MLB Bullets Is Looking To Be Inclusive

I've got nothing interesting to write up here, so I'll just leave a blank space below it and you can write in your own clever introduction.

Finished? Let's start.

• In the light of college football all-American Michael Sam's announcement that he was gay, Ken Rosenthal asked seven baseball executives if their team would sign an openly gay ballplayer. All seven, including the Cubs' Theo Epstein, said yes, unequivocally. This is in contrast to eight anonymous football executives who told Sports Illustrated earlier this week that they'd be quite hesitant to draft Sam because of his announcement. Of course for them, it's not a theoretical exercise.
• Add Yankees manager Joe Girardi to those who say baseball is ready for an openly gay player.
• Michael Young told a Dallas radio station that he "guaranteed" that he had played with a gay teammate at some point in his career.
• Howard Bryant looks at the declining participation of African-Americans in baseball and says that baseball's current efforts, while well-intentioned, aren't working. He offers several suggestions for improving African-American participation in the sport. The most radical of which is to eliminate the draft. Of course, the owners would never go for that.
• Antonio Castro is a vice-president in the International Baseball Federation. He's also Fidel Castro's son. And he's the driving force in Cuba to allow their players to play abroad professionally without having to defect first. ESPN the Magazine interviews him about the state of baseball in Cuba today and what he'd like to see the future be.
• Eli Saslow has a long profile of Aroldis Chapman and his struggles to adapt to life in America. Despite living in a giant mansion outside of Miami, Chapman still misses his days of living in a three-room house back in Cuba.
• Speaking of adjustments, Daisuke Matsuzaka says that the toughest challenge that Masahiro Tanaka is going to have is adjusting to life in America.
• Tanaka made a big splash by flying into New York by chartering a Boeing 787 for him, his family, four friends and his dog for approximately $195,000.
• At his press conference, Tanaka showed enough command of English to say "Hello. I'm Masahiro Tanaka. I'm very happy to be a Yankee."
• Yankees GM Brian Cashman has been downplaying Tanaka's impact on the team. He says Tanaka will be a "solid 3" pitcher and that there will be "growing pains."
• Ian O'Connor says the heck with that, Tanaka is here to be an ace.
• Tracy McGrady has started his pitching career outside of Houston and the independent league hitters who saw him pitch were impressed.
• Terence Moore says that players from other sports still want to play baseball because the appeal of the game is that strong.
• Roy Oswalt retired.
• Jay Jaffe has a look back at Oswalt's stellar career.
• Twins GM Terry Ryan has cancer. Luckily, it appears to be a very treatable form of cancer.
• Curt Schilling underwent cancer surgery on Monday. Schilling has not revealed his type of cancer or what his outlook is. His daughter did say the surgery went well.
• Nolan Ryan accepted a job with the Houston Astros. He'll be the one wearing the Astros' mascot Orbit costume.
• Pete Rose thinks taking PEDs is worse than betting on baseball. Of course he does. He doesn't mention all the stuff he took, like amphetamines, when he was a player.
• Three former minor league players have filed a class action suit against Major League Baseball, alleging that minor league players are underpaid and unfairly exploited. I don't know the legal issues involved here, but I can tell you they are absolutely right.
• Albert Pujols has dropped his defamation suit against Jack Clark after Clark publicly apologized and said he had no knowledge of Pujols taking PEDs.
• Anthony Castrovince thinks the Angels need to start calculating now about how much it's going to cost to sign Mike Trout to a long-term extension. I think the answer is "more money than God."
• Giancarlo Stanton talked about his chances of signing a long-term extension with the Marlins. He didn't say no, but he said that there would have to be some changes in Miami first. Or rather, fewer changes. The change being that there not be so many changes.
• Grant Brisbee tries to figure out what it would take for Stanton to re-sign with the Marlins. He writes a lot of words, but what he really wants to say is "a cold day in Hell."
• The Indians and Michael Brantley agreed to a four-year extension.
• Jason Kipnis would also like to sign a long-term deal with Cleveland.
• Marc Normandin thinks the Pirates really need to re-sign A.J. Burnett.
• Johan Santana still wants to pitch and is looking for a team to give him a chance.
• Dave Cameron thinks the free agent qualifying offer system could work better if players could accept the qualifying offer at any time over the winter rather than having only ten days to make a decision.
• Tom Verducci has ten intriguing questions heading into spring training.
• Bob Nightengale writes that the Cardinals don't really have any questions heading into the season. In 2016, the NL Central will be the best division in baseball and there won't really even be any debate about it.
• Gabe Kapler talks about what goes through a player's mind as he leaves his family and heads to spring training. Or at least, what went through his mind.
• Cee Angi thinks that the Reds can't trade Homer Bailey because they're a team built to win now.
• Anyone remember Michael Pineda? He says he's 100% heading into spring training after having missed the past two seasons.
• Justin Verlander says he expects to be ready to pitch on opening day.
• Mike Napoli is enjoying life and keeping the beard. I guess he could always sell cough drops when his career is over.
• Paul White looks at the way that analytics have changed the relationship between the GM, the manager and the players.
• Our long national nightmare is over! Or at least, our long San Diego County nightmare. Time Warner Cable will carry Fox Sports San Diego and the Padres games this season.
• Ryan Hanigan's Australian sheepdog won "Best in Breed" at the Westminster Dog Show. Here's where I'm obligated to make a joke that Chris Perez's dog was scheduled to compete, but he failed the drug test.
• Finally, Rays pitcher Alex Cobb decided to enlist a dolphin to propose to his girlfriend. It would have been really embarrassing if she thought she was saying yes to Flipper.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.