Spring Training Is Over, You Can Pay Attention Now

The longest month in baseball - March, is over, thankfully bringing an end to Spring Training, and a return to meaningful baseball.

From a fan's standpoint, the dog and pony show that is Spring Training is pretty useless. You can't watch the games, and even when you can, you don't want to. Managers and GMs may find it useful to jerk around the hopes and dreams of a bunch of aging reserve utility men and career minor leaguers, but really, the whole thing is largely a waste of time.

The Jays were particularly bad this spring, posting a batting average that ranked only ahead of Florida's - good for 29th. It doesn't matter though. March success has as much to do with regular season success as actual vocal talent has to do with winning American Idol.

The Jays have a lot to live up to this year. They are coming off an 87 win, 2nd place finish in one of baseball's toughest divisions. Last season was their, "Hey, look at us!" season, as they tried to remind the baseball world that there were more than two teams in the AL East. Unfortunately, our Jays will be in tough to challenge Boston and New York again.

Unlike baseball's twin Evil Empires (face it Boston, if you can pay $100 million for a pitcher who has never played in the MLB, you are an Evil Empire too), the Jays did not improve in any noticeable way. Born again Frank Thomas was the only headline grabbing news, the rest of JP Ricciardi's moves were more of a back-page blurb nature.

Veterans Royce Clayton is our new starting short-stop (which means our favourite Jay, John MacDonald is back on the bench), and aging Canuckle outfielder Mat Stairs will contribute depth.

On pitching, the Jays missed out on free agents Ted Lilly (unfortunately) and Gil Meche (thankfully) which left spots four an five open. Ricciardi went with the, toss everything on the wall and see what sticks approach. On said wall he tossed a motley crew of youngsters and vets looking for a second, or third chance, including Victor Zambrano, less than a year off Tommy John surgery, John Thompson, oft injured, Tomo Ohka, the Jays' embittered answer to Dice-k, Josh Towers, who I kinda thought would never ever pitch for Toronto again, Casey Jansens, who mildly impressed last year as a rookie and Shawn Marcum, who still has time to turn into something special.

Ohka and Towers stuck, with Zambrano putting up a good fight. Whether a rotation of Halladay-Burnett-Chacin-Ohka-Towers is capable of stringing together any number of wins is questionable, and the result of which will entirely determine the fate of this team.

Offensively, Toronto is more or less the same. The Big Hurt will provide more homers (speaking of Thomas, the man is huge. I used to think Troy Glaus was pretty big, but after seeing the two stand next to each other, Glaus seriously looks like he's made of matchsticks), and more strikeouts as well. Scoring runs isn't where these guys will run into problems.

I don't really care for the '07 Blue Jays, they are just a paler version of last year, but if you're not optimistic on opening day, than you really shouldn't be watching this sport. I predict the Jays will take the AL wildcard in a daring late September push.

Other predictions:

American League

EAST: Yankees win the division as the team becomes healthy at the right time of the season, that is, the end of it. Boston's pitching staff implodes, and Daisuke's gyro ball actually kills a man. Baltimore still sucks, but less so, and Canadian ace Eric Bedard makes it really, really hard to cheer against them. Tampa Bay still really sucks, except for that Kazmir guy, and their so called best outfield in baseball.

CENTAL: Detroit gets it right this time and wins baseball's new toughest division. The Indians still aren't as good as everyone wants them to be, and Minnesota and Chicago continue to be good without being great. Kansas City continues to bolster every other Central team with easy wins.

WEST: Los Angeles of Anahiem wins the division as they get all of their pitchers healthy, and Gary Matthews wins the AL MVP (Hah, just kidding). Oakland does nicely, and makes Mike Piazza a very rich man in the off season, but with another team. Texas quickly regrets their Sammy Sosa experiment, and Seattle gives no reason for Ichiro to re-sign next year.

WILDCARD: The Jays win it in the final days of September, beating out strong pushes from the Red Sox, White Sox, Twins and Oakland. No, I'm serious.

CY YOUNG: Roy Halladay pitches a full season, which as per the terms of his contract, automatically ensures him a Cy Young. Sorry Santana.

MVP: Alex Rodriguez wins another one, and Yankee fans are only too glad when he doesn't renew his contract.

National League

EAST: The Mets win this one, of course, but Philadelphia makes it close. Atlanta gets to reflect on life outside the postseason for one more year, while Washington treads water, and Florida comes no where near repeating last season.

CENTRAL: St. Louis wins this division again, but it's more because no one else is good enough than because the Cards deserve a chance at repeating. The Cubbies do not live up to the hype - gasp - Milwaukee, Houston and Cinncinati are all in the wild card hunt and Pittsburgh... still has Jason Bay.

WEST: Los Angeles wins this division, which is slowly improving as a whole. With Randy Johnson returning, Arizona slowly starts to remember what having a championship team was like, and in San Fransisco, Barry Bonds suffers an unfortunate "accident" involving cement shoes and deep water before he can commit his final act of sacrilege... Meanwhile, Colorado and San Diego continue being teams we know absolutely nothing about.

WILDCARD: Philadelphia takes it, and dreams of a Phillie-Toronto rematch stir up inside of absolutely no one.

