The Non Sequiturs: The Dueling Brian Hunters Edition

My Cactus League Spring Training tickets arrived this afternoon, courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers. I may have mentioned this last year so forgive me if I did, but the Brewers and Cubs (and other teams, I’m sure) charge $3 for mail delivery of tickets. Not so strange. But how about this: a $3 charge for Will Call.

In other words: For the postage savings you’ve provided to us, we’re going to charge you $3 for storing your tickets on a hard drive until you show up.

Major League Baseball’s exclusive deal with Tickets.com is enfuriating and MLB should be ashamed that its fans get gouged every time we buy game tickets online.

By the way, I just checked, and lo and behold TICKETSDOTCOMSUCKS.COM is available.

Tempting.

So where were we…?

• If you’re like me, the name Clay Rapada — the Tigers reliever better known as the player to be named later in the Craig Monroe trade — hasn’t etched itself permanently into your brain. And why should it have?

  Well, here are a few reasons: 4 Games, 2 IP, 3R/ER, 2 HR, 2 BB, 2 WP, 11.57 ERA…yet, four strikeouts.

  Rapada, who’s yet to appear in a Spring Training game, would be the third lefty in the Tigers bullpen this year. Considering that his name hasn’t appeared in an article before today (though I certainly could have missed it), methinks he’s destined for Toledo and, at best, a September call up. If we see him in Detroit before then, chances are things aren’t going too well.

• Joe Posnanski has been playing poet of late to preview each team, division by division. Today he tackles the AL Central and has this to say about the Tigers:
  

  1. Detroit Tigers
  Your lineup’s good, take it on faith
  When you have Pudge v.2 hitting eighth
  The pitching staff has a few unknowns
  And they’ll need big leads to give Todd Jones.

  Joe’s latest book comes out in paperback next week.

• In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that it was former Tigers outfielder Brian Hunter’s birthday. Only it wasn’t, but I was close.

  Ends up that yesterday was actually the 40th birthday of former Braves, Pirates and Reds outfielder Brian R. Hunter.

  But how’s this for irony? Today is the 37th birthday of Brian L. Hunter — the former #21 for Detroit.

  The point of all this? In baseball history only two players have been named Brian Hunter and they share a birthday.

Finally, be sure to check out DetroitPSLBasketball.com, a new Web site created by Fungo contributor Doug Hill.

It’s a terrific site dedicated to chronicling and preserving much of the history of the Detroit Public School League. While it’s primarily a PSL site, there are non-PSL performers included in the All-State and All-American categories as well as some of the All-City teams.

Doug, Bill Hoover and 1971 All-PSL performer at Mackenzie and four-year MSU Spartan Lovelle Rivers have poured countless hours and even more energy into researching and developing the project.

Give it a look-see!