TuesdoLinks: Baseball, be my Valentine!

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Everywhere In Baseball

It appears that both Derek Jeter and his wife Hannah Davis are now experienced in carnal knowledge. 18 years from now, when the Derek/Hannah daughter's prom date show up at the front door carrying a gift basket, the Planet Earth will finally be back in alignment...........

It's baseball season, so it's time to revisit baseball entertainment. It's been awhile since I read a take demolishing Field of Dreams. As long as they don't rag on Burt Lancaster I'm cool with it..........

Everybody is gravitating to sameness in the manufacture of ballparks. The excuse is "fair play for both hitters and pitchers". Now I find that to be BS. To me, it's in the same vein as whining about defenses playing a shift. Look, players, you guys are pros. deal with the challenge. I'd be cool with raptors flying over right field and attacking anything that our marine layer wasn't beating back..........

Chase Utley, via Peter Gammons, giving us mere mortal fans examples of what the hell they mean by "playing the game the right way"..........

When reading this Marlins story, and trying to decipher how it is that "the MLB did the Marlins wrong", my takeaway is that what is going unwritten would be that the Padres told the Marlins to go eff themselves after the Padres clearly got caught cheating on their medical paperwork to begin with. MLB might have been lax, but this would mean that the Padres were total assholes............

Wow. We FINALLY got to Spring Training and we are already now reading how ST is too long. Blame the pitchers. For some odd reason it takes them a little while to get their arms and bodies into proper shape to survive a full season and minimize injury. Considering the nuclear devastation we saw in Anaheim so early in 2016, maybe ST for pitchers is not long enough?..........

Wait, this is a "dead ball era"? Here I thought that the tailing off on offense had more to do with better pitching and hitters being more accepting of K's in their AB's. I had no idea we weer blaming the ball. In fairness, the author focuses on balls in play and pace of game not the ball itself, but that headline??...........But, while on the subject of forcing pitchers to raise their zone, yeah, Mike Trout is among those sharks who will start feasting..........

Jean Segura, LAA farm product, is turning into a seriously good MLB baller. (He actually drew some NL MVP votes last year!) Segura, who can play a pretty decent 2B, was among the guys we sent to the Brewers to rent Zack Greinke.........

Trade Winds

The Nats rushed to the Blue Light Special table and picked up Adam Lind. $1 million for 2017............

The Royals grabbed ex-Cub lefty Travis Wood for a two-year deal, worth $12 million..........

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The Duffle Bag

MLB knows who is the Face of Baseball..........PSA: The Hardball Times 2017 Annual is now available..........I suppose that while I am at it, the Baseball Prospectus 2017 Annual is available, too..........MLB brings down the hammer hard, but misses the nail. Speeding up replays by limiting managers to 30 seconds for something they usually require only 10 seconds to do ain't all that helpful..........Bartolo Colon is the gift that keeps on giving. Some year soon we are going to miss him............

OT: Pure gold. NSFW,  Ok, not safe for home, either, without earbuds. The greatest analyst commentary of ping pong I have ever heard!!!

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Halo-Oppo-ly

Week 2 of our Chance/Community Chest cards!

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