Another edition of Royals Review Links. Kid-tested, mother-approved.
Like most of America, we're most certainly "Snow-Bound".
-The Royals continue their PR-push for the public's acceptance of the video system expenditure. Sam Mellinger is only too happy to oblige in today's Star.
-Continuing his Royals binge, Buster Olney says Greinke is ready to rock in 2007.
-Dick Kaegel returns for another mailbag run over at the official site. It looks like the fanbase may be running out of steam on questions... this week's fare was pretty weak.
-The Royals Caravan isn't dead after all. Apparently John Buck and Mitch Maier live in Surprise Arizona, making them obvious choices for a Surprise-ing Caravan stop.
-John Beamer at the Hardball Times examines the question of if Barry Bonds will break Hank Aaron's record this season. Now granted, Bonds destroyed our national innocence with his decision to do whatever it is he supposedly did, but I don't think he gets enough props for what he did last season. People aren't supposed to play Major League baseball at age 41, especially on one leg.
-Of course, Bonds has told Tom Verducci he actually wants to get to 1,000 homers. Yes, 1,000. I hope he does it actually. I'm glad that this is supposedly "Bud Selig's Worst Nightmare", instead of say, the DirectTV deal, or the fact that there are still a few cities out there he hasn't extorted. Don't the fans in Baltimore know they need a new stadium to compete??
-Double T Nation is now officially one of my favorite blogs. Consistently updated and well-done. Who needs another site about Texas, U$C or Florida anyway?
-Ryan Armburst has a great piece on BABIP up over at Beyond the Boxscore.
-Its too long for a Poem of the Week selection, but this week might be a good time to cuddle up to John Greenleaf Whittier's "Snow-Bound". (Link) Whittier's poem is still one of the shocking smash hits of American Literature... for whatever reason people just loved it, and throughout the 1860s and 1870s it was reprinted in every form and level of cost imaginable. In the poem an older poet thinks back to a wintry-week from his youth, remembering how the various members of his family passed the time:
What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! -- with hair as gray
As was my sire's that winter day,
How strange it seems with so much gone,
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now
-Lastly, apparently our girl is down with the Devil Rays. The boys at DRays Bay have an interview in the pipeline, but I haven't seen it posted yet.