Those of you who follow my site know that I put together an annual Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League. I will be doing that again this year. However, Yahoo has not opened up signups yet. So I have a question to those visitors of mine who participate.
Would you prefer a draft date as early as possible, or something closer to the start of the actual season, or something in the middle. Let me know ASAP, as I expect these things to open up for the 2009 season shortly.

Today I managed to get my hands on a spring training roster. The cool thing about this roster was that it included uniform numbers. Those who follow my site know that’s something I care about, so I took the opportunity to update my uniform number history section of the website with the 2009 number assignments. This includes everyone on the 40 man roster, as well as all the current spring training invites.
If you’ve never visited this part of my site, I have the history of each uniform number going back to 1972. I have the info from the Senators days, but I never seem to find the time to get that all in there. :)
Anyway, a couple of guys had changes in this list, they are:

• Joaquin Arias changed from 4 to 3, due to Jackie Moore’s now having 4.
• Travis Metcalf changed from 30 to 15, due to Gerald Laird’s departure.
• Josh Frasier’s 66 was taken by Netfali Feliz. No idea what Frasier is wearing, or even if he’s bullpen coach again.

Well, yesterday was the launch of the new year. It was also the launch of the new Girl of the Year Doll over at American Girl. I spent a few hours there with my daughter and my wife, it was a lot of fun (even if the place is seriously pink). :) It was also the launch of the new MLB Network, of which I have a few things to say.
First off, it was a great joy to see Victor Rojas up there. I didn’t want him to leave – I frankly would have preferred he take the lead TV play by play job here, but I can understand from Vic’s standpoint why he left here to go to northern New Jersey. He was sitting at the desk with Harold Reynolds, Barry Larkin, & Al Leiter. Harold I was glad to see again, as I always enjoyed him on Baseball Tonight. Particularly his sparring with John Kruk, so perhaps he can develope that same kind of rapport here with someone on MLBN. Assuming the duties we saw last night hold up, it appears Vic is the main “anchor” of the broadcast of the nightly news show.
The studio itself looked pretty good, although I do have one complaint. When they are showing a wide shot with all four guys in view, it was hard to see them. The screens behind them are fairly busy, and their heads got lost in the shot. When on a closeup of one guy this, was not an issue, but showing all four guys at once was hard to see any of them due to all the info that was going on behind them. Kind of like losing the ball in a bunch of white shirts. That’s kind of what I felt. But that was the only negative I had to say about it. Seemed pretty good, and most of the on air talent had little to nothing to do, but that was just the first hour. I’m sure things will change in a month when spring training gets going.
There’s a news scroll detailing current stories and events on the botom of the screen, much like is what is on ESPN’s channels. This is on all the time, so if you’re watching some of the older footage and non live programming hours, you can get updates there, too.
I watched most of the Don Larsen perfect game coverage. Was kind of cool to watch that. The game had a different feel back then. Really “feels” different with no camera behind the pitcher, and no closeups, and virtually zero graphics. On top of that, seeing the old commercials from 1956 was quite a blast, too. If you get a chance to watch this, it definitely shows you how different TV coverage is now.
I think it’s a great idea, and should garner a lot of eyeballs for baseball fans. Once all the kinks are ironed out. Apparently, the launch has had some technical problems getting going on some carriers. I’m not talking about carriers that aren’t carrying the channel (like Dish Network, although if you’re on satellite you should be with DirecTV anyway). But some carriers like Time Warner here in the Dallas area are having some issues. I can attest to this myself, as I’m having some problems with the channel. The short of it is I have two TiVo’s. One is an older Series 2 unit that uses a Motorola Cable box provided by TWC. The other is a TiVoHD unit that uses a M-type CableCARD. The Series 2 box can see the channel, but that’s because of the Motorola box. My TiVoHD cannot see it. I called TiVo today and spoke with them on the phone for roughly an hour trying to resolve the problem. After speaking with more than one tech there, they concluded the problem was with TWC, and filed an official report with them over the channel. So basically, I can see it on the old small TV in my bedroom, but not out in the living room on my big TV with all the fancy HD stuff. :) I did some research online and happened upon this article over at bizofbaseball.com. It details some problems other carriers are having. It appears there’s some techie stuff relating to TiVo units that use CableCARDS (that would be me and my TiVoHD), that prevents them from seeing the channel. Oh great.
At least I can see the channel on my old TV. It’s not optimal, but at least I can see it. Hopefully this gets straightened out in short order, as I really wanted this channel in my living room on my big TV. Of course there’s a separate issue of TWC Dallas not carrying the HD feed at all, but I’m trying not to get TOO worked up over this issue.
Anyone else in the Dallas area with a TiVoHD (or Series 3 or something like that) have the channel? Do you have a CableCARD?

