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Spring training now irrelevant
Updated: Sunday February 25, 2001 9:27 AM
The poems of spring don't work anymore. Not for me. Don't tell me about the sweet sounds of bat hitting baseball in the Florida or Arizona sun. Don't parade out a chorus line of phenoms and dress them in adjectives. Don't rhapsodize about veterans with recharged bodies or minds. Don't show me the TV sports guy, dressed in his nice Hawaiian shirt babbling about the fight for second base while the anchor man and weatherman gush about how they wish they were on this assignment, too. I am a modern man, a bottom-line man. Spring training is irrelevant now.
Pennants aren't won anymore in cozy little ballparks built in the middle of orange groves. Pennants are won in lawyers' offices during the winter, signatures scrawled across bottom lines, talent acquired, not developed. Practice doesn't make perfect, money makes perfect. Spring training is an anachronism, a public relations vehicle, a trailer set out to preview the mega-movie that will unfold later. Don't bother me with your little grapefruit news, your cactus exclusives. I am busy watching playoff berths decided in the NBA and NHL. I am thinking about filling out my NCAA bracket. There is a big-time golf tournament every week and NASCAR has become an unbearable drama to watch and the local high school kids are getting on buses in search of glory and ... I don't need your spring training. Except ... OK, how do the Red Sox look? Sports Illustrated senior writer Leigh Montville appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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