Spring Flings

To paraphrase Ice Cube, today is a good day.

Not only is the last day of my least favorite month of the year a bright and sunny day (and a somewhat balmy 44 degrees) in New York, it is also the first day of exhibition games in FLA. and AZ. Box scores are back. Who cares if the home runs are meaningless, if closers start games and starters close them. It is baseball, and it has returned to thaw the land and release us from winter's icy grip.

The Red Sox start it off tonight against the Twins in Fort Myers. According to the Globe, the starting lineup looks like:

1. Julio Lugo (ss)
2. Kevin Youkilis (1b)
3. David Ortiz (dh)
4. Jason Varitek (c)
5. Mike Lowell (3b)
6. Wily Mo Peña (rf)
7. Dustin Pedroia (2b)
8. David Murphy (lf)
9. Jacoby Ellsbury (cf)

It should be fun to watch Murphy and Ellsbury this spring, considering that, along with Peña, they are slated to be the outfield of the future at Fenway.

Alright, enough of that, I need to focus. I am drafting my first team today at noon. What's my strategy? Who is my first pick? Obviously, that will depend on my position, but I have no idea if I should load up on pitchers, load up on hitters or go for a solid mix of both, which I always seem to end up doing. So as of now, there is no strategy. I'll post my results when the draft is done. By the way, doesn't it seem like every portal is now offering free fantasy games this year? MLB.com, ESPN, Yahoo... Now that is more like it. God Bless the Internet.

• The reason why I still own boxes of baseball cards.

• There was also an interesting story yesterday in Sports Illustrated along with an accompanying photo gallery about Barry Bonds and the continuing investigation of his alleged steroid use. But it sure doesn't appear to be alleged to Tom Verducci, who clearly believes Bonds used HGH. And looking at some of those photos and reading about Bonds' increasing shoe size, it is hard to argue with him. I think it is getting to the point now where those of us who are holding on passing any judgements about Bonds and steroids and home run records are just holding onto a thin shred of hope that it was only natural ability. The question for me, though, is not if Bonds used performance enhancing drugs, but how, exactly, it affected his game. The guy hit 35 home runs annually for years in the 1990s. Does taking HGH make your bat swing quicker? Does it make your eyes sharper? Clearly, I need to read "Game of Shadows."