Friday Timewaster: Spring Training and Snuggies

I'm looking forward to today's sporting festivities. Of course, I'm usually somewhat optimistic at this time of day, before minor annoyances and petty grievances have conspired to alter my mood.


Let's see, the first broadcast from Spring Training is in  . . . . 

and the world record for Snuggie-wearing will be attempted in . . .


Well, I don't have a snazzy countdown clock for that, but the Cavs people should have put one on the site. Instead, you'll have to look at this:

Oh my.




On the plus side, I'm choosing to believe the AP reports that Z will re-sign with the Cavs in a few weeks. Yay! This being Cleveland, though, I'm sure the universe will conspire against me somehow. ¹
 


Things are looking up, though: The snow is melting and the sun has made an appearance. Maybe this will be the Tribe's year. . . .    




Don't laugh!  I just finished listening to a collection of short stories and poems about baseball (titled, imaginatively, Baseball!), so I am almost as pumped for the first game as if I had just watched all three Major Leagues.² 

Acclaimed actors from stage and screen perform tales from the baseball diamond in this newest, three-CD collection of stories from Selected Shorts. Both classic and contemporary works are featured, including a heartwarming piece on some fan habits during a players' strike, by W.P. Kinsella, and a sidesplitting account from T. Coraghessan Boyle of the longest game ever. Many of the readings were recorded during a historic broadcast of the show hosted by the late, beloved baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. From the first pitch to the final out, these short stories are a lively listening experience.

¹ I read this on Joe Posnanski's blog the other day, and loved it:

Cleveland is Cleveland. Cleveland is ethnic and sarcastic and covered in snow. Cleveland is optimistically pessimistic (or pessimistically optimistic) and bigger than you think and smaller than it used to be. Cleveland has a great symphony, a great art museum, a great playhouse and the vast majority of people in town (including me) would rather watch the Browns. Cleveland has potholes and abandoned buildings and has not won a championship since 1964. Cleveland has brick houses and close-knit neighborhoods and a lot of ice cream shops. The sky is often gray.

— Snuggies on Parade

The whole essay is great and I highly recommend reading all of it, but this snippet with the optimistically pessimistic/pessimistically optimistic struck a chord with me, especially at the start of the season when hope springs eternal. 






² Or just the first one, three times.