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Spring training. . .

I am a baseball fan. My favorite team is the Atlanta Braves. I also enjoy football (NFL and college), abhor basketball (especially the NBA, but college is tolerable around NCAA tournament time and the bracket filling out fun begins), and can't wait for the lull in sports spectatoring between the Superbowl and Opening Day to end.

However, I cannot get excited about spring training. I know it's still baseball, but there's something missing. Sure, men have their livelihoods and dreams on the line, but that's not something we can easily quantify into nifty little tables and columns of stats. No, I want the games to mean something, to be able to calculate "magic number", speculate possible playoff scenarios, which division is the best, which league is the best, what will happen now that so and so is hurt. Spring training results are, for the most part, worthless for this sort of banter. I need games that provide real progress toward the World Series.

This year MLB is promoting the World Baseball Classic. It may go well this year, but I already see chinks in the armor. How long before contracts specify that players can't participate? It seems reasonable that owners and GMs who are investing so much money into so few players would want to protect their investment. Eventually, somebody will suffer a catastrophic injury in this tournament. It's just the nature of the game. Many of the best players will not participate for a desire to save themselves for the regular season. I believe this tournament would be better held during the regular season. Allow a 3-4 week break in the season at the mid-point. Perhaps even shorten the schedule to accomodate the tournament. As an added incentive, allow players to add tournament stats to their season stats. It would be an incentive to play for those with contracts that have bonuses for reaching certain performance levels and lessen the argument for staying out of the tournament and saving oneself for the regular season.