Some of you may have heard about the two Indian pitchers who were signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates. What you may not realize is exactly what they went through to get there.

This makes me curious to see how the sport carries over in India and abroad. For the most part, the sport is only on the radar in the western hemisphere. In any case, it’s a good story and I wish these two guys the best.

This is an installment that I’m starting simply because I love baseball. As many of you know, I grew up in the baseball rich state of Florida. Currently, I’m on something of a high by how the sport has done within the Sunshine State this year. In these installments, I’ll cover every level of baseball, in particular, the Tampa Bay Rays, Florida Gators, and Pensacola Pelicans

The Tampa Bay Rays finished off a home stand against the New York Yankees this week, taking three out of four. The pitching, as it’s been throughout the year, was solid against New York, only allowing six runs in four games. The pitching has been the major difference in the Rays’ season, so far. I would tell people over the last few years, having watched this team mature, if they got any kind of consistent pitching, they’d win.

This Rays squad, over the last three years, has always had the ability to hit and I noticed they never seemed to give up, despite losing 90+ games. When the Rays spent the winter getting pitching over everything else, I started to get the feeling they weren’t far off. I honestly didn’t think it would be this soon, but I’m glad it was. Hopefully they can keep it up.

The Rays then started their inter-league portion of the season with a three game set in St. Louis. Pitching was again the story on Friday night, allowing only one run. However, Saturday afternoon’s game turned into a slugfest with the Cardinals taking the game in extras. The Cards would then take Sunday’s game, walking off again in the bottom of the 9th, ending the Rays week at 4-3 dropping them a half game behind Boston for the AL East lead.

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The Florida Gators went 4-0 during the week, which included a three game sweep of 13th ranked Vanderbilt in Gainesville. With the wins over Vandy, the Gators not only sealed up a spot in the SEC Tournament next week in Hover, ALA, but they earned the third seed in the tourney. Ironically, Florida will face Vanderbilt in the first round on Wednesday.

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I got a special treat this week as the Pensacola Pelicans made their first ever trip into Lincoln this week to face the Saltdogs. I was giddy to see the Pels play, until they got down 8-0. But still, it felt good to get a taste of home in my home away from home. The entire night I marveled at the uniforms, the aqua “Pensacola” script on the navy blue jerseys, which in my opinion makes them look like a team from the Gulf Coast. I have photos from Friday nights game on Flickr.

Still, after a 3-1 start in Pensacola last week (against the Saltdogs nonetheless), the Pels dropped two of three in Sioux Falls and got swept in Lincoln for a pretty dismal week. The Pels return home on Monday to face the Shreveport Sports in a four game set before ending the week with a three game set against El Paso. Monday night is Mutt Monday, where fans can bring their fluffy best friend to the ballpark, so hopefully it doesn’t rain.

I ran across this article in today’s Pensacola News Journal:

It’s been the toughest five years of Tim Spooneybarger’s baseball life.

Now there is a happy ending in sight.

Battling back from two Tommy John elbow surgeries and countless sessions of intense physical therapy, Spooneybarger, a 28-year-old relief pitcher and Pensacola native, signed a one-year contract with the Baltimore Orioles Monday.

“Oh, man, I’m thrilled to death,” Spooneybarger said. “I’ve just been throwing, getting back into it, just waiting until the time was right. Now that it’s finally happened, I can’t believe that I’m sitting here. I’m back doing it again. I’m excited as can be.”

Drafted in the 29th round of the 1998 MLB Draft, the former Pine Forest standout broke into the major leagues in 2001 as a relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves and started his promising career with the Braves (2001-02) and Florida Marlins (2003).

Everything changed in June of 2003 when Spooneybarger was sidelined with what was thought to be a minor elbow injury. It proved to be the first of two reconstructive elbow surgeries — he re-injured his throwing elbow in 2005 — and he hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since.

Spooneybarger left Pensacola for Sarasota Monday morning and will participate in the Orioles’ extended spring training. He will get game action moving up through Baltimore’s minor league system and hopes for a return to the major league club by the All Star Break in July.

Spooneybarger was a classmate of mine at Bellview Middle School up to 1994. I remember watching a Braves game one night and suddenly there’s this pitcher warming up for the Braves, who just happened to be from Pensacola. So, I looked him up and sure enough, there he is in my class. Glad to see he hasn’t given up on his dream and hopefully he makes it back.

While at work on Wednesday, I was offered Nebraska baseball tickets for Friday’s game vs. Kansas, by my store’s back room manager Randy. I’ve told him in the past that anytime he had to give them up, I’d be interested. At $10 a ticket, I can go with that.

At the time of buying these tickets it was supposed to be about 65 and sunny. Then this low pressure system that came through on Thursday decided it liked the Midwest and hung around for another day. So, upon starting the game at 6:40 pm on Friday night, it’s 45 degrees with winds out of the north at about 25 mph with dark grey skies. Even though it had stopped raining about four hours earlier, the air still felt damp. Not exactly baseball weather, unless it’s April in Seattle and you’re taking in a game at Safeco Field. I thought with how the stadium was positioned, we’d get a break from the wind. But, of course, it found a way to swirl it’s way around from several directions, as if to make sure every inch of us was cold.

