Spring Training

Today I took myself to watch my first spring training practice of the year. I've been slightly down on baseball lately, and my team in particular. The problem is the business (i.e. money) part of the game. Two of my favorite players from last year's Diamondbacks, Randy Johnson and Orlando Hudson, didn't re-sign with the team because of money. I do understand that, even though I don't like it. But what makes it extra hard to take is that both players signed with other teams in the same division as the D'backs. Talk about adding insult to injury! It's going to take me a while to get over it.

All that aside, today was an absolutely perfect day to be watching (or playing) baseball. The sun was shining, and while I was watching, the temperature was probably between 65 and 72. It was great to watch players working on fundamentals like fielding, baserunning, and bunting. Batting practice was the most boring part of the day, in my opinion. The D'backs have some great coaches and former players, and it was fun to watch people like Jay Bell, Matt Williams, Chip Hale, Brett Butler, and Kirk Gibson in action. There's definitely a different (nicer) feel to spring training as opposed to the regular season. Ahhh... baseball in Tucson... Life is good.

Newspapers

We've been hearing for some time that print newspapers are becoming extinct. I grew up reading and enjoying the Seattle Times. When I moved to Tucson, I subscribed to the morning paper, the Arizona Daily Star, but soon became annoyed because it wasn't delivered to me by the time I left for work in the morning. So I switched to the evening Tucson Citizen, so that I could have "fresher" news when I got home from work. In recent years, especially when I was working, I never seemed to find time to read the paper, except on Sundays, but it's still nice to have a paper you can sit down & read when you want to. Mr. Beisbolfan is a great newspaper reader. On vacations, we enjoy the Rocky Mountain News while we're in Colorado, and the Times Picayune in New Orleans.

But now newspaper obsolescence has really hit home. The Tucson Citizen has announced that they will cease publication on March 21, unless they find a buyer (highly unlikely). In the same sad boat are the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Rocky Mountain News. The fact that we'd been told this day was coming doesn't make it any easier to take. I know I'm part of the problem, because I'm more likely to get my news from the Internet than any other source, but still, I want to have it both ways.