Is it Opening Day yet?

Yesterday was Opening Day.

For Spring Training.

But it felt different than usual. Like it was the real opening day, almost.

I said almost.

I know why. It's because the Rockies new Spring Training facility—Salt River Fields at Talking Stick—opened up with a calculated amount of circumstance, and some pomp thrown in for good measure. It's a beautiful park (these are my pictures from when I got to tour the facility at the tail end of the Rockies Fantasy Camp). In fact, it's so renowned already, that before yesterday's first-ever game at the park, to announce Joe Torre's appointment to the position of Major League Baseball's Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, MLB comish Bud Selig dragged his dogs and ponies down to its beautifully coiffed diamond to make the announcement official.

Then, over at The Denver Post online, there are four articles directly relating to Opening Day in their All Things Rockies blog, and two articles on the main DP Rockies page. Again, some of that is predicated by the opening of the new ballpark, but it just feels like it's such a big deal—much bigger than any past Spring Training Opening Day. I'm not complaining, though. Just observing.

An entrance into the Rockies new Spring Training facility.

And finally, it could also have something to do with the fact that there's this palpable feeling, if you're a Rockies fan, that this is gonna be a special year. I know, I shouldn't write about it. Could jinx it. Suffice it to say that expectations are gargantuan. Anything less than a division title would be a disappointment.

But we've got a ways to go before any of that's figured out. Seven months, to be exact. Yeah, so I got that going for me.

My view of reviews.

As mentioned in my last post, I plan to comment on why I think music reviews are lame, for the most part. I still am might, but today I've gathered you all here to learn about what kinds of reviews can be trusted and which ones just can't. And it's really not the fault of the reviewer.

When I buy something online—something tangible—like from Amazon or Buy.com or Apple or REI—like a toaster, or a USB cable, or a pair of shorts—I tend to read the user reviews, and tend to trust them. I mean, if a dude reviews some gloves I'm thinking of buying for cold-weather bicycle commuting, and he notes that his fingers always get cold, you can be sure I would look for a different option.

But when it comes to something that is consumed and enjoyed by a matter of opinion, reviews become worthless. I freaking love the movie Ishtar. Seriously. It was a dud at the box office. And most reviews will pan the darn thing. But mine wouldn't. Mine would make it sound like the funniest damn movie to ever be set in a desert, near a desert, around a desert, or in spite of a desert. It is funny as hell, stupid as hell, and clever as hell. And outstanding as hell. But it is, and shall always be, the failed toaster oven of movies.

There's an album called The Best Little Secrets are Kept by a San Diego band called Louis XIV. It came out in 2005. I love it. There's guitars, and drums, and sexually-charged lyrics. It's rock and roll. There's nothing—not one thing—groundbreaking about it. But it sure as hell is a fun album to listen to when I'm in the mood for something to get my hands and arms air-drummin and air-guitarin. But those know-it-alls over at Pitchfork gave the damn thing a 1.5 out of 10. (Yeah, 10's the best.)

So here's my deal: one million people could hate a certain movie, but if I saw it and loved it, then what do I care what those one million people think? But when seven people review those gloves I was thinking about buying, and five of them say that their fingers go numb when they use said gloves, then I'd be stupid to buy them.

I'm still gonna dive into my diatribe on record reviews, but I've got some research I need to do, and I'm not sure when I'm gonna have it all compiled. Because of all that research. And because…

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Because there's baseball to be had. Sweet, succulent, juicy baseball. Tomorrow, the Rockie's first Spring Training game gets underway just around one. And it will be broadcast over the thingie-be-widget I call the internet. I'm especially psyched about that because we Durlams choose to get our video—the content which you undoubtedly refer to as TV—from that afore-mentioned cloudish substance. And my provider of baseball—MLB.tv—has found it in their typically frigid heart to not blackout any Spring Training games. Someday, when I'm full of mirth and gaiety, they won't blackout any regular season games, either. About which, faithful readers, you will learn more in the future. (That's just a thinly-veiled attempt to get you to keep checking back here at The Banter of One headquarters.)