Oh yeah, Pensacola was in the 70’s.

As for the baseball, the normally reliable Johnny Dorn, Nebraska’s starting pitcher, seemed to have two Kansas baserunners or more on in just about every inning. Nebraska, however, seemed to rally and get back into the game, eventually pulling out a win. Unfortunately, I only saw the first six innings due to time constraints (mom had to go to work) and, oh yeah, it was COLD!!! She actually went to the car about two inning ahead of me.

But I did take advantage of one thing I wanted to do, and that was take pictures of the very nice Haymarket Park, the home of Nebraska baseball and the Lincoln Saltdogs. Those photos are on my Flickr now.

I’ll be back to Haymarket Park next month as my hometown Pensacola Pelicans make their first trip into Lincoln. If you happen to be attending that series and wonder why there’s one completely insane Pelicans fan in the crowd, you now know why. For the third year in a row, the Pels will host the Dogs in Pensacola to open the season. It’s about time the Pels made a trip up here.

Take care folks.

Chalk this man up as having the world’s largest grapefruits.

Construction worker, Gino Castignoli, took his one day to work on the new Yankees Stadium as a chance to bury a Boston Red Sox jersey within the stadium floor, in hopes of jinxing the building. Castignoli, a Sox fan since 1975, was born and raised in the Bronx, the epicenter of the Evil Empire itself. That alone takes some guts.

Oh, but this gets better.

Yankees President Randy Levine said team officials at first considered leaving the shirt where it was.

“The first thought was, you know, it’s never a good thing to be buried in cement when you’re in New York,” Levine said. “But then we decided, why reward somebody who had really bad motives and was trying to do a really bad thing?”

Then comes Yankees Executive VP, Hank Steinbrenner’s quote.

“I hope his coworkers kick the [crap] out of him”, Steinbrenner said according to the New York Post.

Said Castignoli in response, “Tell Hank he can come meet me if he wants to try – and tell him to bring [catcher Jorge] Posada, because he’s the one Yankee I can’t stand”.

Apparently, the Yankees might be considering taking legal action on the matter. “We will take appropriate action since fortunately we do know the name of the individual”, said Yankees CEO Lonn Trost. A spokesman for Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said Sunday he did not know whether any criminal charges might apply.

However, the Yankees will be showing at least a little class with this matter. The team plans on donating the jersey to the Jimmy Fund, a Red Sox based charity that funds cancer research, for auction.

Makes me wish I had the balls and opportunity to do something like this. I’d love nothing more than to jinx the new New York Mets stadium that’s being built at this moment.

Gotta love rivalries.

Found these photos of the first Braves game I attended in 1990 in Atlanta. I remember three things about that day; the look of the field as I came through the tunnel, Will Clark of the San Francisco Giants fouling a ball behind my head that landed about five rows back, and the Braves lost (it was 1990 after all).

I’m hoping to see the Braves next month for the first time since 1993.

View the photo set here.

I decided to scan some old photos so that I’d have a digital copy of each and ran across my set from Kansas City, when Hall of Famer Cal Ripken made his last trip into town with the Orioles in 2001. I was lucky enough to see Cal hit a homerun that night, one of only a few times I cheered an opposing player in Kauffman Stadium. The photos are a bit fuzzy, mainly because I shot these with a disposable camera.

I’ve posted these photos on my .Mac web gallery, and you can view them here.

Speaking of the Royals, congrats to them for sweeping the AL Central division favorite Detroit Tigers. I don’t care if it’s April, that’s impressive.

I decided to scan some old photos so that I’d have a digital copy of each and ran across my set from Kansas City, when Hall of Famer Cal Ripken made his last trip into town with the Orioles in 2001. I was lucky enough to see Cal hit a homerun that night, one of only a few times I cheered an opposing player in Kauffman Stadium. The photos are a bit fuzzy, mainly because I shot these with a disposable camera.

I’ve posted these photos on my .Mac web gallery, and you can view them here.

Speaking of the Royals, congrats to them for sweeping the AL Central division favorite Detroit Tigers. I don’t care if it’s April, that’s impressive.

To my surprise last week, the Braves are playing tonight versus the Washington Nationals, instead of with everyone else on Monday. Seems that the Nats are opening up a new stadium and decided to invite the Braves to the party, complete with President Bush, cherry blossoms, and everything else DC has to offer. Guess that’s a little fitting since Ted Turner once tried to market the Braves as “America’s Team”, never mind they were in last place for a lot of that campaign.

