Happy New Year!

If you think you detect a note of sarcasm in my writing the title of this entry 11 days after the actual event took place, you are wrong. You do not detect a note of sarcasm...

...say, rather, you detect a symphony of sarcasm.

The Forces of Darkness (to be referred to hereafter as, "work") are about to find their efforts to keep me from writing thoroughly thwarted (and yes, thoroughly is a completely useless adjective when used with a word like thwarted, because something cannot be thwarted by degrees -- it either is thwarted, or it isn't. But I don't care, really. I'm finally writing something again. So there. I'm even breaking an unwritten grammar rule by taking entirely too long to close off these parenthesis and get on with the entry. But again, care, me, don't.)

I haven't the slightest clue as to what's going on with the Giants, or sports in general, save that my prediction of a Carolina Panthers/New England Patriots Superbowl matchup is looking pretty good at the moment.

Well, that isn't totally true. I hear the San Diego Padres have signed Shawn Estes (insert laughing synonym here), and that the Giants are interested in Josh Fogg. Usually I'd jump for joy hearing that the Giants are interested in a pitcher like Fogg...at least, I would until I realized that Fogg isn't any good...which, honestly, I did as soon as I read the blurb, thereby curtailing any possibility of the aforementioned jumping for joy. Ahem.

Note to Brian Sabean: Sabes, really, it's okay to let Brad Hennessey and Kevin Correia battle it out for the 5th spot in the rotation. Hennessey has the singular distinctive ability to become a totally non-descript pitcher -- which is what 5th starters usually are. He'll also make league minimum next year, something Fogg won't do to be just as poor/mediocre as Hennessey will be. At least we've seen a number of quality starts out of Hennessey -- bringing in somebody like Fogg would be absolutely superfluous.

Correia has the possibility of developing into...er, something other than a starting pitcher, I think. He never shows the "flash" often enough; that combination of control, velocity, and stuff that people seem to think he's capable of if given a chance to pitch regularly. I doubt it, personally, but I don't think there'd be much harm in letting Correia have the 5th spot if Hennessey can't seem to cut it, because I think there's a good enough chance Kevin could show that "flash" about once every three or four starts, which'd be good enough for a 5th spot in a rotation.

So no, Sabes, while a pitcher named Fogg pitching in a place like San Francisco would reap untold amounts of cool points for the franchise, there isn't any reason to bring the guy in.

Oh, and J.T. Snow signed with the Red Sox. Doesn't that just fit? They got Doug Meintkiewicz (did I just spell that guy's name right on the fly?), who is the poor man's J.T. -- no power, all glove, lefty hitting 1st baseman -- but perhaps felt cheated after he played fairly crappy for them during his short tenure there, only to grab the last out ball from their historic World Series win 2 years ago and fight with them for it. J.T., of course, is the real deal No-Power-All-Glove-Lefty-Hitting-First-Baseman, so I'm sure the Red Sox's NPAGLHFB fetish is satisfied, and of course Snow will give any World Series last out ball back to the team and the city, because that's the kind of guy he is. J.T.'s got more class than a prep school.

Anyways, I should be bulking up the entries now that I actually have two days off in a week, and of course Spring Training is sneaking up on us like a naked ninja wearing socks (which would mean he wasn't really naked, but nevermind).