Life Happens

In the months since my last post, life took some interesting turns that kept me away longer than I would have liked. The lure and love of blogging and baseball took a backseat to the everyday. But just like baseball (and Backstreet), I'm BACK!

Obviously, notable things have happened since November:

• We wished Marcum well on his way to the Brew Crew,
• Everyone's favourite Garfoose became a Ray,
• We signed Bautista for the next few years, and
• We bid fareWells to the longest tenured Jay.

I'll admit I was a little surprised with the Marcum deal, but not the saddest to see him go. I did enjoy his pitching skills and I think he was a really good testament to not having to overpower hitters, but there was always something that didn't seem to quite fit for me, something that rubbed me the wrong way about his attitude towards the atmosphere after Doc left. I don't know. But still, I wish him well and am excited to have a high ranking prospect in the Jays system who's (possibly) being groomed for 3rd and, oh yeah, is CANADIAN!

Dirk Hayhurst will always be a favourite for me. The window he offers into the world of baseball is an incredible peek for those of us on the outside. Plus, I just happen to think he's a damn good writer. If you don't already, make a point to read his blog. Good luck with the Rays Mr. Hayhurst. Hope to see you in Toronto again someday.

As for the Bautista deal, it's been oddly comical to me hearing and reading comments about how he's being overpaid. I do get the argument because it's true he's only had one massive year and that most of the totals he produced last year blow any previous combined totals out of the water. It's a gamble, but pretty much any contract offered and signed nowadays in baseball (and most professional sports) is. You're basing a contract on past performance with no guarantee for that same perfomance to occur again. Sure, you can look at the historical data, the work ethic of the player in question, service time, and whatever else you want to use to create a deal. But in the end, it's a crapshoot.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the deal. When the amounts and terms were just rumors, I was fondly reminiscing about when King Carlos signed his (then) massive contract of $68M over 4 years in 2000 and how much people thought he was being overpaid. At the time it made him the highest paid player. Wow how contracts have changed in a decade...

If feels like AA is trying to build a team where they look at the player as a whole person, not just a number. I like that. I think it's important to get players that fans can invest in and get to know, and part of that is signing guys that are more that just number producers. It's part of the reason I loved the Winter Tour 2011. Watching the video footage, it was awesome to see fans (mostly young kids) across Canada coming out and getting to interact with the players they see on TV. It makes it more personal when you watch them play in a game. It makes the Jays and baseball more personal. And baseball being more personal with the youth of Canada is awesome in my book.

The actual mechanics of the Wells deal are still...surprising to me and AA deserves another round of applause for his creative style towards trades and team building. I am sad to see VDub go. Not in the same way as Doc last year, but it is hard to fathom that in the past two off-seasons we have lost 2 of the longest tenured Blue Jays. I wish Vernon all the best, I really do. I think a lot of times fans didn't always get him or appreciate his consistency away from the plate. He made covering CF at the Dome look easy. Frighteningly easy sometimes. I've written before about how I feel about Wells. I honestly think fans won't realise the place he held in this organization until the season is underway. That's not to say the Jays won't go on without him, but he was so much more than just our CFer or cleanup guy. And for that, he will always be one of top 3 favourite people who just happen to play baseball. I'll stand and cheer (or watch and cheer) when he comes back to TO and I hope Jays fans will join me.

Pitching is an interesting area this spring so far. Lots of competition goin' on in the bullpen and a little for the back end of the starting rotation. I hope RickyRo gets the season opener start. If you haven't checked ou his Nike commercial yet, get your butt to youtube. Same goes for the segment ESPN did with Ricky during an off-season workout. The link is on Ricky's twitter (@RickyRo24) or his official Facebook page.

I hope everyone is as excited for Grapefruit League games as I am and for the regular season. I'll be posting a little more often now, and I'm still going to posting about baseball books I've been reading this off-season. Former Commissioner Giamatti's collection of essay and The Mental ABC's of Pitching will be up in the next couple of days I promise. Also going to finish working on the third (and last) installment of the Portrait of a Fan (As A Young Woman) series I started posting last year. It's taken me a while to get it right.

Stay warm in these pre-baseball season days friends.

JaysGirl5

November, all ready? You lie sir!

