From the Chronicle:
Who gets the ball: Brett Tomko will start the Cactus League opener against Anaheim on Thursday. Noah Lowry pitches Friday, with Jason Schmidt and Jerome Williams starting split-squad games, and Kirk Rueter working Sunday. This alignment will slot the pitchers properly for the regular season. Following the starters in the exhibition games will be Brad Hennessey on Thursday, Jesse Foppert on Friday, Merkin Valdez and Kevin Correia on Saturday, and Matt Cain on Sunday.
Man. The last set of pitchers is what makes me want to ride the rails to Arizona. Foppert, Merkin, and Cain are all pitchers I'm dying to see this year, and Hennessey isn't too far behind. Well, he's a good deal behind, but through no fault of his own. He's just as exciting as Jake Esteves was, and there was a dark period when Esteves was the class of the system. Brrr.
A related tidbit comes in the form of the schedule for Fox Sports Bay Area on the same day exhibition games start:
3:00 PM This is the PGA Tour '05
4:00 PM Cal Hi Sports Bay Area '04-'05
4:30 PM CAL Basketball Report '04-'05
6:00 PM American Poker Championship at Turning Stone Resort & Casino
7:00 PM Sunday Night Fights '04: Johnson vs Martinez at Pechanga Resort & Casino
8:00 PM Beyond the Glory Dennis Rodman
9:00 PM Sports List, The Officiating Disgraces
9:30 PM Sports List, The Bizarre Moments
The rebuttal is pretty obvious; it takes a metric assload of money to televise a baseball game. True, but couldn't they have spring training for the television people? Meaning, park one camera behind home plate, one camera in a general infield shot, and one camera to cover the outfielder. Don't worry about announcers. Use interns as the cameramen. Just get the thing on the air, to fill homes with the sound of baseball, at least. How about one cameraman, sitting behind home, zooming in and out when he needs to? We would still hear the crack of the bat, see some fastballs, and leave it on in the background like one of those Nature Company CDs of whale songs.
My idea is still most likely impractical, but it would be a lot cooler if it weren't. The thing abo...wait a freakin' minute...was that a poker championship on that Fox schedule? Whoa. I apologize, Fox Sports Bay Area. They'll probably get around to showing us a spring game later in the exhibition season, but you will not be able to find televised poker anywhere after the APCTSRCsies. Should have picked a better day to make my point.
Seriously, if they parked a cameraman behind home, left the audio of the game and crowd intact, and put it on at 1:00 a.m., who here wouldn't set their VCRs or TiVos, or -- if a night owl like myself -- stay up and watch?
