Perhaps the most hopeful sign to come out of an otherwise desultory Spring Training for the Mets was the surprising success of young Ike Davis, son of former major leaguer Ron Davis.  The plan was not to rush him, even if it meant going with the uninspiring platoon of Mike Jacobs and Fernando Tatis at first base.

But then even the plans for Ike, like the rest of the runaway train that has been the Mets season to date, have already changed, just two weeks in to the season.  Out goes Jacobs, in comes Davis for his Major League debut tonight, and with him something for fans to get excited about.

The Mets didn’t think Davis was ready two weeks ago out of camp, or at least that’s what they said.  More likely, they were looking at the calendar and thinking about his arbitration and free agency clock, as has happed with several other phenoms in recent years, like Matt Wieters.

But that is Baltimore and this is New York, and the Mets need to do this.  The fan base is revolting, the media has lost any optimism it may have had in March, and Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel have been sizzling in their seats for months.

And I still think it’s the right move.  Whether they will admit it or not, Mets brass must know that this is a lost season.  It must be used to retool, restructure and restore the faith of the Flushing followers.  Davis might need more seasoning, and being in the minors would give him the extra pre-game instruction he may need, particularly in the field and on the basepaths, but he might as well get the experience on the big league level.

At least, for one night, the eyes of the New York baseball fan will be at Citi Field and a 23-year-old who carries the hopes of a franchise into the starting lineup.

When I first started my subscription, XM 175 featured hosts like Mark Patrick and Charley Steiner.  Ever since they were phased out last year, the lineup of hosts has jumped and shifted so much that it’s impossible to follow.  Though I generally enjoy the work of most of the current hosts like Casey Stern, Jim Duquette and Kevin Kennedy (I even think Rob Dibble would be OK in a bit smaller doses) the worst decision the channel made was to make its evening programming a simulcast of MLB Network on TV.

It might be great for branding and synergy and all that marketing stuff, but it stinks for listeners.

Anyone who listens to any significant amount of radio knows that TV simulcast makes for awful radio.  Of course, it also makes for cheaper radio, which may explain why an MSNBC simulcast was also “added” to the lineup this week.

The MLB Network crew does a great job with highlight and analysis, but it’s all geared towards TV.  An occasional player interview and a portion of the commentary, not relying on visuals, are the only facets that translate well.  The hosts are in a tough spot — they can’t read all the graphics, that’s terrible TV.  But if they don’t give listeners enough info, it’s even worse radio.

Satellite radio once held so much promise, with the range of programming that could be offered catering to a wide range of musical, informational and other entertainment tastes.  But the bloated contracts given to hugely overpriced talent have hamstrung efforts to make the service profitable.  Reducing service seems to be the direction Sirius XM has chosen, which is a shame.

I’m a “Lifetime” subscriber, which means I’m on board until the company goes out of business, or declared bankruptcy and voids my agreement.  So there’s not much incentive for SXM to cater to my tastes.  It’s current monthly and yearly and new subscribers they need to satisfy.  We can only hope that one day the service won’t just be music stations and parroting of what’s already on my TV.

In the last few days, as I’ve sampled quite a few games, it’s become even more noticeable how unabashed rooting is the norm for many team’s broadcasts.  I heard supposedly professional play by play men yelling, “Stay Fair!” and “Get Down!” and Safe, YES!” more than a few times.  MLB Network’s highlights, switching between two teams’ broadcasts, had announcers saying “Stay Fair!” for balls hit by each of their teams.

It’s time for that nonsense to stop.

I understand that the announcers are employees of the teams, and in many cases they are ex-players with affinity for their teams.  And most of the viewers (and even a higher percentage of radio listeners) are rooting for the home team, and the broadcast should to some degree reflect that.  But to me, outright partiality and rooting takes away from the announcer’s credibility and makes for a very annoying experience for anyone not avidly rooting for that team.

