| It’s Time for Baseball |
| By Sally Haase March 31, 2014 Old man winter refuses to let go in the Eastern and Northern parts of the United States, but the boys of Summer are back to help us get into a warm weather mindset once again. The 2014 baseball season has started and there is excitement and freshness among all 30 Major League teams. Who will be the hot new rookie to emerge? Who will come back after a subpar 2013 with a better 2014? Can the Red Sox repeat? Or, can the Dodgers buy a World Series? All of those questions and many more will be answered over the course of the next seven months. And here are some things I am excited about in the 2014 baseball season. 1. My home team Minnesota Twins hosting the 2014 All-Star game. Target Field is the sight of the mid-summer classic and hopefully the Twins have more than the one required representative for the American League all-stars. The stadium, while beautiful, is not known as a home run friendly park, so it will be interesting to see how the home run derby plays out. 2. Speaking of home runs, Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols, if he stays healthy, will hit his 500th career home run this season. Right now Pujols is at 492 career home runs and has never hit less than 10 home runs in a season. Hitting the 500 mark pretty much gives him the EZ pass to Cooperstown. 3. A J Burnett syndrome working on Phil Hughes. Last season Burnett gave his career a second life when he left the hot spotlight of New York for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Twins are hoping the same happens for Hughes; Hughes has been on the Twins radar since the trade of Johan Santana. And now the time is right for Hughes and the Twins, Hughes had a pathetic 2013 and still managed a hefty contract with the Twins. Hughes better show the Twins and fans that he is worth the money. 4. Expanded instant replay. There will be no red challenge flags like the NFL, but teams are allowed to challenge calls by the manager verbally asking for a challenge. The biggest concern is that it will slow down an already slow game, but there are very few instances where a call really needs to be challenged in a Major League Baseball game. I will exchange the extra time if it means the umpiring crew will get the call correct either on the initial call or under the review. 5. The Yankees. There are some interesting this going on with the New York Yankees this season. Two huge things actually, one, of course is the retirement of the captain Derek Jeter, who spent all of his major league seasons in Yankees pinstripes. The other is the season long suspension of Alex Rodriguez for his involvement in performance enhancing drugs, the Yankees seem to be over Rodriguez and his arrogance, but if Rodriguez uses his suspension to stay in top form there will be plenty of teams who will find a place for him; everyone loves a comeback story even if the comeback player is baseball’s public enemy number one. |
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