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And there's also my wife. Who, today, had delivered, by a guy who comes to my house almost every day, a book inside which contained a personal message that brought a tear to my eye because of its earnestness. It was a stop-you-in-your-path kind of moment. One of those moments that reminds you how you got here and what you're still doing here—and why there could be no other here. And the book's gonna be awesome, too.

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So I got that going for me.

Some freeform thoughts, for reconnoiter purposes.

I'm not much of a basketball fan anymore, but I heard there was a pretty prominent Denver sports figure who got traded today. Some Carmelo Anthony guy. If you only read one article that breaks it down, make sure it's the one by the guys over at the blog called The 701 Level. Shep and Gil break it down for you like no one else. I'd quote a line or two for you, but there's nothing I can take from their post that works right once it's out of context. You'll just have to go check it out for yourself.

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I'm gonna post a blog here right soon about why I think most record reviews are crap. I went to see the Dum Dum Girls last night at the Hi-Dive with a buddy of mine who finds it in his heart to go out and take photographs of area concerts for The Denver Post. While he and I were chatting, the conversation strayed over to music reviews and I told him that I thought most of the record reviews I've ever read are really just a heaping jumble of dorky and meaningless analogies that give the reader no idea of what the record actually sounds like. So, yeah. Stay tuned for more on that.

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Spring Training got up and running for certain this week. So we've got that going for us. Last month, when I was busy getting my teeth bashed in by a baseball, I was lucky enough to get an in-depth tour of the new Spring Training facility that the Rockies and Diamondbacks share, called Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. You can check out the pictures I took (using nothing but a telephone!) of the joint here. The word on the street—and by "street," I mean "Twitter"—is that it's the envy of the major leagues right now.

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That's it for now. I'll be back up here tickling the keyboard soon. And, seriously, thanks for taking the time to listen.

I would like to think.

What's it like to make so much money that your biggest financial worry is... umm.... well... you really never—N E V E R—have financial worries? I can't put myself in the shoes of that person. Can't even put myself into the shoestrings of that person. And I doubt that I ever will, which is fine.

Albert Pujols knows what it's like, though. And yet he's due for a raise. He's currently making $16 million a year. That's over a million a month. A MONTH!!! And this will come as no surprise to any of you: he's not even close to the highest paid baseball player today. Now, based solely on his statistics and performance, he absolutely positively 100 percent deserves to be. The. Highest. Paid. Player. In. Baseball. I do not argue that.

But what happens when the guy who currently holds that title should not hold that title, or at least should not be making what he's making? Alex Rodriguez makes $27.5 million a year over with those crazy, overpayin' Yankees. Do the math on that real quick and you see that he's making in just over a couple weeks what Pujols can only manage to scrounge in a month.

Look, I don't mean for this to be a monologue on how baseball salaries are off the charts ridiculous. Plenty of iInk has been spilled on that topic. I have always said that teachers and doctors should be the best compensated individuals in our society, but our society is all out of whack in so many ways, and I'm just not smart enough to dissect that whole mess.

My unease with this Pujols debacle is pigheadedness. The Yankees obligated themselves to pay Rodriguez that insane amount of scratch SEVEN years ago! Why? Because they could afford to and they knew no other team could. And they were right. It's seven years later, and no one's signed as rich a contract. But the baseball know-it-all's now are saying that because Pujols is the best player in baseball—and they're not wrong about that—that he deserves to be the highest paid. And they wouldn't be wrong about that either, had the Yankees not raised the ceiling on that to heavenly proportions. Funny, too, because they're as close to the devil as a baseball team can be. Ahh, but that's another story.

So here I go: I would like to think that if the name on the back of my jersey read "PUJOLS" I would stay a St. Louis Cardinal, take a raise—knowing it falls short of A-Rod territory, because even A-Rod shouldn't be making A-Rod money, and neither should I—and be happy. Ecstatic, even. Ecstatic because I set an example of playing with pride. Of playing with the same team for my whole career and not following the money to some team out east that can afford to pay me better than A-Rod money. And, I would like to think, not ruin it even further for baseball when the next supreme talent, ten, twenty, fifty years from now is due for a raise, by pushing that ceiling even higher still than it ever needed to be pushed in the first place.

