{"id":6806,"date":"2010-02-20T14:18:30","date_gmt":"2010-02-20T13:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=6806"},"modified":"2010-04-10T12:38:21","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T11:38:21","slug":"out-of-left-field-this-column-is-in-the-best-shape-of-its-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=6806","title":{"rendered":"Out of Left Field: This column is in the best shape of its life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MlbHlSq\"Pitchers and catchers. Spring training. This column is limbering up, ready for the new season, and feeling good<\/em>. Leaner, fitter and happier. Welcome, good people, and observe this column preparing itself for Opening Day.<\/p>\n

Just sit back and enjoy the following training montage<\/a>. I imagine that awful Journey song<\/a> will accompany it. It gets everywhere.<\/p>\n

While the great and the good of the MLB are being put through their paces, your correspondent is in training himself. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reading Hemingway\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collected advice to writers<\/a>, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thumbing through Bryson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Dictionary for Writers and Editors<\/a>, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perusing \u00e2\u20ac\u212210 rules for writers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/a> in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Guardian and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scribbling furiously in various notebooks. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even thinking about baseball itself (who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have thunk it?), scanning the Hardball Times Annual<\/a>, SABR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free Emerald Guide to Baseball<\/a> (you need this, people!) and mock drafting like crazy.<\/p>\n

And most importantly, your correspondent is honing his eye. Pitchers across the southern states are getting their eye in this week, and so am I. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not easy. Now is time for fluff and bluster in MLB. Nothing of note is happening. This column isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t looking so promising now, eh?<\/p>\n

An aside: how good is life as a baseball professional? You get over four months off (if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lucky enough to miss those pesky play-offs), and then on your first few days back you just play catch and wander around in the sunshine. Those lucky things.<\/p>\n

No such easy life for this columnist. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had my nose to the proverbial grindstone, and have come up with the following. Bear with me, and be kind, dear reader.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As Matt alluded to last week<\/a>, this time of year is all about players being in the “best shape of his life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. If anyone can find a report of a player revealing themselves to be overweight, tired, and completely indifferent about the approaching new season, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d love to read it. It would make a change from the countless reports of players claiming to be raring to go, feeling better than ever. Those good people at FanGraphs have even started collecting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153best shape of his life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d stories<\/a>. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly no shortage of them.<\/p>\n

But beyond all that nonsense, what else has been going on?<\/p>\n

Ryan Braun became a friend for life or this particular writer by throwing me a bone with the story that he could have been a professional footballer<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Soccer was always my best sport\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I was a forward on U.S. development teams and did pretty well, but for the future, in this country, it made more sense to focus on baseball.” Funny to think that in some alternative universe Braun will be embarrassing England in this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s World Cup, rather than hitting the ball all over Miller Park.<\/p>\n

Detroit Tigers manager, Jim Leyland has clearly had a mixed winter. On the one hand, he got a call from umpire Randy Marsh<\/a>, to apologise for missing the key call in last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one-off play-off against the Twins. Which was nice, although I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure strictly necessary. I mean, the post-season was hardly short of bad calls, was it?<\/p>\n

However, dedicated smoker Leyland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s warm \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 fuzzy feeling didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t last when he discovered Detroit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ban on public smoking will apply to Comerica Park<\/a>. But Leyland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no quitter. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying that I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cheat once in awhile, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to lie.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Feel free to insert your Tiger Woods\/Ashley Cole gag here).<\/p>\n

But Korea provides my favourite story of the week. The Korea Energy Management Corporation and the Korea Baseball Organization have put in place plans to make Korean baseball a whole lot greener<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They plan to make games shorter, and thus more energy efficient. So, breaks between innings are being shortened and the game itself is being encouraged to speed up. If a pitcher fails to pitch within 12 seconds of the batter readying himself, providing there are no runners on base, the pitcher will get a warning. And each warning after that will also be counted as a ball. Serious stuff.<\/p>\n

That will hopefully keep down the electricity bills, which reminds me of that great, if frankly rather silly, film, Field of Dreams<\/a>. Kevin Costner can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to keep the farm, right? Then how about turning the floodlights off now and again, eh Kev? It must be costing you a packet.<\/p>\n

And finally, fashion corner.<\/p>\n

What was ICHIRO! thinking here?<\/a> That is one terrible, terrible outfit.<\/p>\n

And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure the Boston Braves came to regret their choice of cap<\/a> in 1914. Who was to know what those pesky Nazis would hit upon the same fashion choice in a few years time?<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me for this week. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m off to towel down, have an ice-bath and ready myself for next week. In the meantime, you can always follow my sporadic ramblings on twitter<\/a>, or leave me a lovely message below.<\/p>\n

Have a good week, until next week\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pitchers and catchers. Spring training. This column is limbering up, ready for the new season, and feeling good. Leaner, fitter and happier. Welcome, good people, and observe this column preparing itself for Opening Day. Just sit back and enjoy the following training montage. I imagine that awful Journey song will accompany it. It gets everywhere. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[152,111,155,153,156,154,157,158,144],"class_list":["post-6806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-boston-braves","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-field-of-dreams","tag-ichiro-suzuki","tag-jim-leyland","tag-korea","tag-randy-marsh","tag-ryan-braun","tag-sabr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6806"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7500,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions\/7500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}