Now that football season is over -- I actually watched my first football game of the season last night, man -- baseball season seems all that much closer.* Pitchers and catchers report in a mere 14 days, so we're only two weeks away from a momentary burst of baseball bliss...before remembering how tedious and boring spring training is and starting the countdown for the actual season to begin.

*I used to be one of those people that say, "Now that football's over, there's nothing else on the calendar until baseball season!" But that was before I got into hockey. The Bolts are playing some damn important games right now, as they're trying to resurrect their season and make a final push at the playoffs, so now is a great time to tune in and catch some action.

And I suppose there's basketball on too, if that floats your boat. There's always the USF Bulls, who....well, yeah.

There hasn't been much baseball news over the past couple days -- even GMs were distracted by the Super Bowl, apparently -- so we'll just hit up some quick links:

• Sam Fuld hosted a clinic this weekend for young, diabetic athletes. It wasn't a baseball camp, but it was open to any child with diabetes that played a sport. It sounds like a great, unique idea, so I hope Fuld felt it went well enough to do it again in the future.
• So the Angels might trade Peter Bourjos for John Lannan? I'd be okay with that; it'd mean the Rays would stand a chance of having their drives to centerfield against the Angels actually hit the ground.
• As Steven Goldman points out, pinch hitters are ever so slowly disappearing from the American League. So maybe we shouldn't be that concerned that the Rays project to have a weak offensive bench? Theoretically, the Rays won't be pinch hitting all that often anyway.
• Ground-rule doubles used to be ground-rule home runs? Chalk that up as something I didn't know. Now that would be an interesting rule to dredge back up from the archives.