This must be love, fits like a glove.  Well it must be love, it must be love – fits like a glove – fits like a glove.  -Kiss

Shhhhh.  It’s around the corner.  Baseball’s around the corner.  Smell it?  Hooray baseball!  I love baseball.  I’m Like Carl Yastrzemski:  “I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning.   I think about it all day and I dream about it at night.  The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m playing it.”  And considering I don’t play much of it anymore, I’m thinking about it all the time.  Today I’m thinking about the best defensive players in the game today.  What’s glove got to do with it, got to do with it?  Everything.  Always has.  Always will. Read More »

Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers?  Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those eyes?  Oh those weepers, how they hypnotize!  Where’d you get those eyes?  -Louis Armstrong

Public Service Announcement:  Ok, here we go!  When Daric Barton arrived in Oakland along with Dan Haren as part of the Mark Mulder deal, he was your prototypical Money Ball type player.  He displayed a plate approach well beyond his years.  He established himself as an on-base fiend.  He maintained a textbook swing.  A beautiful swing.  A Will Clark swing.  It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing.  Even with that swing, Barton has still not been able to stay up with the big team for any meaningful amounts of at bats.  When he was given a chance, back in 2008, he struggled with a .226 batting average and a .327 OBP.  What gives?  Is it the shoes?  Nope.  Daric Barton was lost but now is found.  He was blind, but now he sees.        Read More »