Baseball

Sometimes even a loss can be rewarding. South Africa may have been beaten last night by Mexico, 14-3, but they won respect as a group that is working hard to learn the game.

Team Mexico pounded out 16 hits and four home runs, two by Adrian Gonzalez, who had three hits and six RBI.

The other two Mexicans with homers, Oscar Robles and Jorge Cantu, also had three hits. Seven different pitchers were used by South Africa, one only 16 years old! They are young and they are hungry, but also inexperienced.

There's no doubt that we're all getting excited for the actual baseball season to get under way. Fantasy leagues are forming, box scores are being watched, and performances are being analyzed about every different way possible.

The problem in doing this work during the spring is that often times there is very little correlation between spring observations and regular season behavior. 

Ben Ice takes the crystal ball down from the shelf and dusts off new predictions for the upcoming fantasy season.

Three years ago marked the inception of the World Baseball Classic.

The concept was for teams around the world competing against each other for a few weeks in March, before the start of the regular season, to show who's really the best.

At first, the WBC was met with a lot of hostility.

In order for their to be enough teams playing, players with for example, Dominican heritage could play for the Dominican team even if they weren't born there.

Most people who have an inkling of baseball history think Albert Goodwill Spalding, the old New York Knickerbockers, and Branch Rickey must be rolling in their graves right now.

In the midst of an 1870s betting scandal, Henry Chadwick, one of baseball's great founding fathers, wrote that "baseball has fallen."

That was in the 1870s. It is now 2009. Baseball is still here.

I'm not sure anyone can accurately predict what the final legacy of steroids will be, but I am sure that baseball will survive.

From Mike Puma:

No game to talk about from yesterday, so just a few random topics for discussion.

First off, Rick Ankiel notched a 83.7 percent approval rating from 56 voters, sliding him right in between Mike Shannon and Tony La Russa. I gave him a 90 percent, because I've been a big fan of Rick's since his original time in the minors. 

In the opening game for Group B of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Cuba easily bested South Africa 8-1. Cuba’s 13-hit attack included six home runs, a new WBC single-game record.

But let’s not get carried away.

Yes, the Cubans are incredible athletes with a passion for baseball. Yes, they combine well-honed skills with fiery determination. They have always been an international force in baseball. They are certainly favored to win Group B and move on to the second round in San Diego.

In anticipation of the draft for The Hazean’s 2009 fantasy baseball challenge, I decided to dabble in some preseason projections.

The problem with that thought, though, is that I really do not spend as much time working on my fantasy baseball knowledge as I do football. So I brought in some fantasy baseball muscle to compile these projections.

With about four weeks left of Spring Training, I'll be previewing each MLB team, two at a time. Monday through Thursday I'll cover two teams per day, leading all the way up to the Phillies and Braves, a few days before Opening Night.

To kick it off, the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays and the San Diego Padres.

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Tampa Bay Rays – AL East