GREAT EXPECTORATIONS

There’s nothing like a mid-January, low-near-zero-degrees day with snow underfoot and icicles overhead, to remind us that spring is just around the corner — if not the nearest corner, then a corner in Arizona or Florida, where Major League baseball will soon begin spring training.

Baseball, as you will recall, is that sport where spitters are both frowned upon and commonplace — frowned upon, as in a long-illegal pitch called the spitter (spitball), and commonplace, in that few are the players who don’t partake in the manly art of spitting:

One would think that in this day and age, with so much attention given to sanitary practices, ballparks would be required to have spittoons placed at various points on the ball field. For example, how about replacing the bases, home plate, and pitching rubber with spittoons sunk into the ground and covered with a grate? Wouldn’t that be great? Same idea in the outfield and coach’s boxes. Hey, if grates work great on storm sewers, they should be able to handle all the spit coming down at baseball fields. As for the dugouts, a few dozen buckets strategically placed within spitting distance of the bench should do the trick, along with maybe a sandbox for those who need a bigger target. All this spitting image improvement at no great expense — what’s not to like?

While we’re at it, why not cover all the bases by replacing some of the uncouth music played at major league parks, like The Chicken Dance, with spit tunes such as this:

Speaking of covering all the bases (and then some), Who better to do so than….

I’m out of here.