Two Weeks Until Pitchers and Catchers

“Just Thinking"

Two weeks until pitchers and catchers report, and in anticipation of the diamond dandies returning to the field, this week’s newsletter is going full baseball.

Spring Training will feel a bit different this year because it’s a World Baseball Classic year. WBC pitchers report by February 11, and position players on February 12. This is the sixth edition of the tournament which features 20 national teams competing across four countries from March 5–17.

Here is the WBC at a glance, 20 teams, 4 pools, 5 teams in each pool. Round-robin pool play 4 games per team, top 2 teams advance from each pool. Single-elimination quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. Here are some of the rule tweaks:

Pitch counts: First Round - 65 pitches, Quarterfinals - 80 pitches, Semis & the Finals - 95 pitches. Designated Pitcher Pool (DPP): Teams may carry extra pitchers outside the main 30‑man roster and activate them between rounds. International tiebreaker: In extra innings, teams start with runners on first and second, no outs, and can choose where the batting order begins (lineup must remain intact).

Honestly, nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to rule changes. MLB already gave us softball‑style intentional walks, universal DH, pitch clocks, and “let’s‑just-start-with-a-runner-on-second” extra innings. Robot umps can’t be far behind.

I’ve been trying to come up with a name for this odd stretch after the New Year, a time when resolutions either sprout wings or shrivel up. Football is winding down, basketball drones on, and Spring Training is just visible off in the distance. Perhaps The January Drift or the Gray Gap whatever it is, we all know it, so to know that there are just two weeks before baseball gives us something to look forward to.  But, without fail as soon as Little Leaguers take the field and high school teams start practicing, here comes the rain, with rainout and reschedules. A tradition as old as the infield fly rule.

I saw that the2026 Hall of Fame class includes Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones, both solid choices. I wrote an article 10 years ago when Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza were inducted, I was ecstatic. Those were my kind of guys, talented and though, old‑school ball players. But, in all honesty, the Hall of Fame has lost much of its luster until they get over their hypocrisy and finally inducts Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Pete Rose, there’s always going to be an asterisk, not on their careers, but on the Hall itself

I was at church one Sunday before Christmas and there was a guy up near the front that remained standing during all the kneely parts. It distracted me, he is standing there looking like Glenn Close in “The Natural”. Naturally (pun intended) that sent me down a rabbit hole with thoughts about “The Natural”, it is such a great baseball film. Good vs Evil, Right vs Wrong, Roy Hobbs and his home-made bat “Wonderboy” make it to the major leagues when most players are retiring. Pop Fisher, the manager, won’t give him a chance to play until their star outfielder, Bump Bailey’s dies after crashing through the centerfield wall. When asked what he wants out of the game, Roy says: “I want people to say, ‘There goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in the game.’” I read Malamud’s novel, a good book but the movie is far superior, that’s unusual.

I was thinking about my parents and older relatives, how big they were on the Giants, they witness them and the Dodgers arrive on the West Coast in 1958. Before that it was the San Francisco Seals and the Pacific Coast League with rising stars, fading legends, and ballparks full of character. I started writing about the PCL this week, but I wandered off into the weeds, we’ll save that topic for another day.

Spring Training is optimism. Baseball is tradition, romantic, cyclical, grounded in history. One month of prep, 162 games through spring and the Dog Days of Summer, and back into the cold, dark fall.

As John Fogerty said it best:

Well, I beat the drum and hold the phone, the sun came out today. We're born again, there's new grass on the field.

Let me know what you think.

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