An Inauspicious Beginning

While I was watching today's rather ugly 9-3 loss to the Giants on ESPN, the little temperature gauge I have here in the house registered 42 degrees.

It was 48 in Mesa today. The TV announcers kept remarking on all the people huddled up in blankets, saying it wasn't that cold, but there must have been heaters in the TV booth. It was that cold. I've been in the Phoenix area when it's rainy and cold like that in March, and ... it's COLD when that happens!

They shouldn't have bothered playing -- the announced attendance was 10,000, though it looked like less than half that in the stands, and playing on a wet field risked injury. The wet field was the reason for a couple of the Giants runs, at least, when Todd Walker didn't bother really diving for a popup. And why would you, to risk injury on the first day? Running hard on a wet field is what hurt Antonio Alfonseca last year in spring training. OK, bad example, but you get what I mean.

LaTroy Hawkins and Jimmy Anderson threw well today. Anderson, I suppose, has an outside shot at making the bullpen if Mike Remlinger truly is not ready. The offense was pathetic today -- Corey Patterson's home run was really it until the 9th, when the scrubs scored two runs off someone who won't make the Giants' roster.

ESPN had its troubles today -- at least on my cable system, they lost their feed for a while in the 8th inning. And worst of all, the idiot human air raid siren decided to ensconce himself behind home plate, standing up and hollering "Swing!" loud enough to be heard on mike. Why the Cubs, and/or the Ho Ho Kams, put up with this is absolutely beyond me.

The weather is supposed to improve to the point where it'll be in the 80s this weekend. Let's hope the baseball does too.