Spring Training: Boston(ss) 4, Tampa 6/Boston (ss) 9, Twins 3

Split Squad Games: Win One,
Lose One: Lackey strong, Rays win
late: All's fair in split

Spring Training Game Two, Boston 0, Minnesota 5/Peter Wolf Says...

Today's Haiku:

Spring games don't count. Right?
Big Jon drilled, 5 hit total:
Win: Pavano? Meh!

And sometimes, my children, Peter Wolf says it better than it has ever been said before.

Spring Training Game One: Boston 2, Minnesota 1

Atchison gets win:
Topeka, Santa Fe had
no role in the game.

Andrew Sullivan and John Adams/Play Ball!

Andrew Sullivan has a really powerful post, including a clip from the superlative HBO series "John Adams", about terrorists and civil liberties.

But on a dramatically less serious note, we have baseball results to talk about. Specifically, Red Sox results, and more specifically, the question of how such results are to be handled in this very space. I've done standard, plain vanilla, words-and-paragraphs, nickname laden stuff.

This raises a couple of questions-should I do it at all this year (i.e does anyone care)? And if I do, how shall I mix it up? The notion that is appealing to me is haiku. It's been done-Roger Angell wrote about a Sox fan doing it in the 1970s-plus extensive research (which means a Google search) yields the fact that there are other Sox fans doing haiku, but it doesn't appear that anyone is promising to do so for the 2010 season.

What to do, what to do.

In Fort Myers today, the Red Sox laid the annual shellacking on Northeastern University and Boston College. The Huskies went down in the first game, 15-0, and, at this writing, Boston leads the Eagles, 5-1 in the fifth. (For those of you not intimately familiar, professional farmhands should routinely beat even Division I college teams, mostly because professional players, even in the minor leagues, are primarily players who were either among the very best on their college teams, or so good they were given pro contracts instead of attending college.)

Tomorrow, Boston begins the real pretend games against Minnesota. (Boston plays Minnesota a lot during the spring because they both practice in Fort Myers.)

Or, in haiku form:

Games Start: Sox Take Two
Someday, Eagle Pitcher Will
Say: I Threw To Youk

Now, THIS is cool...woman gets contract offer from Chico Outlaws

Thanks to fellow Sox fan @daigofuji, I saw this story about Japanese pitcher Eri Yoshida, who may pitch professionally this year for the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League, a Western independent league. And who is, oh yeah, an 18 year old woman. The Golden League also used to be the home of the Japanese Samurai Bears, a team which played for one year in the league without a home park. That appealed to me for some reason-there's something very barnstormy about a team like that.

I hope Yoshida signs, and does well. There really isn't any reason why she shouldn't succeed-Yoshida throws a knuckleball, which frankly, you, or I, or Elmo could learn to throw in about 15 minutes. The trick, of course, is to throw it consistently, for strikes- that's why everyone can't do it. But best of luck to her.

Mention Monday is here!

Thanks to my new pal @craftycmc, it's MentionMonday, on which I will Mention something. Because it's Monday. Or something.

@Craftycmc's idea is to get us bloggers to crosspost and talk to one another, and promote one another's work. Because she's cool like that, and smooth like that.

I'm going to hijack her idea, and try to start using Monday to Mention something I think deserves attention. Because I love alliteration. Or something. I've really got to start getting some kind of order around these parts. Or something. So I'm thinking maybe themes. Mention Monday, followed by Tarragon Tuesday and Wimpole of the Bailey Wednesday.

(Seriously, follow her on Twitter and DM her for the details. It's fun, and burns calories too. As long as you are tweeting her while running on a treadmill.)

Today I will Mention Dan Carlin, who can be found on DanCarlin.com. He podcasts two shows, which have been brought up here from time to time-Hardcore History and Common Sense. HH is, well, history-and Common Sense is a little more of a current affairs show. Dan is a passionate speaker, with an active, engaged mind, who will tell you things you may not want to hear, but stretches your mind while doing so.

His latest show, a Hardcore History program, discusses why it was that the West wound up conquering the known world during the Age of Exploration, instead of other groups that were just as active, like the Chinese or the Arab peoples. He doesn't know the answer, either, but it's interesting to think about why history came out the way it did.

One other thing I want to mention is Seth Godin, who is at sethgodin.typepad.com. He's an author and another very energetic thinker, who likes to challenge you by looking at things in new ways. Go there, but don't be surprised if you come away thinking differently than the way you do.