CY YOUNG: The NL's winningest pitcher wins more than 16 games this time, and the award goes to Chris Carpenter, who is really the only thing we like about St. Louis.

MVP: Jimmy Rollins, baseball's anti-Bonds, hits a whole bunch of homers, and gets a whole bunch of MVP awards.

Check back in September when you shall be astounded to find every single prediction has come true. I promise.

Jason

Wildcard Dreams?

The Jays are still, by the slimmest of margins, in the AL's wildcard hunt. They sit 7.5 games behind the current wild team, Chicago. Coincidently, that's also the margin of games that separate them from the AL East leading Yankees. There's no easy way in for these Blue Jays.

Realistically, the wildcard race is a three horse show, with the Jays looking in from the outside. But as long as they continue to win games, like they did tonight, sliding by the slumping Devil Rays 4-3, we here at 63 Years and Counting can continue to hope.

It looks bleak, it does, but as long the Jays can keep putting notches in the W column, we can keep pretending. All we ask is that Toronto stays competitive, at least until, say mid September. You know, make a good show of it. That should carry us into the NHL pre-season, which should help pick up the slack.

And if the Jays do manage something, it will be largely thanks to Roy "15-3" Halladay, who became the major league leader in wins today with his little number against Tampa. This guy deserves way more love than he gets from the US media.

Also, Gustavo "I Have My Own Perfume" Chacin, he of the three month long disabled list sojourn, is set to return on Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles. He owned a sparkling 6-2 record before he went down, which did a good job of sweeping his unsightly ERA under the rug. No matter though, because this means that the Jays will have four of their original five projected starters on the mound. Don't hold your breathe on Josh Towers though...

Sidenote: Former Leaf Owen Nolan has finally landed on another team, after a year's absence. He's in Phoenix now, and we'd like to say that we have no hard feelings towards the guy, even if he did try to shaft the Leafs' salary cap ambitions last season. He's coming fairly cheap (1.25 mil) and he's only 34. Good job by the Coyotes.

Also unrelated, we feel we should devote a few inches to tennis, what with the Rogers Cup taking place in our backyard. Roger Federer won the men's side. No shit, Sherlock. Of course Federer won. Yawn. Moving on.

We also feel we should mention that we totally dig the whole "chick sports" thing. Totally. Yep, we're all about that. Which is why we didn't even bother watching the men's tournament, the overpaid, chauvinist pigs that they are. That's right, we boycotted the men's half in favour of the women's half. Please, your praise is not necessary.

Maria Kirilenko, seen here at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. She can cup our Roger anyday. Giggidy!

Take that, Maggie the Monkey

Being right feels so good.

The Stanley Cup Finals are set, and the two teams, Edmonton and Carolina, were both picked by yours truly to get there (Though, my picks at the out set of the playoffs were slightly different *cough*Detroit vs. New Jersey*cough*). After going 0 for four in the second round, 63 Years has correctly picked the Stanley Cup finalists.

We have a bit of a dilemma though. How can we pick a winner from those two when we want both to win?

On the one hand, you have Edmonton, a once great franchise picking up where it left off 16 years ago, the team carrying all of Canada's Stanley Cup hopes, the team that exemplifies the new NHL. On the other hand you have Carolina, a hard luck team that suffered for years in Hartford before being tossed from the frying pan of Connecticut into the fire of North Carolina, a team stocked with ageing veterans desperate for a chamionship.

Guys like Rod Brind'Amour, Brett Hedican, Glen Wesley and Doug Weight are all players I'd like to see hoist the cup.

Edmonton is a much younger team. True, my heart would warm seeing Captain Canada, Ryan Smyth drink from Stanley's mug, but he still has time left on his clock.

And, let's face it, Carolina is the better team here. Edmonton squeeked into the playoffs ranked eighth in the West, while Carolina won their division in style. Carolina has all the pieces and a great young goalie, Edmonton gets by with charm and an aging journeyman goaltender playing way above his normal level.

In light of all that, 63 Years and Counting is picking Carolina to win the series, not that we would have any problem whatsoever with the opposite outcome.

In other news, the Jays kicked the Tampa Bay Devil Rays while they were on the ground, and then spat on them for good measure. Final score: 13-3, nine of the Jays' runs coming in the ninth inning, all the more remarkable in that the Jays' offensive catalyst, Vernon Wells sat the game out (coincidently, his replacement in centre field, Reed Johnson, had two homers on the night)

That's the kind of ruthless play the Jays need if they're ever going to topple the Yankees-Red Sox monopoly on first place.

In other news, the Toronto Argonauts lost their first preseason exhibition game, and Ricky Williams was barely seen on the field. I think it's now safe for us to go back to not caring about the CFL.

In other news, the World Cup (you know which one) begins on Friday, less than a week away. Because we here at 63 Years and Counting are not on crack, we are going with the tried an true Brazilians to win the most prestigious trophy in all of sports.

We will also be cheering for the Czechs and Dutch, and maybe even the Serbians (sans Montenegro now), if only because they have achieved official "Dark Horse" status.

We will try to get some sort of group stage prediction thing up here before Friday, but then again, don't hold your breath.

Later,

Jason