Odds and ends

Had a couple of things I wanted to throw at you today.

• First
  day of Spring Training games on Wednesday, of course. I was going to
  effort to provide a list of prospect performances, but why do something
  that someone else has already done for you? Stumbled upon this Spring prospect watch
  on MinorLeagueNotebook.com. First time I’ve seen the site so I can’t
  really vouch for it, other than to say it saved me from shooting
  through all the box scores from yesterday. I’d love to say I’ll be more
  proactive and do this myself through the spring, but who am I kidding?
  Keep an eye on that Giants game today.. friend of B3 (and Giants
  pitching prospect) Kevin Pucetas will be among those throwing.
• Speaking
  of Pucetas, he’s been kind enough to agree to blog for us during the
  2009 season. It’s not up and running yet — he wanted to get past this
  Spring outing first — but should get going soon. And it should be a
  good one. His AFL blog
  was outstanding. Speaking of blogs, plans are coming along nicely for
  our 30 Minor League blogs. We’re up to about 24 who have committed to
  doing it, so make sure you check to see when a new one has rolled out.
  We gave Chris Hayes some love a while ago, and he’s back with a very
  thought-provoking post over at Disco Hayes.
  But I wanted to point out that we’ve got two other good ones going now
  as well. One is from Arizona 2008 first-rounder Daniel Schlereth, Bloggin’ with D-back Dan. The other comes from Pirates 2007 first-round pick Daniel Moskos, Moskie Madness, where the left-hander is trying to set some kind of record in terms of interactivity.
• World
  Baseball Classic: Can’t really call it a series, because it hasn’t been
  tied together in any real way, but Lisa Winston (she of got milb?
  fame) have been writing a story about the Minor Leaguers on Classic
  rosters (first provisional, then final) every day. We’ve pretty much
  covered everyone, but since we don’t have a landing page for all of
  them, lets use this as a impromptu place where you can find all of them
  (keep in mind, we’ve got a couple still coming).
  Arizona: Gerardo Parra |  Atlanta: Panama Express | Baltimore: Italian jobs | Boston: Chinese Taipei | ChiCubs: Alessandro Maestri | ChiSox: Cole Armstrong | Cincinnati: Wilkin Castillo | Cleveland: The Espinos | Colorado: Adam Bright | Florida: Chris Leroux | Houston: Stubby Clapp | Kansas City: Dylan Lindsay |
  LA Angels: Freddy Sandoval | LA Dodgers: Ivan De Jesus | Milwaukee: Brett Lawrie | Minnesota: Luke Hughes | NY Mets: Ruben Tejada | NY Yankees: Liu Kei and Zhang Zhenwang | Oakland: Scott Mitchinson | Philadelphia: Drew Naylor and Joel Naughton | Pittsburgh: Jamie Romak | San Diego: Luis Durango | San Francisco: Sharlon Schoop
• Still to come: Mariners, Cardinals, Blue Jays
• Finally, a word of concern. I came across this troubling story.
  Here’s the crux of it: Long working hours may raise the risk of mental
  decline and possibly dementia, research suggests. It goes on to say,
  “It found that those working more than 55 hours a week had poorer
  mental skills than those who worked a standard working week.
  The American Journal of Epidemiology study found hard workers had
  problems with short-term memory and word recall.” I’d say more but I
  can’t remember what I was going to say and the words just aren’t coming
  to me…