It's Not Baseball, It's a Celebrity Event

Dan chose to celebrate the greatest day in the baseball season by ....

A. Discussing the hope and joy that surrounds the return of baseball;

B. Outlining some of the great things to look forward to this season;

C. Rehashing the hype that surrounds a player who will not play today filled in with random observations and dated references.


While A and B would have been enjoyable to the reader, each would have required effort on Dan's part to craft an original and coherent column. Instead, Dan decided to write a piece on the obvious and, in an attempt to make it relevant to the day, added some throwaway material.

Once again, Dan tells us Daisuke Matsuzaka is a big deal. Once again, I feel the need to tell Dan that his readers get it. Pretty much half the column rehashes the posting fee, the number of Japanese reporters, and fans coming to see him. And if this column doesn't sate your appetite for the obvious, just wait until Wednesday when we get to do it all over again.

Of course this cow quit on Dan and he needed something else to fill the minimum page count. Let the dated and tired references fly! "The Red Sox are the baseball Beatles. They are Elvis.; "the Sons of Terry Francona, "it probably won't be long before there's a new Dice-K dance craze on par with the Twist of the 1960s and the Macarena of the 1990s. How long before everybody's doing the Gyro?"

Dan avoids it long enough, but at the end of the column he realizes that he has to tie all this all in to the day. He gives us about 100 words on the upcoming season. And he isn't telling you anything a bright twelve-year who follows the team doesn't already know. Glad to know that those weeks in Spring Training weren't wasted.

Note
After Dan described Schilling's blog as a sycophantic wasteland filled with losers last week, Dan writes that it is "exhaustive" and states that Schilling's reputation "needs no embellishment here." Very cute, Dan.

Pedroia Watch
Dustin Pedroia is a suspect/prospect

Don't wait on Dan telling us why this is so, or why Pedroia is different than any of the other prospects who break in every year. I suspect Dan's reasons have more to do with the front office liking Pedroia than anything on the field.