By Barry Millman
Honus Wagner, perhaps the greatest shortstop ever, famously said: "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."
Yankees backup shortstop Brendan Ryan may do the same thing, but not without a sense of foreboding.
Simply put, his body is allergic to spring.
Not in the sneezing, coughing, sniffling sort of way.
Like sunlight to a vampire, the season is downright dangerous to him.
In the aftermath of Ryan's loss on the eve of the new season, it may be therapeutic to pause and reflect a moment upon what losing him has meant in the past.
Two things immediately come to my mind.
The first thing is that, when this happened last time, it wasn't a bad thing.
A year ago to the day, remember this?
Honus Wagner, perhaps the greatest shortstop ever, famously said: "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."
Yankees backup shortstop Brendan Ryan may do the same thing, but not without a sense of foreboding.
Simply put, his body is allergic to spring.
Not in the sneezing, coughing, sniffling sort of way.
Like sunlight to a vampire, the season is downright dangerous to him.
In the aftermath of Ryan's loss on the eve of the new season, it may be therapeutic to pause and reflect a moment upon what losing him has meant in the past.
Two things immediately come to my mind.
The first thing is that, when this happened last time, it wasn't a bad thing.
A year ago to the day, remember this?