MLB

I might as well get this initial statement out of the way, first and foremost.

There is no greater sport than the game of baseball.

There, I said it. Not that I haven’t said it before, but I’ve typed out several different ways to start this out—and that seemed the best way to go about things.

It encompasses all my thoughts and feelings into 10 simple and glorious words.

There was a small slate of games, but plenty of stories worth watching.  Just look at the performance of Dontrelle Willis, for example.

Just when the Rangers thought they were in the clear after their manager, Ron Washington, apologized to fans and his players for testing positive for cocaine over the summer of 2009.

Well, today new news was leaked to the Dallas media that Washington used amphetamines and pot as his 10-year career as a player. The Fan, 105.3 FM in Dallas, reported that Washington had told a reporter of this but that the news wasn't ever supposed to be leaked.

Long have been the days of opening our ears to the orchestra of baseball that is Vin Scully.

With fantastic elaborations and a profound prospective of the game, Mr. Scully has surely etched his name in Dodgers lore. Broadcasters on a regular basis come across plain, and at times, disagreeable. When it comes to Vin Scully, he is as irregular as they come.

San Francisco should be a very fun and interesting team to watch this season, and should be able to possibly win the NL WIld Card.

But don't expect for the Giants to be able to win the NL West, because they won't be able to beat the Rockies. The Rockies are just to good.

San Francisco's success will be based on their pitching again, which is still very strong, and possibly even better than last year's pitching. The Giants have some of the best young players in baseball with Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval, along with other young studs on the team.

I hate drugs.

Plain and simple.

No ifs, ands, or buts.

However you want to say it, there are few things that are dumber to me than doing drugs.  There was a time when we didn’t know what some of the effects of certain drugs were, so I guess I can see why people did it; because it felt good, and they didn’t know it was bad.

David Aardsma of the Seattle Mariners will be this year's best closer. Seattle rebuilt itself this year by adding a defensive crew capitalized by Chone Figgins, and added Cliff Lee to make a solid one-two punch in its rotation.

Only one thing remains, a closer. Certainly with a team that many suspect to win the West and with two pitchers that will gain a pile of wins, saves would become a common feature in these low scoring games.

One of the biggest stories for the Atlanta Braves this spring has been the progression of top prospect Jason Heyward . Heyward's become a batting practice legend, shattering a car window and forcing the grounds crew to put a net up at the Braves' spring training home at Champion Stadium in Walt Disney World Resort. 

There are a number of other issues involving the Braves this season outside of their remarkable rookie.

The St. Louis Cardinals seem to be practicing the old fantasy baseball strategy of “Studs and Duds.”

In this strategy, a team uses a very large amount of its auction dollars on a few superstars and then fills in the rest of its lineup with a lot of $1 and $2 players.

The idea is that the studs will pile up enough quality stats to allow the duds to fill in a little and put your team over the top.

Unfortunately, this strategy rarely works, and it looks like it will only work in St. Louis this season due to such a weak division.

On the heels of demotions to minor league camp, the Dodgers are slimming their prospective pitchers for the major league roster.

After all the hype about the return of Eric Gagne, the rebounding pitcher was sent to minor league camp and accepted the assignment.

There is no doubt that Gagne would have been welcomed in Hollywood and given a hero's welcome jogging from the bullpen to the mound, but he has been less than impressive, and the team had to pull the string.