Victor Zambrano (19 strikes out of 30 pitches) is the papers' subject du jour, which of course means Scott Kazmir's riding shotgun. Zambrano said he doesn't concern himself with Kazmir, but our local scribes won't give him that choice. You just know some paper or other will run a graphic comparing every start of Zambrano's with every start of Kazmir's. Can you imagine having to answer questions about some 21-year-old you probably never met before and after every start? I'd go completely insane, and not in an obsessed-about-a-baseball-team way.
My objection to That Trade isn't so much that the timing was so poor, or that we traded a prospect with so much upside for a pitcher with serious question marks. It was and we did, but both of those points have achieved dead-horse status for now and the jury will be out for some time. Rather, what bugs me is the trade seems to have been made for two Dysfunctional Met reasons: Too much clubhouse/coach interference in front-office decisions (Al Leiter, but also Rick Peterson) and a late-80s-ish desire to punish players who are unapologetic about liking the other side of midnight.
In my mind, those will be valid objections no matter what stats Zambrano and Kazmir put up. I'd be thrilled if writers kept asking Jeff Wilpon, Peterson or Leiter to explain how Dysfunction Metdom influenced the trade and what's been done to keep D.M. away from future transactions. But what does poor Zambrano have to do with it? Give him some peace, even if it means hiding him in the Jets' training room.
But on to more important things: The boys are on TV today, and I'm giddy. It's one of those days you keep looking at the clock and wondering how it can only be two minutes after you last looked after the clock. C'mon, ESPN, show long-tossing. Show stretching exercises. Show Port St. Lucie's best realtor in the infield accepting the keys to a new Taurus. It's March 2 and there's snow on the ground, so I'm easy.
Of course, spring training being spring training, I know my anticipation will soon give way to somewhat-lackadaisical interest, and then to occasional glances. And that's OK. Beyond the inability to get too worked up about whether or not John Pachot can work the count full, this is baseball, the ultimate marathon-not-a-sprint sport. (Besides marathons, of course.)
In every game I've ever watched, there's been a point when I've thought, “Jeez, this is taking forever.” (When Trachsel's pitching there are about 350 of them.) I understand why some people see that as incontrovertible evidence that baseball is boring, but I don't — to me, baseball is profoundly beautiful and wonderfully exciting, but it's also comfortable. It's around every day, in one way or the other, for eight-odd months of the year, and on most of those days it's around for three-odd hours of the afternoon or evening. Which is plenty of time to tell tales, take a phone call (if you're not at the park), or even flip through the paper if everyone's standing around on the mound talking behind their gloves about the need to throw strikes here, babe. You don't have to white-knuckle it all the time, and if you have any semblance of a normal life, you can't.
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