Baseball's back

Lots of baseball to ponder while I try to order tickets for the champs' June invasion of Philadelphia.

Johan's officially a Met. Santana, usually dominant in the second half of the season, actually started preparing in 2007 for his new team, which had a historic collapse last year:

"Santana, a two-time AL Cy Young Award winner, was just 15-13 last year and lost seven of his last 11 decisions as his ERA rose from 2.60 to 3.33 ERA, his highest since 2001. He allowed a career-high 33 homers , the most in the AL."

His new teammate, David Wright, isn't saying anything stupid, but it seems '07 will linger a bit in the Queens.

"Somewhat it allows us to officially, kind of completely shut the book on '07. It kind of takes away from, I guess, kind of the aura of what happened at the end of last year. We can kind of put that behind us. And when your superstars have a fresh attitude, looking ahead rather than behind, I think that that rubs off on the rest of the team."

Meanwhile, the Phillies won't let the Santana signing go unanswered. They're interested in Kris Benson. When did Chuck LaMar become a scout for the Phillies? With Allan Baird working for the Red Sox, why are our teams stockpiling former small market GMs?

Looks like Pat the Bat's making the Hall of Fame. More interesting is that joining him will be the punter of the Super Bowl champs, Jeff Feagles, who might be my favorite football player right now. He's been fun to watch and listen to as he's enjoyed his first Super Bowl trip and victory after spending 20 years in the NFL.

But I'll always remember the old Nintendo classic Tecmo Super Bowl. The game didn't have license to use a few of the players' names, so there would be a random player called "LB 49ers" or something like that. I'd always get confused whether Feagles (then an Eagle) was real or fake.

Finally, this is disgusting. Baseball cards are supposed to be historical documents. Blech.