Friday, January 05, 2007

blow up the outside world

Anthony over at Hot Foot posted today that he was permanently sick of the Hot Stove and wanted to blow it up. I am sick of it myself, mostly because it is causing me to read and reread continual reports of nothingness.

[While we’re at it, can anyone explain to me the genesis of the term ‘hot stove’ and why it’s used in baseball?]

Last winter’s Hot Stove season was frantic but went completely over my head - not because I wasn’t interested, but because I had no context and zero way of evaluating whether or not things were good or bad. I didn’t know the players, I didn’t know history, I was utterly and completely lost.  Contrast to this year, when I can have a conversation with my father, over holiday dinner, about Barry Zito and if he will go to the Mets… but it stops there.

It wasn’t just that there was no action, it was the fact that we heard every time Omar went to the hotel’s gift shop to buy a bottle of mineral water during the Winter Meetings. I am a big proponent of not posting something unless I have something worthwhile to talk about - other web sites don’t have that luxury and so minor happenings (or non-happenings) were blown completely and totally out of proportion.

Adam Rubin commented last month that the winter meetings have now become a media event when it wasn’t ever one before, that media outlets (such as morning shock jock radio) who had never covered the winter meeting were now doing so. And with the proliferation of baseball blogs, everyone felt the need to chime in and create non-stories out of stories. I would run through my RSS feed, and with some exceptions, the stories would either be pointless or a non-issue.

I am still a little dismayed that Barry Zito went to the Giants. I don’t pretend to know a lot, but on no level does this make sense to me - even with the understanding that (as Metstradamus refers to him) clients of the Prince of Darkness only care about cold hard cash. But it’s done, it’s over, and all we can do is sit and wait for pitchers and catchers to report. Nothing can possibly happen that will be that exciting until the season begins again and new trade possibilities present themselves.

“I’m starting to miss baseball,” TBF announced yesterday.
“I don’t think I ever stopped,” I said.
“I think that means I’m over it now,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. I’m more in a state of permanent denial.”

All I am doing now is counting the days until we can buy tickets to the Spring Training games, and until we can get on the plane to Florida in March. Then it will really feel like the year has begun.