I would like to think, anyway.

Chuck Tanner & Johnnie Sunshine

Found out today about the death of former big league manager Chuck Tanner. He also was a player, but playing wasn't the salt that flavored his food. He was lucky enough to have managed a team to a World Series title. The 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. Willie Stargell. Dave Parker. Burt Blyleven. "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge. Black and Gold. Storied franchise. The Baltimore-Oriole-beating 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.

(Don't forget, from a big picture standpoint, that while the 1979 Pittsburgh Steelers also won the Super Bowl, the city in general was not in a very good place, what with the steel industry in the crapper, and unemployment at an all-time high during that period.)

But the real reason I'm bringing all this up is that I totally forgot, until today, who he was and that he even managed that team. And so, as happens whenever anyone of consequence dies, I'd seen a few short articles rehashing his career. And then one struck me. It was by Brian McTaggart who is the beat writer for the Houston Astros. Phil Garner was the Astros' manager in 2005 when they won the NL pennant. And it gets better. Phil Garner was on that 1979 Pirates team. In fact, he hit .500 in the World Series.

The article is worth checking out because it's just a good article, but there was one specific sequence that moved me.

Phil Garner on Chuck Tanner: "He never met a day he didn't like. His famous deal was you could get beat 15-0 in the worst conditions under the sun—snowing, sleeting and hailing—and he'd come in after the game and say it was great. He'd say, 'Just think what else we could be doing? Nothing else is as good as playing baseball.' We'd say, 'Yeah, right, Chuck,' but his attitude permeated everybody's spirit."

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Now, I'm the kind of guy that does his share of complaining. But I like to think that mine is a constructive brand of complaining. Not bitching just for the sake of bitching. But generally—and my wife will surely second this—I'm mister Johnnie Sunshine. Always giving the benefit of the doubt. Thinking anyone innocent unless proven guilty. I'm just not a big fan of people who spend a lot of time whining, especially without there's a reason.

So that reminiscence of Phil Garner, about Chuck Tanner, by way of Brian McTaggart, pleased me. It reinforced that there is a place for good-natured positivity. That there's always a place.

Yeah, students of the game will point out that Tanner could have shown some accountability during the cocaine scandals of the late '70s and early '80s. No one's perfect. And neither are most people well regarded at looking at the positive in spite of the negative. But Chuck Tanner was. And I'm all for that.

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Two more things I've come across regarding Chuck Tanner:

1) Before Game 5 of that 1979 World Series, with the Pirates trailing 3 games to 1, Tanner's mom passed. His response: "My mother is a great Pirates fan. She knows we're in trouble, so she went upstairs to get some help." The Pirates obviously went on to win that game, as well as the final two of the Series, which were in Baltimore. To this day, they are the last team to win a Game 7 of the World Series on the road.

2) "Everyday was a great day. When we won, we beat the greatest players in the world. The second greatest thing was that you lose because you've had the chance to play against the best players in the world."

Let's talk about The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, shall we?

Why? Because I'm sick of it. What In The World is the point of the rock and roll hall of fame? Oh, why yes, we have to honor those musicians, engineers, producers, song writers, and joint rollers, who have "in some major way, influenced the music industry through the genre of rock music."

In whose opinion? Sure as hell not mine. If it were, you could scratch a bunch of inductees off the list. Let's start with Rod Stewart. Gone. See ya later Black Sabbath. Bye-bye AC/DC, Van Halen, Genesis, Talking Heads, Elton John.

I could go on. But I think I'll let Johnny Lydon show you what's on his mind:

The Sex Pistols got invited to the hall in 2006 and succinctly declined. And they're right. The thing is a joke. In baseball, we have a hall of fame into which one is elected based on, theoretically anyway, a set of statistics that are kept of a game that has changed, rules-wise, very little in over 100 years. I'm not saying that the baseball hall of fame is perfect, because it ain't. Jim Rice? Uhhh, I don't think so. But I am saying that with baseball we have a set of accomplishments that are measured today as they were ten years ago, fifty years ago, even a hundred years ago. It wasn't any easier to get a fastball over the plate in 1923 than it is today, or to hit one over the fence in 1959 than it is today. Today's guys can be fairly stacked up against yesterday's guys pretty objectively, if not fairly.

