An Ode to Spring Training

[Sanfran327]

Even though he writes mostly fluff for ESPN (I guess that doesn't really remove him from the pack), I like the way Tim Kurkjian talks about baseball. Articles and stories like these are why it's the best game on the planet. My favorite anecdote:

It is a time to meet and bond with new teammates. In spring training 1999, Rickey Henderson of the Mets was reunited with first baseman John Olerud, who had been his teammate with the Blue Jays six years earlier. As most people know, Olerud had an aneurysm in college, which required brain surgery. So to protect his head, he was allowed to wear a helmet in the field. As the story goes, Henderson was talking to Olerud one day, noticed the helmet and said "You know, when I played in Toronto, we had a guy who wore a helmet."

"Rickey," said Olerud, "that was me."

Now THAT's funny! If that's not Rickey Henderson in a nutshell, I don't know what is.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8931860/why-love-spring-training

[Don Quixote]

Heh, good stuff.

[Frobby]

Only in spring training could Jeff Stone get thrown out at all four bases in one game -- and only one of them was a force out (think about that).

Uh, as I remember Jeff Stone, that could have happened in just about any game.

[Sanfran327]

Uh, as I remember Jeff Stone, that could have happened in just about any game.

That's a pretty monumentally awful feat though. However, I bet it's still not worse than the time I got picked off at SECOND BASE twice in one game. Yeah, you read that correctly. LOL