironed out within an hour or so and we were able to get on with enjoying the games.<\/p>\n

Just as good as you imagined<\/strong><\/p>\n

With a more limited selection of televised games to watch during Spring Training, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good time of the year to get reacquainted with the joys of listening to radio commentary of ballgames via MLB Gameday Audio. The best crews bring a sense of fun to the occasion whilst painting a vivid picture of the events unfolding, allowing you to use your imagination to create the scenes.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when you get to see the TV replay you find that a play wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite as spectacular as you envisioned it. There was no danger of that being the case with the two highlights from the Oakland A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spring opener against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lead radio commentator Ken Korach was sounding quite matter of fact when describing Michael Morse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flyball to right field, even getting most of the way through his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and this one is \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d call before stopping himself from saying the final word. He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gone\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Instead. he said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153did he catch it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, with an air of incredulity, before shouting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153HE DID! AN INCREDIBLE CATCH SCALING THE WALL!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

There was nothing forced about the call, no hint that he was hyping it to the hills like the best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) Sky Sports commentator. You knew Josh Reddick has just pulled off a stunning catch, which was quickly backed up by various A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writers taking to Twitter to: a) state how incredible it was, and b) to bemoan the lack of TV cameras which meant you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d just have to take their word for it.<\/p>\n

What they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know initially was that the ballpark did have one TV camera filming from behind home plate. Barely a few hours into the 2014 baseball season and we already had one of the best fielding plays we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re likely to see all year. Reddick then proved it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a one-off by doing it again, to the same unfortunate Morse, later in the game.<\/p>\n