My season tickets arrived today, but unlike past seasons, I got no thrill from opening them. I have no emotional link to the 2008 A's yet. I've been pretty silent about spring training, mostly because I can't think of anything intelligent to say about a bunch of players I've never seen play. Take the players from today's boxscore, for example:

Guys I've Seen In Oakland before:
J Hannahan 3b
D Murphy ss
R Bowen c
D Johnson 1b
J Cust lf
A Embree p
Not exactly a group to summon the muses down from Mount Olympus, are they?

Guys I've Seen Play On Other Teams
T Linden pr-lf
M Sweeney dh
Offensive rejects from the Giants and Royals. Oh, boy!

Guys I've Never Even Heard Of
A Brown rf
C Rogowski ph
B Conrad ss-3b
C Gissell p
Huh? Andrew Brown playing right field?

Guys I've Heard Of But Never Seen Play
C Denorfia cf
C Gonzalez rf
J Fiorentino pr-cf
W Bankston 1b
J Knoedler c
R Sweeney ph
G Petit 2b
D Eveland p
F Hernandez p
I'd like to see them, but then again, that doesn't mean they mean that much to me.

Thus my silence. Communication is the problem to the answer. I'm not in love, so don't forget it. It's just a silly phase I'm going through. You lay your bets and then you pay the price. Ah, the things we do for love.