Thinking of baseball on the day of the big game

It's Super Bowl Sunday, so that has me thinking ahead to baseball season (and I'm not the only one). After this game is when I really start to look ahead to Spring Training, counting the days, beginning fantasy baseball preparation, thinking about pulling a few more jerseys out of the closet.

Today's game has a few other connections. There are the two No. 9s above. Drew Brees, who wore No. 15 at Purdue, wears 9 because of Ted Williams (last item on the page). Michael Lewis, who wrote Moneyball, also penned a long-form feature on Eli Manning for The New York Times Magazine and played for the same baseball coach in New Orleans as the Manning boys later did. And Wezen-Ball did a great breakdown of the baseball histories in Indianapolis and New Orleans.

If the Colts win, they will share a birthplace with the World Series champion Yankees -- both franchises originated in Baltimore. If the Saints win, um, well, their coach, Sean Payton, will have won the first Super Bowl in which he appeared as a head coach, just as Joe Girardi won the first World Series in which he appeared as a manager.

Happy viewing, all. Go, Your Team! Two weeks until pitchers and catchers.

Alternate champions

The University of Texas is sending its pre-produced national champions gear to Haiti. This is, of course, a great decision and really a no-brainer (hey, H&M, take a hint, huh?). But when I read this, part of me thought of Haiti as this alternate reality wherein Texas football is the national champs and the Jets and Vikings are playing in the Super Bowl. Yet, in a further distancing from our reality, sometime next week, the champion of that Super Bowl will be either the Colts or Vikings.