Happy Vernal Equinox -- today is the first full day of spring, the sun having crossed the equator last night at 7:07 pm CDT.
And to celebrate this celestial event, someone who used to be a Cub star -- guy named Sosa -- will be making his first appearance in front of a Cubs "home" crowd since 2004. It will be interesting to see and hear the reaction... honestly, I'm not even sure how I will react myself, until I actually see him take the field. And he will be playing the field if he plays, not DH'ing, since the Cub lineup does not include a DH today:
(Courtesy Bruce Miles, as always)
I like this lineup for purposes of seeing what some players can do; several players (Ramirez, Barrett, Soriano) who played in Tucson are getting the day off, while Jacque Jones gets another start in CF, and Ryan Theriot shows what he can do in the leadoff spot, and Matt Murton plays right field for what I believe is the first time as a Cub.
Today's game is on CSN Chicago for those of you who have access; it's also on MLB.TV through the Mediacenter, but once again, no audio feed is available.
So, as usual, there's MLB.com Gameday.
In today's Arizona Republic, there was an article about four veteran players -- Randy Johnson, Mike Piazza, Trevor Hoffman, and Greg Maddux, all of whom are playing in the Cactus League for spring training. Click on that link and you'll wonder why I bothered mentioning it -- the article itself is nothing special. It does, however, mention each player's rookie baseball card.
The dead-tree edition of the paper has a reproduction of each card, which is why I liked the article. The Maddux card is the one that shows his pornstar mustache. You know, this one:
If you're in the Phoenix area, it's worth picking up a copy of the paper just to see the other three cards.
Discuss amongst yourselves.