Sterling has been much-maligned for his silly home run calls and for not always following the action on Yankees games, and for letting his considerable ego loose on most nights.  But he and Suzyn Waldman on the radio side, as well as Kay and the rest of the Yanks TV guys and the entire Mets broadcast crew, while clearly speaking to the home fan base and in that context, never use “we” or overtly root for balls to go over the wall or for a player to get a hit.  Can you imagine Vin Scully yelling, “Catch it, Manny!”?  But there is no doubt when you’re listening that it’s a Dodgers broadcast.

It comes down to professionalism, and I think the fault lies with the teams.  They obviously prefer their announcers to be cheerleaders or, as their employers, they would demand a more professional broadcast.

According to Brand Keys, the 15^th annual Brand Keys Sports Loyalty Index “gives an apples-to-apples comparison of the intensity with which fans support the home team vs. the corresponding values for the fans of the other teams in the market.”

The comparison here is not between teams within the same sport, but within the market, which accounts for the Colts and Spurs, as they are the only major pro teams in their respective markets. Interestingly, Boston teams rank in the top five in MLB, NFL (Patriots, 2^nd), NBA (Celtics, t-3^rd) and NHL (Bruins, 5^th) lists.

Karl Greenberg over at MediaPost has a good story on the methodology and notes that MLB is now tied with the NFL for the “most loyal fans,” after ranking second for years.

Click here for a top-five/bottom five in each sport.

But as the day grew closer, there was a definite buzz about the game that I think had been missing from the past few openers, especially from the Yankees’ perspective.  The Sunday night opener on ESPN had been going for a few years, after the more than 100-year tradition of having the Cincinnati Reds, recognized as the first official major league franchise, host the season opener, had been broken.

The year before, 2004, the Yanks had opened the season by splitting a pair of games with Tampa Bay in Tokyo, but the “real” opener was the Sox and Orioles a week later.  Matchups like the Angels-Rangers in ‘03 and Angels-Indians in ‘02 just didn’t generate the same excitement that the renewal of one of the biggest rivalries in the game did in ‘05 at Yankee Stadium.

MLB Network Radio (formerly XM Home Plate) had a discussion going this morning about Yanks-Sox and Opening Day in general.  I understand that listeners to this station, like myself, are mostly die-hard fans, and “tradition” means more to them than the casual fan.  Many called in or wrote on Facebook that they prefer the “tradition” of the Reds opening the season with a Monday day game.  I like ties to the past and some traditions too, but it’s been 20 years since the Reds opened the MLB season at home, and I believe that using a platform like a prime time Sunday to showcase the World Champions vs. their most hated rivals to start the year is a much better option.

The idea is that, with MLB Opening Day less than a week away, the golf company will give away a set of its fancy clubs to any player who hits a home run of more than 470 feet.  Callaway notes that 10 such home runs were hit, according to HitTrackeronline.com.

This seems to be one of those promotions that looks better in the brainstorm session than in practice.  Callaway cites an April 2010 article in Golf Magazine in asserting that “some of the game’s most prolific batsmen are attacking their handicaps like a fastball down the middle of the plate,” and that “Not surprisingly, as is the case in the ballpark, their golf games are built on bold, aggressive swings.”

I wonder if Major League hitting coaches — and golf instructors — would  agree with that assessment.

Duane Ludwig via TheFightNerd.com

Sometimes a tightly contested mixed martial arts matchup can resemble art — beneath the outward brutal, raw nature of the sport is a ballet of sorts.  Renzo Gracie describes it best when he talks of Jiu Jitsu and MMA in those terms.

But MMA has also inspired other forms of art, from clothing to photography to collectible figurines.  Take a look at this sketchwork by “The Fight Nerd,” Matt Kaplowitz of TheFightNerd.com.  He’s drawn a sketch of a different MMA fighter about every three weeks or so, and they’re extremely well done.  Some bigger names like Brock Lesnar, Forrest Griffin and Tito Ortiz and others are mixed in with a few less familiar ones like Duane Ludwig and Jorge Gurgel.

