Tuesday Grab Bag: What's this? A win!? Now I'm really confused.

I don't want to let this slip through the cracks.  The CU men's basketball program did a pretty cool thing last week when they 'signed' six-year-old Cason Turkaly to the 2015 recruiting class (I know Tad likes to go after early commits, but damn).  Of course, this was an event coordinated with Team IMPACT, a non-profit organization working to make once-in-a-lifetime dreams come true for chronically ill children.  They even had Cason, who suffers from Schwachman-Diamond Syndrome, sign a NLI, which may have been the cutest damn thing I've ever seen.  Good on the Buffs for making this happen, and helping to bring a smile to little Cason's life.

Cason Turkaly, the newest commit to the #RollTad army.  Hear he's got a mean handle. From: CUBuffs.com

Side note: inspired by their new signee, CU went on to beat Stanford over the weekend, ending a three-game losing streak. Karma, man.

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Today in the bag, I'm talking the win over Stanford, the world of Pac-12 basketball, and Spring Training.

Click below for the bag...

Spring Training Primer

 The Buffs off-week comes at a perfect time for me.  The quick respite in the middle of the challenging Big XII season allows me to set my sights, ever so briefly, on the start of Spring Training.  If you're looking for someone to wax poetical about the dawning of Spring, Baseball, and Hope I suggest you look elsewhere.  I'm more of a practical baseball fan; I use ST to reintroduce myself to the players and storylines that will impact my teams over the next 7 months, rather than a metaphor for the human condition (that sappy baseball shit makes me want to gouge my eyes out).

While the Rockies have already begun to report to their shiny new complex in Scottsdale, the Sox won't begin to arrive in Glendale until tomorrow.  In celebration, I've put together a list of the key items I'll be watching while the teams prepare for the 2011 season.  Buffs basketball coverage will return in earnest tomorrow.

Click Below

The sounds of spring: The inane chatter of reporters.

Watching hours of practice can be incredibly boring. I only go to one fall football practice a year because, quite frankly, attending practice is dumb. Considering this, I empathize with all of the sports beat writers across the world. For no particular reason, they are forced to attend practice, watch the same repetitious crap they saw yesterday, and then come up with something new to say about it. They are desperate for new angles, and anything that is even remotely newsworthy becomes 70pt font breaking news. I certainly don't envy them; writing about something when there is no story is brainrackingly difficult (See yesterday's post on 5 year old video games).

This is why you always hear random crap bantered about during spring training (Or Spring practice, or OTA's or Training Camp, or whatever the hell NASCAR has prior to the start of making left-hand turns). Minor incidents become the Yalta Talks. A tweaked thumb becomes career threatening. Fringe players, and the position "battles" that they partake in, suddenly become the next greatest player ever. (Example: The emergence of the "great" Rashied Davis in Bears camp a few years back) More than that, reporters are so desperate to actually "report" that they become mouthpieces for every "best shape of my career" story that's ever been written. It must suck their soul to write this crap, but if the Chicago Tribune or the Denver Post is going to pay your way to Arizona, then you better justify with with hard breaking new items like "Alex Rios looking to rebound from last year" (REALLY?!! .199 batting average was unacceptable in his eyes?!!) or "Jason Giambi shows up" (He Reported as scheduled, and wants to win? HOLY SHIT!) Seriously, the only value those two columns have is to remind me that those players are still with their respective teams.

All of that brings me to the kerfuffle over Ozzie Guillen's Twitter account, or, as the Trib decided to describe it as, "The White Sox Twitter Tiff: Guillen's new Tweets fuel followers and controversy." (Check him out here) What did Ozzie say on his Twitter account to bring about this controversy? Missives such as "3 day of Spring Training and im already boreddddddd" and "Iam tired from bad very bad golf." That's riveting stuff.

(Ozzie is not happy with his golf game, apparently. From: The bored Tribune)

I'm just... wow... just... wow. Even Mark Buehrle think this "controversy" is a load of horse-shit. "I could give two shits about it." (Thank you Mark. You just made my day.)

(Mark is too busy filling up his truck's gas tank to care about Ozzie Tweeting)

I know there is nothing going on right now, but lame stories like this are why I gave up on the "mysticism" that everyone insists Spring Training holds years ago. Yeesh, just get to the season already.