Okay, so there's no arguing with the calendar, which clearly says it is in fact November.

Although it's slightly overdue, congrats to the Giants for winning the series. Yay for the San Fran fans (say that 5x fast) and the city by the Bay. I got the feeling this year that it was almost unanimous across the baseball board just how wonderful it was to see a showdown between two teams not in the east divisions. Although, I would have been just as happy with a Phillies/Texas series, just to give Doc the chance to compete. But, as the Dodgers fans used to cry...there's always next year.

Speaking of Doc, congrats (and ROCK ON!) for winning the NL Cy Young. As well as Lincecum pitched this past season as well, how can you compete with the stats that Doc put up. Doctastic as usual.

In the limited amount that I got to see him play, I was impressed with Buster Posey this season as well. Congrats to him for his Rookie of the Year award. Could the kid've had a better rookie season?

Also, it's great to see more of the Jays players getting into the Twitter swing of things. Travis Snider (@Lunchboxhero45), Ricky Romero (@RickyRo24) and Jesse Litsch (@Jesse Litsch) are all now happily tweeting. They Join Dirk Hayburst (@The Garfoose) to represent the boys in turqoisy-blue on the web. I really do think it's so cool to have this kind of opportunity for interaction with the guys. As fans we get to know their personalities and character as players on the field. It's kind of nice to be able to round them out more into real people, at least a little.

In bittersweet news, Jordan Bastian will not be writing about the Jays anymore. He's going to be covering the Indians. And even though I wish him well (as I'm sure everyone who enjoyed reading his articles and blogs), I can't help but be a little jealous of the Indians fans. Good luck in Cleveland Jordan. I will say I'm excited to start reading whoever it is going to be replacing you.

Lastly, the next installment of Baseball Book Reccomendations will be coming shortly. Keep an eye out for The Mental ABC's of Pitching by H.A. Dorfman and A Great and Glorious Game, a collection of writings by former MLB Commish A. Bartlett Giamatti.

Stay dry in S. Ont and I hope you're enjoying the off season wherever you are!
JaysGirl5

Baseball Bookshelf Recommendation #1

As humans, we like to be able to define things, to give them a name. We attribute labels to the people around us to eliminate the unknown, to make them known to us. In our attempt to understand and know them we take them down to the human version of the lowest common denominator, which narrows our view to only the label they were given. All the while, we forsake the rest of the person behind the label. Nowhere do we do this more than with people in the public eye.

It's understandable. The lives of movie stars, rock stars, sports stars all have situations and experiences that are very different from the lives of the majority. They're so foreign to us, that sometimes we elevate those labels to the levels of superheroes or gods. We think their lives are perfect because they're a movie/rock/sports star and it can be very easy to forget that there's a real, live human being behind that character on the screen, that amazing guitar solo, or the professional jersey. It's refreshing (and sometimes rare) to get a clear view of the person behind the label.

From the opening pages of Dirk Hayhurst's The Bullpen Gospels, you can tell that the jersey will be coming off and that in its place you're going to get an incredibly open look at the person behind the "baseball player". From his struggle with making his career and how it should/shouldn't define his life to contemplating the role of baseball and the baseball player in society, you're absorbed in a world that few ever get to see. The stories from the clubhouses, buses and hotels will touch your heart, make you laugh out loud, and bring a tear to your eye. The only thing better than Hayhurst's humour and humility, is his honesty.

He clearly paints how plenty of men try to make it to the elusive "Show"; they want their cup of coffee, a decade long career, a great multi-year deal. That's the goal. But it's presumptuous for us as non-pro ball players to reduce it all down to a goal; a dream; a life; a job. It's so much more and so much less than that.

The Bullpen Gospels is a great starting point for readers to look at their own lives, their own careers and expectations, and their own definitions and labels that they attribute to themselves and to others. After all, at its heart, this book is a young man's journey of growing up and coming to terms with the expectations and labels set on him by the world and by himself, set to a colourfully described baseball background.

By book's end, readers will have a new appreciation for achieving their goals, they'll have begun to understand the struggle between success and failure of a dream, and "baseball player" will no longer be a one-dimensional label. After reading Hayhurst's gospels, you'll never be able to forget about the human behind the baseball jersey again.

Happy reading and Thanksgiving!

JaysGirl5