The “Nerd’s” site covers many areas of the fight game, from UFC video games to collectibles to movies to fight positions, and includes plenty of video, photos, and of course his original artwork.

Chuck Wepner knocks down Muhammad Ali, March 24, 1975

Actually, it was just the opposite.  The 71-year-old was animated and more than happy to discuss the fight that changed his life, and even shared a few things not related to those few weeks in 1975 when he went from a relative unknown — though he had fought some of the biggest names in the heavyweight division at the time, including a victory over Ernie Terrell — to the man who took the Champ the distance.

Most surprising to me was his take on the UFC.  A lot of ex-boxers particularly those in their 70s, don’t seem to have much use for mixed martial arts.  Mostly, I think, it’s because they either don’t understand it, or don’t want to.  Wepner, a Jiu Jitsu black belt and karate and judo practitioner for years, calls MMA fighters “unbelievable athletes” and respects how they go toe-to-toe wearing just the small MMA gloves.

In a way, Wepner was one of the pioneers of MMA, even if it wasn’t intentional.  In 1976, Wepner and legendary wrestler Andre the Giant fought an exhibition in an early “boxer vs. wrestler” matchup that in no way answered the question of who would win a bout between the two disciplines but at least kept people thinking about it.

In addition to the Syracuse and Duke head men, the auction, set up through industry leader Steiner Sports, has items from the following coaches: Mike Anderson (Missouri), Tony Bennett (Virginia), George Blaney (Connecticut assistant), Bobby Cremins (Charleston), Mick Cronin (Cincinnati), Mark Few (Gonzaga), Bob Huggins (West Virginia), Lon Kruger (UNLV), Phil Martelli (St. Joseph’s), Bruce Pearl (Tennessee), Craig Robinson (Oregon State), Dave Rose (BYU), Bill Self (Kansas), Tubby Smith (Minnesota), Kevin Stallings (Vanderbilt) and Bruce Weber (Illinois).

Most of the coaches have donated team shoes to the project; a few have added photos and basketballs.

Boeheim and Krzyzewski are probably the two most well-known coaches in the game today.  I’m interested to see what their items go for in the auction, compared with the other coaches.

There are also some pieces in the “Coaches vs. Cancer” auction from sports stars like Larry Bird, Derek Jeter and Tom Seaver.

Jelena Jankovic

Everyone knows who the big winners were over the weekend… Northern Iowa, Cornell, Butler, even Duke and Ohio State, who had their most highly-ranked competition vanquished from the NCAA Brackets.  But there were two other winners, Ivan Ljubicic and Jelena Jankovic, that because of timing, won’t get their due.

The two biggest tennis tournaments in the world, outside of the Grand Slams, have an unfortunate spot on the sports calendar — smack dab in the middle of March Madness.  The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., contested its men’s and women’s semifinal and final rounds on Thursday through Sunday, overshadowed completely by the NCAA First and Second Rounds.  The Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne (near Miami), Fla., holds its finals the weekend of the Final Four.

A few years back, Indian Wells at least had extensive coverage on ESPN, which afforded the event coverage on the Worldwide Leader as well as a more prominent spot on viewers’ dials.  Fox Sports Net took over, and while it has provided good coverage, casual fans aren’t finding it by accident and it has slid way, way down on the sports fans menu.

There has been talk in tennis circles for years about finding a way to make Indian Wells and Miami more prominent on the schedule.  Moving it to February or flip-flopping it with Australia in January have been proposed, but no one has found a way to make such a huge switch feasible, with the French Open and Wimbledon and their respective tuneups not moving from their traditional spots.

The US Open Series, the “mid-major” summer North American events leading into the U.S. Open, gets more push from the USTA than its two biggest non-slams.  The Australian Open gets very little attention here as well, and unless the ATP Tour, WTA Tour and USTA can figure out a way to boost two events that annually draw more than 600,000 fans, they will remain great events to visit but almost complete non-entities to the TV audience.