Holy days of spring

There are two "high holy days" in spring sports, if you ask me.

One is the advent of baseball's spring training. The other is the opening of college basketball's "March Madness".

This year I observed spring training by catching two games in the San Francisco Giants' cozy ballpark in Scottsdale. The first game featured the Arizona Diamondbacks and the second game brought in the L.A. Dodgers. Good games, both.

The Diamondbacks' new pitcher, Edwin Jackson, pitched great and the Diamondbacks will need that if ace pitcher Brandon Webb returns slowly from an injury last year. The Diamondbacks will also need the home run bat of third baseman Mark Reynolds and the overall bat of centerfielder Chris Young to perform up to the back of their baseball cards to compete.

In the Dodgers game, it was nothing but fun. It was a hitters game and fans on both sides of the rivalry were loud and ready to let the world know early just what they thought of each other (as if we didn't know because this is, after all, the longest standing rivalry in baseball.)

The buzz of spring training that week involved the Giants and the bean ball Barry Zito threw at Prince Fielder. To find out why, this story will explain.

 The second "high holy day" of spring will begin this Thursday when the annual college basketball tournament begins.

For me, the only place to be on the opening weekend of "the tournament" is in a Las Vegas sports book. If you have not done that, the Complete Las Vegas highly recommends it. There is nothing quite like it.

Dodger players stand for the National Anthem. In spring training, the ball parks are small and allow fans an up close and personal look at players. Sometimes it's a little too close as a SF fan right after the anthem yelled at Manny Ramirez (far left): "Hey, Manny! Still juiced?" Ya think that guy was yelling that at Barry Bonds a few years back? But don't get me started on steroids and major league baseball.