It is springtime, and stories abound on professional athletes who have suddenly discovered that they need to watch what they eat, work out, and whatnot. Coincidentally, this often occurs following a bad year. Not too surprisingly, guess who came to Arizona in the Best Shape Of His Life in 2013?

That’s right. Jeff Francoeur realizes that he had a really bad year in 2012, and he needs to make some changes. One might think that it is not really that exceptional for a player coming off a season during which he hit .235/.287/.378 while playing right field as if he was pulling an invisible trailer full of anvils to understand something to be amiss. But let’s face it, players are rarely as frank regarding their own performance as Francoeur is in this article, which I like to think of as Greatest BSOHL Story Ever Told.

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It is shaping up to be quite a battle in Florida for the Cardinals’ final bench spot, with three candidates who all brought out the big paragraphs in an interview with Fox Sports Midwest earlier in the week. I think it’s pretty hard to call this one:

Adron Chambers:

“I just want to get on base. I want to steal some bases. I have Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith out here helping me and they were great ballplayers and great base stealers and the kind of player I want to be, not necessarily home run hitters but could run and had great athletic ability and could do some damage on the base paths and create some things.”

Shane Robinson:

“I learned a couple hard lessons that nothing is guaranteed in this game so I’m just going to go out there and do what I can to the best of my abilities and hopefully put that seed in the coaches head that this is the guy they want. I want to show the coaches that I’m the guy they want. I don’t want to be on the fence with anything. I want to bust my butt and do all the things right that I need to do and when it comes to when they are picking the team, I don’t want to be the guy that’s on the fence. I want to be the guy they say, ‘this is the guy we want on the team, no ifs, ands or buts about it. He hustles, he does all the right things. He’s smart. That’s pretty much it.”

Justin Christian:

“Everybody here is a heck of a player. For me just being able to have the opportunity to come out here, every year I’m pretty much in the same situation where you have to fight and scrap to prove yourself year in and year out. For me it’s just an opportunity to come out here and I’ve been well received over here with the Cardinals. I’m excited. I’m just a guy that’s going to give it 110 percent every day, whether I’m starting or not starting, I’m going to go out there and be a team guy and play hard every day. Every time I’m in the lineup I’m going to try to bring to the table some good defense and some situational hitting and try to steal some bases.”

Winner?

As a Canadian, who at any given moment in time has at least one right-handed hockey stick and a pair of hockey gloves in my car, the above image — totally, 110 percent real — pleased me. Quite a bit, actually. More so than it probably should have.

My first thought was: “This might be the closest I get to seeing a professional athlete who plays for Toronto win the Stanley Cup.” My second thought: “R.A. Dickey is celebrating the Blue Jays winning the offseason.”

And, make no mistake: the Blue Jays won the offseason. Last year at this time, we in Toronto were worried about who would play left field, Travis Snider or Eric Thames. This year, Ricky Romero, the Blue Jays’ Opening Day starter in 2012, is at the back of the rotation. Everything’s changed. The offseason of my dreams is over. Now comes the hard part. I’m both very excited, and, frankly, worried. What if it all goes wrong?

Image credit: My man @james_in_to.

This is the Mets postgame cap.

This is the Mets drinks after dinner hat.

This is the Mets Cinco de Mayo hat.

This is the Mets serious drinking hat.

This is the Mets jimmy hat.

Fenway Park
4 Yawkey Way, Boston, MA 02215‎

1.
Head north on Yawkey Way toward Brookline Ave
go 213 ft
total 213 ft

2.
Take the 1st right onto Brookline Ave
About 51 secs
go 0.2 mi
total 0.2 mi

3.
Turn right onto Beacon St/Commonwealth Avenue
Continue to follow Commonwealth Avenue
About 2 mins
go 0.4 mi
total 0.6 mi

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These might not be the precise words spoken by Vin Scully during his introduction to the Dodgers’ first broadcast of the spring, but it is what the author heard.

The Golem’s Might Swing, by James Sturm
(Drawn & Quarterly, 2001)

The Golem’s Mighty Swing was Time magazine’s 2001 Best Graphic Novel.[1] It takes place in the 1920s, and focuses on an [almost] all-Jewish barnstorming team, the Stars of David, inspired by the real life House of David teams that played into the 1950s.

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When Ibanez traipses through the grass,
One hardly feels the moments pass.
With his eyes peeled tight and expression grim
The sky seems like it might fall on him.

Are his arms too short? His legs too tall?
One hardly seems able to tell at all
When the ball’s hit hard above third base
One feels the thrill of a NASCAR race.

What perils could our hero befall?
Get decapitated by the wall?
Or perhaps, he might only injure his grace
As the ball caroms off both glove and face?

But perhaps on Ibanez we’re being too hard.
It’s not like it’s wiffleball out in the yard.
I know, as one who felt Algebra’s sting
A parabola can be a quite tricky thing.

And adding 3-D complicates it a ton!
One wonders how outfielding ever gets done.
To calculate vectors and find the right spot,
My tip for Ibanez: go somewhere you’re not.

There were four entrants to the David Price facial hair contest. And, therefore, four winners.

Honorable Mention, sent in by Steve Madden:

Third place, sent in by Matt Saunders:

Second place, sent in by Kyle Davis:

First place, sent in by Cody Griffin

Congratulations, Cody!

One day, Joe Pettini will show them all …

Joe Pettini’s far-off gaze — it smoulders at the today about him just as it aches for the tomorrow before him. He is, for miserable now, a Le Tigre wearer lost in a remorseless hierarchy of Those Who Don Privileged Izods. Whatever mastery the lunchroom table — that steering committee of knaves, where he is not welcome — holds over Joe Pettini, it is as fugitive as the pupa.

The ribs of Joe Pettini encase not only a mighty heart, but also a concrete intake facility — painted in mute, industrial gray, the color of Prussia’s lost battles. Inside that cell subsists Joe Pettini’s numbed will. It is disembodied save for two crispy fingers, and those fingers, each night, summon the hardihood to scrawl a prisoner’s tally of the crudest hours until July 10, 1980.

On that day, all will be shown because Joe Pettini will show them all.

So assail him for now, invertebrates of the homerooms and hallways, but know this: the hunches you mock are the very wounds from which Joe Petini’s thunderclap wings will grow. You shall know him by his talons.