I’ve been pretty busy dealing with various “real life” things the last few days, a kid who is sick, my own recovery, and a wife who is heavy into the 24 hour version of morning sickness. :) A few links that were sent my way I haven’t had a chance to point out, but I’ll do so now.
Sully Baseball
First up is from a blog called “Sully Baseball“. It’s named that because the guy who runs it is named Paul Sullivan. In his own words, here’s why this link is of interest to folks who frequent my site… “I’ve been comparing the all time homegrown roster versus the all time acquired roster for each team. I’ve done a bunch of them and I just finished one for the Rangers.“. The fellow is an admitted Red Sox fan with “Not a lot of knowledge of the Rangers”. He did however, put together a decent cross section of all time homegrown players for us.
Here’s his team for home grown Rangers:
C – Pudge
1B – Mike Hargrove
2B – Ian Kinsler
SS – Roy Smalley
3B – Dean Palmer
LF – Juan Gonzalez
CF – Oddibe McDowell
RF – Jeff Burroughs
DH – Ruben Sierra
SP – Kevin Brown
SP – Kenny Rogers
SP – Bobby Witt
SP – Rick Helling
SP – David Clyde
RP – Tom Henke
RP – Darren Oliver (Oliver was a starter with the Rangers, I thought)
RP – Danny Darwin
RP – Jeff Zimmerman
RP – Steve Foucalt
BENCH – Pete O’Brien
BENCH – Mark Teixeira
BENCH – Rusty Greer
BENCH – Tom Grieve
BENCH – Jim Sundberg
BENCH – Hank Blalock
The only major complaint I have is that Rusty Greer is not a starter. :) He also lists a starting lineup for imported players. What do you think of his choices?
Dallas Observer
The other link comes from the Dallas Observer. It’s entitled “A Wishlist for Jon Daniels“. He talks a lot about the details of what the team needs (it’s a pretty good summary), but does have a point by point list which I’ll get into.
Ben Sheets: They get so far as to say “don’t eff this up”. I agree, while not the sexiest signing, it could have a big benefit for us. His pitching coach is here, and Nolan Ryan is here. I think this can work, and think we should sign him. The fact that we have not so far tells me we’re playing games over money. We’ve lost a bunch of guys like that in the past, I hate playing the game of contract chicken.
Randy Johnson: I think this would be OK if we sign him, but I don’t think a ton would be different if he did not. As I’ve stated before, I’m indifferent towards him being here.
Ian Kinsler to LF: They say “Wise up and realize that Ian Kinsler sucks as a second baseman. Then, bite down hard and move him to left field.” I can’t agree with that. We have enough of an issue in the outfield without moving Kinsler there. His defensive numbers are better than his reptuation seem to make him out to be. Besides, if you move him to LF, then we need someone for 2B. I don’t think Young wants to go back there, and my gut says that Elvis isn’t ready. Plus we still need a full time 3B, I can’t see how this would work.
Byrd & Salty to Boston for Buckholz: I can’t see Boston moving Buckholz at all. This is s stupid idea on the grounds they won’t move Clay at all. The deal I’m OK with, but since Boston has stated “no way”, I think it’s silly to just pile on more players to get him.
Keep your options open: Ran out of ideas eh? This is such an open ended vague remark, that it tells me they ran out of ideas to put on the list. Every GM “keeps their options open”. Kind of a dumb remark, if you ask me.
While I like the free-form start of this article, the individual points aren’t things that will work, or are realistic for the most part. Still, you should definitely check this out if you have not.

Today the Mariners hired Rick Adair as their pitching coach. I don’t care.
I’m too pissed off at who they hired as their bullpen coach. John Wetteland. I’ve been saying for friggin YEARS since he retired he needs to be our bullpen coach. But no, we piss around and put other guys in there who didn’t really want to be there. Let him get away and get hired by Seattle.
Way to drop the ball on that one Rangers.

I’m trying to clean out a lot of crap from my office today. I’m going to lose this office to the pending baby my wife and I are having next summer. To that, I’m going to be periodically putting things up here that some Rangers fans might be interested in.
I found two new still in the box bobbleheads.
One is the 2005 American League Batting Champion version of a Michael Young bobblehead. Presumably from 2006.
Another is a Hank Blalock bobblehead – the bottom of the box says (c) 2008.
If you’re interested, make me an offer. I’m not looking to give them away for zero, just for something fair – you also pay for shipping (unless you’re local and want to pick ’em up). Drop me a line. Thanks.

I know this is a Rangers site, but I wanted to pass along that you can pre-order the World Series DVDs / Blu-Ray discs now through Amazon. :) If you don’t see the links, turn off your ad blockers for www.rangerfans.com. I don’t run ads here, so there’s no need to block me. :)

Here is a list of the extras that are going to be on the disc.

There goes Mark Cuban’s chance to buy the Cubs. The Wall Street Journal is saying he was charged with insider trading.