If you’re a baseball fan (also known as being someone who doesn’t hate freedom), you were probably looking towards today with the anticipation of a small child the night before Christmas.  Or maybe it was just me.  Something about the 25 degree Seattle weather and an internet feed of KNBR just screams baseball season to me, but hey to each their own.  There’s a certain comfort to be found in the dulcet tones of Dave Flemming and Jon Miller, as Miller goes through the entire anthology of Journey on a whim.

It's normal to get lost in Buster Posey's eyes, right?

The highlights of today’s game included a great inning from Javier Lopez in which he got a righty out, Buster Posey’s two hits and two RBI’s, and Pablo Sandoval’s new trim figure.  Lowlights consisted of Tim Lincecum getting rocked in the first inning, Madison Bumgarner giving up a home run to Xavier Nady, and Brandon Belt’s .000 Cactus League batting average, which is of course a good indicator that he’s clearly not ready for big league pitching.

So there’s the good and the bad.  The ugly was the collection of names that the Diamondbacks’ prospects have.  Honestly, if you strung together the right collection of last names in that farm system, you’d have yourself a hell of a law firm.  I can see the plaque now that reads “Cowgill, Krauss, Goldschmidt, Pollock, Gillespie, Kroenke, Mickolio, and Davidson, LLP” (and in case you’re wondering, the answer is yes, all of those names belong to living breathing baseball players).

As you can see based on this crack analysis, there’s not a whole lot to be taken out of the Cactus League opener other than pure, unadulterated joy for the return of baseball.  Instead of rambling on about the specifics of Casey Daigle’s pitch selection, I’ll leave you with some interesting baseball-related fare to fill your Friday night if you’re stuck inside.  Enjoy!

• The Baseball Project: Vol. 2, High and Inside (take special note of track 3 entitled “Panda and the Freak)
• 22 Gigantes all-inclusive guide to the Spring Training experience
• Slideshow of photos from the Cactus League opener courtesy of the Bay Area News Group
• Postgame thread over at McCovey Chronicles, which is always a good time
• Croix De Candlestick invades Twitter (I highly recommend this link here with no bias whatsoever.  Well possibly a little bias, but that’s it.)
• CSN Bay Area’s pre-parade World Series highlight video for nostalgia’s sake