so, as you (three people) may have noticed, royal blues has updated its look. yes, now it is truly spectacular. i will work on the links section later; for now, just getting things to actually appear in royal-like colors is a step in the right direction. you'll notice i still have not mastered the blogspot-type template intricacies. that will continue. i'd say the next piece may be to finally free this little spot from being the "least advertised web site ever". honestly, if it wasn't for harley's Royals Baseball link, i don't think i'd ever get any hits (and, as i say that, he's apparently gone on hiatus!)...well, there's always the odd web search anyway:

carlos santiago is a fucking wuss
cartoon pitchers for gay men
physical anomalies/kansas city missouri

that's what i'm here for!

yours truly,
Joe Blow

according to an article in the KC star today, new royals pitching coach guy hansen has apparently detected an obvious flaw in brian anderson's delivery that led him to completely restructure brian's pitching motion. how serious was it? well, in hansen's own words:

"I don't think I've been around a professional who had worse deception (in his pitching motion) than he had."

to most royals fans, this would sound like a positive step – and, don't get me wrong, it very well may be. who wouldn't want a better brian anderson? but, in another way, this reflects poorly on the royals coaching staff. I mean, look at that quote again. how long has hansen been a coach in the major leagues? something that serious sounds as if it would be an obvious flaw, something that would be immediately noticeable to a professional pitching coach.

so, the question is, why are they just beginning to work on it?

hansen was named to the royals staff at the beginning of october, meaning he's had over four whole months to study our pitchers and make whatever changes he deems necessary. yet, barely more than a month before the regular season starts, he has completely changed anderson's delivery. that may be enough time to truly work itself in successfully but, then again, it may not. why take a chance? you really want a pitcher facing major league quality hitting with an unsettled pitching motion? this is something that easily could have been worked on over the winter. in fact, don't you just assume that's what professional baseball players and their coaches are doing? not sure about you, but my job actually expects me to come in all year long. crazy, I know, but probably something the royals might want to consider, too..

so, with spring training pretty much here for the most part (can you ever really tell when it actually starts?) there are all the obvious questions: will the rotation be healthy? will the young players come around? will the veterans blah blah blah…at this point, who knows and who cares? obviously most would look at this team and conclude without much effort that the royals really don't need to worry about silly things like contending. which is probably right. but, you never know – every season there are surprises. sound predictions go down the tubes and easy predictions turn out to be incredibly wrong.

as is seemingly both sound and easy, most people are piling on the royals once again. picking them last, continuing to kick the farm system around, shaking their heads at the moves made by the organization. strangely, columnist and stat guys still aren't getting paid based on their predictions. meaning they don't really have to worry about getting just about everything wrong. which is good, cause it'd be a shame to have guys who make a living being professional bandwagon hoppers…err, "fans of the game", have to live off their belly fat for a while. you can look at the numbers all you want and tease them every which way and have no idea what you're talking about. you can be a professional baseball guy who's been around the game for 35 years and have just as much idea what's gonna happen as some average guy sitting in his office wasting time writing about his favorite team on the company's dime.

which is pretty much what happens. it's amazing how often sports guys immediately see the "talent" and "solid construction" of a team that happens to be winning. pre-season predictions are worth nothing more than their ability to fill that gap of time sports fans long to waste before their season actually starts. just don't put any stock into them.

amazing how most of the teams that won last year are being picked to win again this year, isn't it? of course there's that whole money-big market-ridiculous disparity in media coverage thing that makes it a lot easier to guess which teams will be winners. but that's something for us to boot around the rest of the season. I just can't stand to read any predictions about this year – mostly because it makes me mad there are people that actually get paid to write whatever garbage they feel like making up.

I would like one of those gigs.

what's worse is that we're only days away from spring training and this season is already dragging. I think the only thing that'll help it heat up is when the weather stops with this cold nonsense. that, or a nice Fun House pizza and a few bottles of stout..

draggingly,

Joe Blow

auntie em, auntie em...there were pitchers...and catchers...and lots of guys with no common sense..

*yaaaaaawn*

who's the...what the...woah, hey, what's going on?

what happened? last i remember, the royals strung together a great run followed by a ridiculous lack of action down the stretch that doomed them to also-rans...florida strangely won the series with a team of oddly effective speed guys and young pitching, and baseball once again showed that a miraculous flash-in-the-pan, lightning-in-the-bottle team is all that's needed to overcome any type of horribly stupid payroll model set up to enable the biggest teams to easily take advantage of that. i mean, i remember the royals afterwards signing a couple guys to help for the next season...high-risk guys with short contracts. god i hoped it'd work...

anyway, i've been out for a while (must have been all the boulevard dry stouts i chugged trying to both celebrate / forget the royals circa 2003).

i mean, even if i forget the last good season in many...you can't take away my 1985 "The Thrill of it All" World Championship video. until it breaks, at least..

anyway, lemme check the baseball archives here, i'm a little dazed after my long time out...make sure i didn't miss anything.

i'm sure it's business as usu..

wait, how long have i been out??
boston won the world series?
after being down 3-0?
randy johnson's now a yankee?
pedro martinez is now a met?
carlos beltran's greedy ass went to the biggest market he could find?
NY, BOS, BAL, NYM, SEA, FLA, CHI, etc. are the big players in free agency?
the tigers landed another questionable free agent after realizing they can spend money, too?
the twins are pretty much the same team as always -- easily beatable yet a "model franchise"?
the a's are screwed with only 1 of the "big 3" left, due to the inevitable "lightning in a bottle ain't that easy to catch" thing?
the royals are in a "youth movement"?
and no one cares?
and they've TURNED DOWN a new stadium?
meanwhile, the other teams are laughing?
oh wait, cause they're gonna beat them again?
baseball is still completely retarded and has no interest in fixing itself?

ok! so it's business as usual..
god damn.

i think i better switch to porter now.
there are small signs it might be a long season..

welcome back,
joe blow