Maybe the best moment of the baseball season comes on the first two days of spring training, when pitchers begin to throw for the first time. The catchers will crouch and wait, the pitchers will stand on the rubber and wait, and then the coach charged with synchronizing the timed session will glance at his watch and tell them: OK, go ahead. Then fastballs hiss, mitts pop, you watch and really learn nothing, but think about what could be.
On the first day of spring training last year, at the Indians' camp, I stood next to Cleveland GM
Mark Shapiro and watched
Fausto Carmona throw, and listened to Shapiro say flatly:
We don't think those days he had as a closer really had any carryover. He seems absolutely fine.
And Carmona was absolutely fine, beginning the year as the Indians' sixth starter and ending it as one of the AL's most dominating pitchers. Teams and players have the right -- the obligation, for that matter -- to be optimistic in spring training, to feel good about what might happen.
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Buster Olney