But the problem that the rock and roll hall of fame presents for music—and there are so few problems with music, in my mind, that that in-and-of-itself blows the cover off the rock and roll hall of fame right there—is that there is no objective "statistic" on which to compare today's top artists with yesterday's. So we're basically letting a few guys subjectively tell us who has had the most influence on this moving target of a genre we describe as rock and roll.

My list of first-year inductees would be different than yours. And my neighbor's. And his grandmother's. And her great uncle's. OK. You get the point. Tom Waits is going to be inducted this year. Are you kidding me? He, for me, would have been in the year it opened. Those acts I mentioned above saying they should not be in? I like all of them a lot. In fact, some of the best albums of ALL TIME were recorded by some of them. But then again, the best baseball player I've seen in person is Larry Walker. He may never get into the baseball hall of fame. (I've seen Tony Gwynn, Ozzie Smith, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and many more, so don't argue that I've just not seen enough live baseball to weigh in.)

I should also mention that one of the dudes whose idea it was to even start a rock and roll hall of fame in the first place is Ahmet Ertegün, who, along with Herb Abramson, founded Atlantic Records back in the 1947. Atlantic Records is only responsible for some of the best music ever recorded. Ray Charles. Aretha Franklin. Led Zeppelin. Otis Redding. Sam and Dave. Big Joe Turner. Ertegün was a genius. But not all the ideas of a genius are genius.

In the end, music is such a subjective thing that there's no way to fairly enshrine one into a music hall of fame. We each have our own. Everyone's idea of who's important musically is unique. And that's a REALLY good thing. Otherwise there would be one radio station. And we would all listen to the same thing, because we would all like the same thing.

Maybe I'm over-simplifying the whole thing.

But no.

No, I'm not.

When it comes to seasons, Winter is definitely in the top four.

[In a Casey Kasem voice: Coming in this week at number four: Winter!]

I know I probably complain incessantly about those summer days when the temperature gets above 90 and seems to stay there for a couple weeks. But I'm pretty sure I'm gonna stop doing that. And anyone who might be reading this from north of here and east of the Mississippi (What? I can pretend I have followers around the country, can't I?), I know you've had it way worse than us Denverites this year, but come on.

Actually, it really wouldn't suck at all if there was this unwritten code that schools, employers, clients, etc. understood. That everything just gets canceled. That's what the unwritten code should be. We all just stay home, and off the roads. Go for a walk. Get out and play. Take some pictures of how beautiful the snow looks on the trees, or the way it sometimes seems to defy physics by how much space it can occupy on the top of a street sign. But keep the cars parked. Wanna get somewhere? Public Transit. Cross country ski. Snowshoe. Walk. Or I know: how about don't go anywhere? Stay home. Why do we always have to be going somewhere or doing something?

An occasional spontaneous, unplanned, what-should-we-do-now kind of day would be so emotionally gratifying that we would become massively more productive and happy as a society. Really. (Note to self for a future blog: lay out details for my long-wished-for eight-day week with three-day weekends every weekend.) I would have stayed home today. So would have my daughter and wife. We would have slept in. Then we'd get up, make and enjoy some breakfast together as a family. And then? Who knows. Maybe a game of Monopoly. Then a movie on the flat screen. Heck, even on the way to school today, my daughter said. "If I didn't have school today, it would be a perfect time to decorate my Valentines box that I have to bring to school next week." See? All this stuff we always put off for a "rainy" day never gets done, because we're always too damn busy on these rare "rainy" days. As a society, we aren't allowed to take any time off. It's bullshit.

It's Super Bowl weekend and I don't give a shit.

