I got the fever bad. Here are John Sickels Top 10 Prospects for baseball in 2005 (actually 20, it turns out). Note young Tribe phenom Adam Miller ranked #2 among pitchers.
And yes, I do spend time on sports sites other than ESPN.com, it just doesn't seem like it sometimes. Like now. Here's Jayson Stark's compendium of Useless Information. Here's more of the same.
Over at Off Wing Opinion, Eric McErlain has a good roundup of news and comment on the Washington Nationals. That's right, get used to it. The Washington Nationals. At least we no longer have a baseball team named after a world's fair that happened 38 years ago. By the way, Eric has a nice selection of baseball blogs on his blogroll if you're as hungry for baseball talk as I am.
Posted by dan at February 2, 2005 12:02 AM | TrackBackAs boring and unimaginative as the Nats' logo is, it was certainly refreshing to see a "new" baseball team refrain from using teal or purple in their color scheme.
Now if they could just manage to sell the team so they can get rid of MLB's 50 million dollar salary cap, we might have something down here. Those Esteban Loaiza jerseys aren't exactly flying off the shelves.
Al
Posted by: Al at February 2, 2005 07:29 AMMark Shapiro would love to have a $50 million salary cap. That's about $5 million more than he'll be allowed to spend in '05.
Posted by: dan at February 2, 2005 10:00 AMThe difference is that the Tribe can afford to spend small and watch their rich farm system grow up for at least one more year. The Spos/Nats have done a very poor job in the fire sale department the last few years, letting Javier Vazquez, Vlad and others walk with little or no compensation. Plus the lineup they inherited from Montreal was pretty awful. They had a chance with a decent ownership group of landing a big name like Randy Johnson, but MLB is dragging their heels on the sale trying to milk every dollar possible. Hopefully the honeymoon will last until the stadium, ownership and lineup issues are settled.
Posted by: Al at February 2, 2005 01:50 PMNot sure if you're into reading sports blogs, but I discovered this blog, which in turn links to all the major Nationals blogs. Thought it might be of interest:
Nationals Pastime
Lots of cool pun titles like "Nationals Inquirer", "Nationals Review". We think WE'RE starved for baseball after just one winter. People in your area seem to be going nuts over this team.
Posted by: dan at February 2, 2005 02:50 PMI was going to say it'd be like if the Browns left for 30 years instead of three, but it's totally dissimilar. DC fans have never had that much passion for baseball.
I read an interesting article (sorry I can't remember where) about the Senators' last game. They were leading the Yankees in the late innings, which was a monumental accomplishment in those days. The fans stormed the field looking for souvenirs and the umps had to forfeit the game to the Yankees. Like they need any free ones, right? It gave me flashbacks of rows of seats being ripped out at Muni in '95.
Thanks for the link. I only have a passing interest in the Nats, much as I did with the Padres. I think I'm more interested in them as a baseball history buff than as a DC area resident. Mostly I'm just glad I don't have to drive all the way to Crackmore to see a ballgame anymore.
Al
Posted by: Al at February 4, 2005 07:37 AM