| Three weeks until it begins anew
It might not feel like it to most of you out there across North America, but winter as we baseball hacks know it is quickly fading. Seems hard to believe, but it's just three weeks until we relocate to Dark Star for six weeks of painful wakeup calls, blissful breezes and copious quantities of coffee. Edwin Pope, the venerable Miami Herald scribe with whom I had the pleasure of working in the same pressbox with on numerous occasions, once wrote: "It is true that spring baseball makes millions more promises than it keeps. But baseball is unlike love. In baseball, making promises means vastly more than keeping them." With that in mind, three teams can enter spring training realistically counting themselves as contenders for the NL East title. (And some members of the Nationals and Marlins might also try to convince themselves their squads have a shot.) The Braves, like the Mets and Phillies, can make a legitimate claim that if things go well — not if things go perfectly, but just if they go well — they can reclaim the NL East title that New York took from them in 2006 and which is presently held by Philly after the Mets' Great September Collapse of '07.
UD vs. Xavier
On the flip side, contract talks to extend Crennel are believed to be progressing well with the two sides talking, which is a good sign that a deal can get done. More NFL draft coverage: Catch the latest NFL news, subscribe to the RSS feed, or get automatic e-mail notification of the latest news for your teams at BigCProFootball.com and DaytonDailyNews.com/bigc. .
Funk attempts Hawaiian sweep in the Turtle Bay Championship
I played really well last week, obviously and I played good at Sony as well," he said. "I'm playing well right now." Last year, Funk had the most-lopsided victory ever in a 54-hole Champions Tour event, finishing with consecutive 8-under 64s for an 11-stroke, wire-to-wire win. He had a tournament-record 23-under 193 total. "I like runaways. No question," he said. "Birdies are like deposits in the bank. There are always withdrawals, so you can never have too many deposits." Funk will be challenged to repeat last year's performance. He caught a sinus infection Wednesday and wasn't feeling well. Six-time Turtle Bay winner Hale Irwin was feeling good and looking to bounce back from a poor performance at Hualalai, where he finished a career-low 30th in the winners-only field of 41.
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