The Rangers pitchers have now thrown and their catchers have caught. Baseball is indeed back. Here's some updates about the Rangers first day as defending AL Champs:
There's a lot of Brandon Webb updates today. Besides the Michael Young situation and Neftali Feliz's journey toward becoming a member of the rotation, I suspect we'll read a lot about Brandon Webb over the next six weeks. Baseball writers love a good comeback attempt.
Richard Durrett writes about Webb and other newcomers in camp. He also notes the following from C.J. Wilson: "I just want to come here and prove I can start...wait, that was last year."
T.R. Sullivan has a story about Webb up with quotes from Webb about how he feels he is ready to contribute a full season and believes his arm is in good shape.
Injuries are already an issue as Durrett notes that Scott Feldman is pinpointing June hopefully as a return time from microfracture surgery on his right knee and Jeff Wilson reports on the biggest loss of the day with Omar Beltre needing spinal surgery Tuesday for spinal stenosis. The timetable for Beltre's return is obviously vague at this point.
Wilson also spoke to Jon Daniels and not about his thoughts on the new video board. Instead, he got quotes from him about the Michael Young situation and it appears now that the Rangers are going to reach out to Michael Young soon in an attempt to push forward to a working relationship again.
Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals were unable to reach a contract extension agreement before Pujols' appointed deadline of today meaning he will become a free agent at the end of the year. MLB Trade Rumor's Ben Nicholson-Smith writes for Yahoo! about where Pujols could end up next season. There's an interesting team at the top the "In the mix" section.
Finally, as proof that there's baseball, here's video of Yoshinori Tateyama throwing baseballs.