Game One

Since Wraith hasn't posted for a while and hasn't even bothered me about not posting, I figure I'll post a bit here.

Game One. Opening Day! Wraith missed it. And he calls himself a fan. Something about "going out to dinner." Not with a girlfriend, which would have been semi-understandable, but with random people. And you know what, even having a girlfriend isn't an excuse. Mine watched the game with me. So there.
I had some difficulty getting going--my older brother thought MLB.tv had renewed automatically but apparently not, and the folks at ESPN2 decided to show the game on national TV so that wasn't an option anyway. After trying Gameday Audio for the first couple of innings, we called a few people and went downtown to the OldPro, which unfortunately was showing the Ohio State game (and carding, which the gf would not have passed). So finally I wound up at a friend--and Giants fan's--house to catch the bottom of the 5th onward.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling. I was pretty impressed with the game, though I was a bit disappointed that Lackey only went 5.0 innings. True, it was in large part due to the Napoli error, which brings up another thing--how bout that famous Angels defense, huh? And how bout our brand spanking new "Great Motherf--kin' Jammer"'s failed easy catch?
But let's get beyond that: Baseball's back! After six long months the Angels have finally taken the field again! I'm psyched, and I was even more psyched to see everyone looking so good. Especially Kotchman. That homer really got me excited about him again--coming right up to the plate and showing us he's going to be a force to be reckoned with this season. In fact, I'll go so far as to say he's going to be one of the biggest surprises this season, at least to other teams who won't be expecting much--at least not in the first couple months, or even the first half. True, Erstad also homered in his first AB for the WhiteSox, and we know he ain't gonna hit above 300 or even above 10 homers, but Kotchman's seven years younger and hasn't given anyone any reason to believe he won't do well (mononucleosis aside). It's just that after going .152/1 last year, other teams aren't going to take him quite so seriously. So he'll mash for a while before coming down to Earth, much like Napoli did before the break last year. Then other teams will figure him out, but I think he's got it in him do overcome that within a few weeks. After all, Kendrick sure did. Then again, people are picking Kendrick to be the batting champion for years to come, so we'll see.

Anyway, another thing I noticed last night--WTF was up with Frankie? He looked like a chipmunk. I'm sure he wasn't doing tobaccy/sunflower seeds/pine tar/blow/pow, but still. I'd say he was wearing braces or retainers or something but that's extremely unlikely. Also, while in some cases glasses ruin the man, in this case the goggles made him. In other words, bring them back, dude! The goggles were part of "the Frankie look"! And lose those pounds! I'm used to K-Rod looking stick-ish, not I-laid-on-the-couch-and-ate-pork-rinds-all-winter. He's not yet approaching Bart proportions, but it looks like he could get there at this rate. Then again, perhaps he was just wearing a super-baggy uniform.

At any rate, I'm super excited that things are back. When I'm excited, I ramble a bit. That could be characteristic of this blog. But anyway. Hey, how about some comments so I know people are reading this thing?