Well, kind of I do, I guess. In as much as it helps me remember how old I am. (I turned one a couple months before Super Bowl I, so whatever Super Bowl it is, that's how old I am.) But the danger of having become purely monogamous to baseball is that I now have this supercilious attitude toward most other sports. And even the commercials, at least for the last five or six years, have been banal, for the most part. In fact, I can't even think of any exceptions, but that's probably due to the fact that my family gets all of its video entertainment via the Web, and has for over a year. Therefore, we see very few commercials any more. And I actually kind of miss them. But I digress.

So, my wife, daughter, and I will go to a Super Bowl party and have a good time. My wife's mother's family—she and her nine siblings—grew up in Pittsburgh, and almost all of them still live there, so I kind of feel like we have a horse in the race, or at least a team to root for with more than a passing passion. Not that I paid any attention to them during the regular season or playoffs, but still.

About which I shall digress some more: If I had to name an American metropolis, other than Denver, that I could live in, it would be Pittsburgh. I've been there a half-dozen times, and it always strikes me as one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. Of course, I've never been there during the winter—only the "green" months—but really, I challenge anyone to objectively name a more livably pretty city. Of course you have San Francisco, but I couldn't afford to live there—therefore, not livable. And San Diego, but I wouldn't want to live there (I like seasons). Same for the south, so that rules out places like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, etc.

Plus, with my disdain for the American League's designated hitter rule, I would have to live in an NL city. So that really narrows it down. Oh, I suppose I could warm to St. Louis, but I haven't really spent enough time there to be sure.

Not that we're thinking of moving. It's just something I decided I'd think out-loud about. Thanks for listening.

Oh. And go Steelers.

Welcome back, Teeth.

I went to an oral surgeon this morning, excited to hear about what the plan of attack was going to be regarding the un-rearranging of my teeth. Luckily, the Tucson Medical Center, where my ER visit took place, had already sent the doctor's report and CT scan to my soon-to-be-best-friend oral surgeon, so his mind was made up before I even got there.

He starts telling me about how they're going to put me under, move everything back to where it was, put in an arch-something-or-other, to keep it all in the right place that I'll have to wear for six to eight weeks, after which I may need a root canal or two, and possibly some braces. All well and good, I thought. Totally jived with what the dentist at Camp had said when he looked at me the morning after the Teeth Wreck.

So I'm feeling good and looking forward to finding out if this is something that he thinks will take place by the end of the week, or early next.... You know, just want to start getting myself psyched up for it. He goes, "When are we going to do this, you ask? Well right now, of course." Holy shit! Right Now! As in Now, Now? OK. I wasn't ready for that.

I had two things going for me. My wife was by my side (thank you, Denver Public Schools, for closing school today, otherwise she would have been at work). And they were going to put me under to the point where I wouldn't remember a thing.

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I didn't remember a thing.

In October my dad had major arterial surgery—a six hour procedure—after which he said it felt like no time passed between when the anesthesiologist started pumping him full of ga-ga juice and when he awoke from the procedure. Same thing for me, although mine was just an hour long. In fact, when I came to, my first thought was, OK, go ahead and get started already. What? You're done. Oh. Yeah. That explains why I can't feel my face.

When I was laying on the ground, back in Tucson, in right field of Hi Corbett Annex Field 1, I don't remember being blown away by the pain. It was the shock. Then, hours later, the pain really was not excruciating. Even in the ensuing days, the pain never really kicked my ass. In fact, the ER prescribed me Vicodin, but I didn't fill it because Tylenol was keeping it in check. But this surgery business is another deal altogether. What'dya use, doc, a crowbar and sledgehammer? Maybe a wire brush for clean up? Damn my face hurts. That Vicodin script I mentioned earlier? It's filled.

Ahhh, but the teeth have their old addresses back. Looking forward to finally chewing some food, instead of drinking it.

So tomorrow I go see my dentist so he can assess whether my bite needs adjusted (it does, I predict—my teeth may have their old addresses back, but they're not totally moved back in). Anyway, six to eight weeks and I should be pretty much back to normal. As for my future in baseball? Shit yeah. This spring I'm gonna start looking for a men's league. I want to keep playing. I want to go back to the Rockies Fantasy Camp. I want to show those pop flies who's boss.