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Covering what other writers are too scared too preoccupied with actual news to cover.
Saturday: Green Hat Day (Observed)
RT @andrewshinkle @johnfayman You wearing your green hat yet?//Am I ever. Photo evidence forthcoming.
— John Fay (@johnfayman) March 17, 2012
If you’re like the staff here at RIWIAW and see nothing special or out of the ordinary with day drinking, then the most unique parts of St. Patrick’s Day are the green hats donned by the Cincinnati Reds. Is it a promotional stunt? Probably, but it also has become a tradition; more attune to throwback unis than what you’ve seen worn by Baylor, UC, and Louisville in the NCAA tournament. We'll always argue which city is the true home of professional baseball, but the evidence is undisputed that the Reds were the first team to wear special hats for St. Patrick’s Day.
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Sunday: Rules of Spring Training
Everyone knows that when you arrive at Spring Training, you show up in the best shape of your life (unless you’re Juan Francisco). The other thing you learn to do during spring training is simple public relations work. If you’re having a hot spring, feel free to flaunt it and say how it’s going to translate into a monster bounceback year. If you’re not doing well, on the other hand, it’s still early and doesn’t matter. What can we learn from this? Well, basically, as long as you show up and avoid trampolines, you’ll likely have a successful spring training.
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Monday: Dirk Hayhurst = Jim Day’s Greatest Nightmare
We here at RIWIAW give Al Yellon a bit of (deserving) grief. Additionally, we give (deserved) grief to all the people who criticize us for even reading Al Yellon. When’s the last time you didn’t look at a car wreck you were passing by, folks? However, this guy sometimes finds a needle in a haystack of Cubs references and Marlins trolling. Today, he led us to the Twitter account of Dirk Hayhurst. Hayhurst is a former MLB pitcher who has been a bit of a journeyman over the past few years in addition to being a published author. Hayhurst has a twitter account wherein he describes himself as "a giant, fire breathing, half giraffe half moose with yellow fur and purple spots." In other words, he’s Jim Day tripping on acid.
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Tuesday: Right of Spring, Not Summer
Are you stuck in Ohio wishing you could be at Spring Training like the jackals we sent down this year? Then take a look at this purty compilation of up-close shots taken by our favorite Spring Training/Minor League baseball porn photographer, BubbaFan! If we here at RIWIAW tried to pull this off during the regular season when the team was dining at Nada after the game, we’d likely be hit with another civil protection order.
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Wednesday: Comment of the Week!
What’s happened since our last column? Well . . .
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Thursday: Power Down
The worst part about college football is the culture of self-preservation that leads to lives of innocent children being ruined forever is the fact everything is determined by an arbitrary ranking of the top teams in the country. Ergo, sportswriters, who not coincidentally help determine these rankings, have decided to apply them to all sports. This means even the ones with a clearly identified playoff system, as well as baseball! These listings are traditionally called "Power Rankings" and the 2012 editions are now out for baseball. Unlike traditional division previews, these rankings only list the 30 teams from first to worst while providing a snarky sentence describing each team. Thus, there’s really no value to reading them beyond finding out what the national perception is of your team and reading who is at the bottom of the list 4 TEH LULZ.
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Friday: This Week in Red Reporter History 3/23/2011
In honor of Red Reporter sending its first official caravan of reporters to cover Spring Training (DONATE HERE), we’re taking this week to look at some of the activities we do at Red Reporter to get us into shape for the regular season and Opening Day. Since everyone loves a good Liszt, today's time machine visits Slyde’s now-somewhat-antiquated 2009 examination of the Top 10 Opening Day Pitching Performances. We here at RIWIAW have to say this list stands the test of time iif you’re cool with Voltron’s 2011 first inning performance getting a time-travelling snub). It’s an interesting read and something I’ve bookmarked to come back to every once in a while. This, of course, means it got less page hits than when JCH24 posted a .gif image of "two girls, one cup."