Baseball Honeymoon 6

To everything, there is a season. Not to get Biblical on you or anything, but on this show the Baseball Honeymooners focus on transitions, both seasonal and directional.

We kick things off with a Bagels and Boxscores segment that decries the extended length of this Spring Training. However, we decide that the very thing that is making it drag on, the World Baseball Classic, is vastly more entertaining than the usual exhibition season. We also discuss the Astros’ signing of Pudge; panic or planned brilliance?

Lisa springboards from the Pudge “audition” to her interview with Mets’ pitcher Nelson Figueroa (13:55). Nelson had a pretty impressive audition himself with Puerto Rico’s WBC team; he didn’t give up a run! They get into Nelson’s long, strange journey that has spanned the globe and the majors and minors.

At 24:47 we talk to legendary hurler and blogger Jimmy Scott, who is in recovery from a freak shoulder injury sustained while….well, we’ll just let him tell the story in his own inimitable manner! Where Nelson is doing everything possible to hang on, Jimmy is weighing the pros and cons of hanging them up.

36:06: Music- Diane Daly, “Four Seasons In One Day”.

It’s time for Listener Feedback at 36:43. Our listeners make fun of Wayne (OK, pile on why doncha?) and his lack of knowledge of a certain player of Mexican extraction. We also have feedback about our top 5 books list. Then it’s trivia time, where we have our 1st repeat winner…Lisa shuffle them cards, will ya?

Hey, “doncha”? “Will ya”? When did I start writing for Sarah Palin?

44:06: Music- Diane Daly, “Them There Eyes”.

At 45:08 Curly W returns after a brief hiatus (not his fault) with a fantastic soliloquy on baseball’s great broadcasters. Who knew Bill was the next Frank Caliendo? I take it back…he’s much funnier. But then again so is Ben Bernanke.

Lisa talks (at 51:00) to Sean Casey, widely revered as the nicest guy in the game, and Sean relates how easy it was for him to make the decision to retire from playing. He also talks about how he got his new job with MLB TV, and what that transition has been like. Gang, if you don’t like Sean Casey, then it’s time to see your local psycho-analyst!

It’s Top 5 time at 60:05, and staying with the Sean Casey mode, we name our favorite ex-players who are now broadcasters. There is a lot of cross-pollination as usual. Hey, when you’ve been married 25 years, your tastes start to merge (although that apparently doesn’t extend to The Coen Brothers for Lisa or “Toddlers and Tiaras” for Wayne). One name not on either list? It starts with a K and ends with an R. No, not Kramer, though he would make a hell of a color commentator. Plus, I hear he knows Keith Hernandez!

66:43: Out music- Diane Daly, “My Foolish Heart”.

The next BH will be our season previews. We’ve got USA Today’s Paul White to talk Majors and MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo to talk minors. All 4 of us plan to hoist ourselves on our own petards and make bold predictions on the ’09 season. One thing’s for sure….we’ll do better than those CNBC/Bloomberg prognosticators did on the market!