As I’ve been offline sick for a bit, I was playing catch up this afternoon with my reading.
Read this post on USS Mariner where they slagged off the Michael Young contract extension, saying stuff like this:
…. defense has already degraded to the point that he shouldn’t be playing shortstop
Adam Morris’ response over at lonestarball.com was pretty well constructed, you should read it. It’s much better than my response, which would have simply been this:

But that’s the Philly boy in me, I guess. ;)

Here is an interesting article I picked up while reading USS Mariner this morning. It’s about how this guy is convinced Francisco Rodriguez was doctoring the ball during opening night.
Anyone else think this? I didn’t see it, personally. But it would give me another reason to not like him – His “K-Rod” is fingernails on a chalkboard for me. A-Rod is the only one that can get away with that, IMO. And don’t even get me started on “I-Rod” for Pudge. Gaaaaaa!

If you listen to Rangers games live in the park, then you’ll want to read this story.
Do you recall that late last season there was a 7 second delay instituted during Rangers radio coverage? If you listened to a game in the park it was fairly annoying. Outside of the park, not so much so, but the die hards who listen while they’re at the game (myself included) got pretty peeved at that. I recall Eric or Victor saying at the time it would be something that was looked at during the off season.
So a couple of days ago I got an email on my site from a visitor by the name of Elaine. She wrote me, asking this:

Say, Joe — do you know anything about the radio time delay broadcast that they had at the end of last year ???? Are they going to be able to do away with it ??? I take my “ears” with me to the game and listen to the broadcasters while watching the game and it is VERY VERY irritating with the delay

I replied back saying that I did not know the answer to the question. I honestly hadn’t thought about it since the season ended. But I decided to go to a good source I figured; I wrote Victor Rojas about it. Passed on Elaine’s question, and he wrote me back with this:

joe, you might have to call krld on this one to get the full explanation…but as far i know, we were told that all cbs radio affiliates will institute a delay on all broadcasts. cbs is concerned with getting fined by the fcc if something inappropriate goes out over the air.

Great. So it’s going to still be there, and it also seems like it’s not going anywhere either. Thanks CBS – you’re running scared of Janet Jackson’s boob again, I see. Sigh. This will suck while listening in the park.
UPDATE Apr 3: Turns out we’re not the only ones with this problem. A’s fans are up in arms about it as well, check out this post over at Athletics Nation about it.
I did call Chuck Morgan about it, as the last time I talked to him he mentioned the possibility of the Rangers broadcasting a live feed inside the stadium. He told me that won’t be happening, but did mention that the delay has been shortened to just two seconds for 2007. That’s not perfect, but two seconds shouldn’t be that bad. We’ll find out on Friday when I’ll be at opening day listening on my radio.

Check this video out of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory throwing out the first pitch at yesterday’s Reds’ home opener.

I’ve got all the roster pages for the starting 25 set up. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with that as the season goes along. :) Less than six hours to go now!
In other site news, I’ve decided to remove the advertising banners from the site. The amount of money I was making from them was so small, it wasn’t even funny – on the order of less than $10 a month. I think I can live without that big loss here.

Forgot to post these over here. I put these pics up on a Picasa Web Gallery of mine, thought I’d mention them over here. These are pictures from four days at Spring Training. It’s quite different in Philly, as they don’t train where they play, so at game time, they show up like any other. It’s ot like in Surprise where you can get an idea where all the activities take place.

Phillies Spring Training 1

Phillies Spring Training 2

Phillies Spring Training 3

Phillies Spring Training 4

ESPN’s 2007 Season Preview for the Rangers is online here. As Adam over at Lone Star Ball said, it’s got some amusing things in it.

Rangers fans are already tired of Kameron Loe, Bruce Chen and Jamey Wright;

Well, readers of my site know I feel about Jamey Wright, and I’m no fan of Bruce Chen, either. But I’d like to know what fans they’re talking about with Kameron Loe. It’s certainly no actual fans who follow the Rangers. Now I know national writers take a different slant, and local fans have a touch of the “homer vote” in them, but that remark seems a bit out of line. I mean really, the fans are already tired? How does he figure that? I mean, honestly.

Everything’s bigger in Texas (except for baseball’s third-smallest ticket prices),

Darnit – don’t tell Hicks that, please. We’ll be hearing about how the $75 seat in the lower bowl is a bargain price. Yeesh! All of their writers weigh in on where they think the Rangers will finish. None of them pick the Rangers as first or second. They’re all third or fourth, and only two of them (Gammons at 81, and Neyer at 80) have them winning 80 or more. The low guy (Olney) has ’em at 70-92. I don’t think so.
I don’t think we’re winning 95 games here, my personal feeling is 87-88 wins, and second place, probably NOT a wild card.

Just saw this news story over on one of my tech sites I visit regularly.

Apple has signed a deal with Major League Baseball to bring sports highlights to its iTunes Store for $1.99 USD. The content includes a “MLB.com Daily Rewind” highlight show, as well as two weekly “Game of the Week” full-length games.
To help promote its new downloads, MLB is offering a free “2007 Season Preview Show” to all iTunes users. An iTunes “Season Pass” for the highlight show will cost $7.99 USD, and run $19.99 USD for all full games. Apple TV owners will also be able to stream the highlights and games directly to the television for viewing in the living room.

I use iTunes all the time, so I am downloading their free season preview episode as I speak. I’m not entirely sure if I’d want to pay money for highlights. That’s what Baseball Tonight is for. However, if you’re an iTunes fan, you might want to check out their preview – it’s free for everyone. If you have iTunes on your computer, click this to be taken directly to the preview in their online store.

Something I used to have on the website ages and ages ago has returned. I put a poll script on my site. If you’re reading via an RSS feed, or are on one of those sites that swipes other folks’ content to generate their own, please visit my site and vote on the poll. The first one is about Sammy Sosa and home runs in 2007.
Thanks.

I had a great time in Florida, got to see a lot of Phillies baseball. I tried to tour the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ stadium, as it was like 10 minutes from where I was staying. However, they’re installing several new video boards in there now, and they had the place closed off for tours. Darnit.
Lots has happened while I was away, I’ll get caught up before the season starts Sunday night, although right now I don’t know when that will be. :)