Spring Training Baseball

[TheFugitive]

Spring training games in Florida and Arizona have begun.

Unlike in the past, most if not all of these games are now broadcast somewhere
on radio, TV, or online.  I listened to the Pittsburgh Pirates taking on the Yankees
in Bradenton the other day.  These early Spring games are filled with players from
the low minors who have no shot of making the big club.  Generally by the fifth
inning the manager has pulled any player you've ever heard of, and these guys
from A-ball get their moment in the sun.

In this game, when all of the minor leaguers took the field, the Pirates had
a Kramer and a Newman on the field at the same time.  This caused play-by-play
announcer Joe Block to launch into two innings worth of lame Seinfeld jokes.

Later a shortstop who has been a career .209 hitter over seven years in the minors
hit an inside-the-park home run, driving it off the center field wall 420 feet away.
Color guy Bob Walk was incredulous.

These games can be fun to listen to.