![\"MlbHlSq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/MlbHlSq.jpg\" "\\"MlbHlSq\\"")
It may be a couple of weeks too long for some people, but Spring Training has a certain spirit to it that gets to the very essence of why so many of us love the game.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\nIt may be a couple of weeks too long for some people, but Spring Training has a certain spirit to it that gets to the very essence of why so many of us love the game.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Steve stated yesterday<\/a>, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the one time of year where you can watch your team play without worrying that they might ruin their playoff hopes, or dip beneath .500\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 The nervous tension, excitement, joy and despair that the regular season and playoffs bring are all factors that captivate us and we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be without them for long.\u00c2\u00a0 However, they are put to one side for one month of the year to leave us with nothing more than the simple joy of taking in a ballgame.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a feeling that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just flow through the fans, from those sitting in the stands in Arizona and Florida to people listening\/watching thousands of miles away.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same feeling that imbibes the players, reporters and broadcasters and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what makes Spring Training special.\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine if football\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pre-season was seen not as an inconvenience or a chore, but a chance to get back to those innocent \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjumpers for goalposts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 days of our childhood and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll understand what baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Spring Training is all about.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n Us Brits can be a part of it thanks to the MLB.com subscriptions and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth offering our daily \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthank you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to the wonders of the Internet for that blessing.\u00c2\u00a0 A long day at work and a walk home in the bitter cold (Spring Training\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrived, so where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our spring?) were brushed aside on Wednesday by sitting back and listening to the Giants play the Mariners, with the familiar tones of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcaster Jon Miller describing the action.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all fun and joy for everybody. The Giants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Thomas Neal was beaned by Ricky Orta, both minor leaguers hoping to impress their superiors, while another hitter swung so hard that their bat spun violently into the crowd and struck a female fan.\u00c2\u00a0 Thankfully, as befits the Spring Training spirit, those involved were not badly hurt.<\/p>\n Reigning NL Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum made his first outing and, as with most pitchers at this time of year, was a bit rusty while getting back into the pitching groove.\u00c2\u00a0 He had a great day in any case as he got to meet<\/a> one of his childhood heroes: Ken Griffey Jr.<\/p>\n “Lincy, what’s up? I just want to say hi,” Griffey said, extending a hand.<\/p>\n The surprise appearance by a future Hall of Famer derailed Lincecum’s train of thought and left him happily awed.<\/p>\n “Man! That was pretty cool,” he remarked. “A guy who’s great like that coming over — it just caught me off guard.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jon Miller relayed this story during the game and was greatly amused by Timmy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153starstruck\u00e2\u20ac\u009d behaviour, which in turn had me (and many others no doubt) laughing along as well.<\/p>\n That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the joy of Spring Training for you.<\/p>\n If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a returning subscriber to one of the MLB.com game services, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be glad to be back in the welcoming hands of your chosen team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s broadcasting crews.\u00c2\u00a0 The local guys are great to listen to because they are part of the fabric of the club and their tone is one of familiar friends enjoying the game with you. Listening to them on an almost daily basis, you feel like you know them well and they make you feel that you part of the club too, something that means a lot to those of us on the other side of the pond.<\/p>\n It was great to tune in on Thursday and listen to the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s radio crew of Ken Korach, Ray Fosse, Vince Cotroneo and Robert Buan for the first time in 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 It promises to be a season of many ups and downs for Oakland, probably more downs than ups, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be living through it all with them.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n They started the 2010 season by commentating on Adam Rosales hitting a homer in his first game for Oakland and first base prospect Chris Carter mashing one into the seats, before talking us through the four errors committed by the team on Friday.\u00c2\u00a0 One of those errors was initially landed against Eric Chavez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tentatively getting used to playing first base this spring and his fielding there is a work in progress, but Ken and Ray were quick to absolve him of any blame and were surprised at the official scorer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to land him with an error on what sounded more like a wild throw by pitcher Lenny DiNardo.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure enough, that decision was reversed and Chavez got through the game unscathed,<\/p>\n I guess it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Spring Training for scorers too.<\/p>\n Lots of people in baseball are smiling at the moment, but few will be smiling more widely than Justin Upton.\u00c2\u00a0 He signed a six-year contract<\/a> with the Arizona Diamondbacks this week worth $51.25m (\u00c2\u00a333.836m).\u00c2\u00a0 Upton made his Major League debut on 2 August 2007, three weeks before he turned 20 years old, and he hit .300 with 26 homers last year in his second full season.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Contract extensions with young players don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always work out, as the D-Backs know all too well.\u00c2\u00a0 Centre fielder Chris Young hit 32 homers as a rookie for Arizona in 2007 and was rewarded with a five-year contract worth $28m.\u00c2\u00a0 His two seasons since then have been a great disappointment and he comes into the 2010 season under pressure to turn his career around, despite still being just 26 years old.<\/p>\n Few would expect Upton to experience a similar downturn.\u00c2\u00a0 B.J.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s younger brother was hailed by scouts as an exceptional talent when he was selected by the D-Backs with the number one overall pick in the 2005 amateur draft and his 2009 season offered real promise that he will turn into a perennial All-Star and MVP candidate over the next few years.<\/p>\n If he does, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be doing it in an Arizona uniform.<\/p>\n The only people not smiling are those who have already been struck down by injury or illness.\u00c2\u00a0 No one will be more frustrated than Jose Reyes.\u00c2\u00a0 He spent most of the 2009 season on the Disabled List and his Spring Training debut was postponed indefinitely this weekend after blood tests suggested he has a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hyperactive thyroid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 The article on the Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 official website<\/a> explains what this means and how it may affect Reyes.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sound encouraging for Mets fans hoping that their injury-plagued 2009 nightmare would be a thing of the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It may be a couple of weeks too long for some people, but Spring Training has a certain spirit to it that gets to the very essence of why so many of us love the game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[136,172,171,170,553,108,128,134,127,168],"class_list":["post-6911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-jose-reyes","tag-justin-upton","tag-ken-griffey-jr","tag-mlb-2","tag-new-york-mets","tag-oakland-as","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-tim-lincecum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7216,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions\/7216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Getting reacquainted with some friends<\/h3>\n
Upton ups his bank account<\/h3>\n
Inflicted by injuries already<\/h3>\n