Those were the days of Dale Murphy (my first favorite player), Dwight Evans, and Bert Blyleven. Those were the days when tradition went before marketing. Unfortunately, for the Braves players and staff, tonight is about marketing. See, the catch is, the next game in this series doesn’t occur until April 11. Huh? Yeah, the Braves have their own home opener tomorrow night against Pittsburgh. So, the Braves are only playing tonight to open up a damn stadium. Any reason this couldn’t wait until tomorrow? The new Busch Stadium didn’t have it’s opener until April 10 in 2006. I’m sure they could of waited in DC.

And don’t get me going on the whole let’s-play-two-in-Japan thing. I’m sure Oakland A’s fans really appreciated opening their season overseas where the games came on at about 3 am local time.

Back to the Braves, I’m hearing a lot of good about them this year, which is good because I really gotten used to them being good. Their lineup is expected to have a lot of pop with Brian McCann (my new favorite player), Chipper Jones, Mark Teixeira, and Jeff Francoeur. On the pitching side, Tom Glavine is back after a stay with the dark side, aka the Mets. If the pitching holds up and stays healthy, because these guys are a bit old by athlete standards, this could be a team that could even win the division (and piss off the rest of the NL East for the 15 time in 18 years). It’s going to be weird not seeing Andrew Jones (my old favorite player) not roaming centerfield as he’s now with the Dodgers, but hey, life goes on.

But as for tonight, hopefully the Braves will be rude guests and crash this house warming. Go Braves!

Update: Ryan Zimmerman just hit a walk-off home run to end the game 3-2 for the Nats. That sucked! Home opener for the Braves tomorrow night.

Another note, the Braves were apparently surprised by some new alternate road jerseys tonight. These things are so new, they’re not even available to buy yet. I’m kind of mixed on them, mainly with the numbers on the back being the same dark blue as the jerseys with only a white border to differentiate. See the new blues below.

One more note, it appears ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark has picked the Braves to win the World Series this year. Here’s a quote from the article that keeps in the spirit of tonight’s Braves/Nats matchup:

“I don’t think anybody should be looking forward to going into Atlanta this year and facing [Tim] Hudson, Smoltz and Glavine,” said Nationals manager Manny Acta. “And [Mike] Hampton, too. That’s a bunch of tough hombres to go up against. And as long as Bobby Cox is over there, I don’t think anybody should overlook that team.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

To my surprise last week, the Braves are playing tonight versus the Washington Nationals, instead of with everyone else on Monday. Seems that the Nats are opening up a new stadium and decided to invite the Braves to the party, complete with President Bush, cherry blossoms, and everything else DC has to offer. Guess that’s a little fitting since Ted Turner once tried to market the Braves as “America’s Team”, never mind they were in last place for a lot of that campaign.

Those were the days of Dale Murphy (my first favorite player), Dwight Evans, and Bert Blyleven. Those were the days when tradition went before marketing. Unfortunately, for the Braves players and staff, tonight is about marketing. See, the catch is, the next game in this series doesn’t occur until April 11. Huh? Yeah, the Braves have their own home opener tomorrow night against Pittsburgh. So, the Braves are only playing tonight to open up a damn stadium. Any reason this couldn’t wait until tomorrow? The new Busch Stadium didn’t have it’s opener until April 10 in 2006. I’m sure they could of waited in DC.

And don’t get me going on the whole let’s-play-two-in-Japan thing. I’m sure Oakland A’s fans really appreciated opening their season overseas where the games came on at about 3 am local time.

Back to the Braves, I’m hearing a lot of good about them this year, which is good because I really gotten used to them being good. Their lineup is expected to have a lot of pop with Brian McCann (my new favorite player), Chipper Jones, Mark Teixeira, and Jeff Francoeur. On the pitching side, Tom Glavine is back after a stay with the dark side, aka the Mets. If the pitching holds up and stays healthy, because these guys are a bit old by athlete standards, this could be a team that could even win the division (and piss off the rest of the NL East for the 15 time in 18 years). It’s going to be weird not seeing Andrew Jones (my old favorite player) not roaming centerfield as he’s now with the Dodgers, but hey, life goes on.

But as for tonight, hopefully the Braves will be rude guests and crash this house warming. Go Braves!

Update: Ryan Zimmerman just hit a walk-off home run to end the game 3-2 for the Nats. That sucked! Home opener for the Braves tomorrow night.

Another note, the Braves were apparently surprised by some new alternate road jerseys tonight. These things are so new, they’re not even available to buy yet. I’m kind of mixed on them, mainly with the numbers on the back being the same dark blue as the jerseys with only a white border to differentiate. See the new blues below.

One more note, it appears ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark has picked the Braves to win the World Series this year. Here’s a quote from the article that keeps in the spirit of tonight’s Braves/Nats matchup:

“I don’t think anybody should be looking forward to going into Atlanta this year and facing [Tim] Hudson, Smoltz and Glavine,” said Nationals manager Manny Acta. “And [Mike] Hampton, too. That’s a bunch of tough hombres to go up against. And as long as Bobby Cox is over there, I don’t think anybody should overlook that team.”

You can read the rest of the article here.