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Oh damn. It's here. Baseball. For real real. Not for play play. Five thoughts:

1.) Predictions for my Cubbies
Realistic Predictions: Cubs finish 84-78, 2nd place behind dominant offense, mediocre pitching and disastrous defense, miss playoffs. Hendry still loses job.

Dream Predictions: Cubs finish 101-61, best record in baseball, win World Series (preferably defeating White Sox, but any team will do). Derrek Lee wins the MVP that escaped him in 2005. Albert Pujols injures self in combination sneezing/hot-tub/deer-meat accident.

2.) Since everyone is picking the Brewers to do some damage in the Central...
I will predict another 3rd place, near-.500 finish.

3.) Japan Leagues
With the high-profile arrival of Daisuke Matsuzaka and others (Kei Igawa, Akinori Iwamura, etc.) some in Japanese baseball lament that their greatest players abandon the island for America. In fact, the Japanese leagues, unlike the American ones, have never been profitable on the whole, and are unable to put up the ridiculous salaries that even lower-tier American clubs can (see: Iwamura's signing with the Devil Rays). Yet, the relationship between American and Japanese baseball currently produces the obscene posting fee system, and washed-up Americans in Japan (i'm lookin at you Jose Macias...).

So, here's my idea: have MLB buy the Central and Pacific Leagues in Japan. They could be just like the American and National Legaues pre-inter-league-play. They've always been more advertising ornament than stand-alone institution in Japan, so let's make'em real teams. There'd be revenue-sharing just as in the American system, and no arcane posting fee bullshit. American players would be as free to go to Japan as vice versa. Or, the Japanese Leagues could act like a second-tier to the American teams, like the tiers in European soccer leagues. Of course, the Japanese with all that "honor" crap probably wouldn't sell in any situation, but it is worth thinking about.

4.) Farm system blues
The Cubs farm system has slowly slinked into the bottom half in baseball, having been raided in trades and having a number of solid young pitchers no longer eligible for minor leaguer status (too many innings in the majors). Home-grown talent is obviously important (Carlos Zambrano anyone?) and the Cubs' win-now strategy has forced the off-season buying bonanza. If my prediction holds true, and this is the end of the Hendry era, I think it's time to seriously dump money into the farm system, not in scouting (which the Cubs have always been good at) but in the actual development. After the K-orey Patterson debacle, over-cautiousness has led to "over-seasoning" if you will. A happy middle path will do all these guys a lot of good.

5.) Baseball blogs vs. "real" sports journalists
There's a lot of hate towards baseball bloggers as cold mechanical stat heads who hate the actual playing of the game or untrained partisan hacks who simply enshrine their own team and rain hate upon any disagreement, most of the time from guys like Murray Chass at the NYTimes, or Shaughnessy at the Boston Globe, or any number of "old-school" sportswriters who see bloggers as a threat. That's crazy. Blogs are just a different medium, like any medium. These reporters act as if the blogs are isolated nutjobs in their parents' basements, but the fact is that reporters are increasingly more isolated than the bloggers, reading less sources, watching fewer games, believing groupthink conclusions like "A-Rod needs to become a true Yankee" or "Statistics that I can't physically count during a game don't matter." Rather than write off sports blogs as lower-class competition, maybe these guys should start considering just why these blogs are popular, especially those that rag on old-school sports analysts. This change in medium just means that sportswriting is no longer the realm of ivory-tower AP-approved writing, but the down and dirty reporting and opining that made sportswriting an exciting genre.

Last thing: is this the LATimes April Fool's story? Or is this for real? Cuz seriously, I could SO be a butler.

Other April Fool's gags, Wikipedia, and Google. Hee!