You'd think that Dusty Baker the Commentator would be great, right?

As we all know, Dusty Baker is no longer at the helm of the Chicago Cubs. He left, and Lou Pinella took his place. That's a pretty big adjustment for D. Lee, Dempster, and A Ramirez to make. But I'm sure they'll make it work, right? After all, they always find a way. It'll be interesting to see if this team implodes in on itself again, if it actually performs to expectations, or if they resort to beaning opposing batters to "defend themselves," as Lou's previous team did. In the end, I'm disappointed, because I will no longer be able to poke fun at Baker's crazy antics, or the fact that he is flat out the worst in-game manager in the sport. Especially since Alan Trammel took himself out of the running last year. Bummer, I'll miss Baker.

Or so I thought.

See, I turned on ESPN yesterday to catch some opening day ball. And then I heard one of the announcers mention something about how to catch a pop-up, concluding what I'm sure was a flash of brilliance with, "isn't that right, Dusty?" I've got rabbit ears for the guy, and if I wasn't 100% focused before, which I wasn't, I was now. Sure enough, Dusty Baker was in the booth, "commentating." I did some digging and found out that Baker is not only going to appear on the regular season telecasts, but he is a full-fledged analysis on Baseball Tonight as well. I missed that, because Baseball Tonight isn't my favorite show. The point is, that's great. Now, I didn't hear any interesting Baker-isms, but I'm sure he's just starting off a little shy. He'll warm up. By the All-Star break, we'll start hearing about how all the walks the A's are getting are just clogging up the bases for the guys that can run. Just wait for it.

Ben Sheets is back. Apparently, he finally remembered who he is, and what people used to think he was. People used to expect great things from the guy. Especially after he shut down the world in the 2000 Olympics, allowing just 1 run in 22 innings. But lately he hasn't been so hot. I've always had faith in the guy. But nothing adds to faith like a 9-inning, 2 hit, 1 run opening day start.

So, I'm back, obviously. I'm going to try to keep this thing going for now on a semi regular basis. I know I said that a lot in the off-season, but it was just really hard to find something to write about. That won't be as much of a problem now... and I'll try to hit on the usual interesting, obscure stuff. Not the boring stuff we talked about today. Shoot. See you in a few.