Important Development: Bad Spring Training Twitpics

Be careful what you wish for. A few scant weeks ago, maybe even on these very electronic pages, it would have been a popular sentiment to dream wistfully of Major League Baseball Spring Training. In theory, this makes a lot of sense. Spring Training means baseball; Baseball bats, gloves, helmets, uniforms, hats—actual baseball players. Those weird wrap around sunglasses they all insist on wearing. I mean, what red-blooded and freedom loving fan of sport doesn’t look forward to all of those things? The catch is that Spring Training turns out to be kind of boring. Most things are when compared to actual, real-life, consequential baseball contests. Granted, Spring Training is the best thing we have going for us at the moment, and we’ll take it and like it very much, thank you, but there are only so many stories we can read about players who are suddenly in awesome shape, who gave up candy during the offseason, who tweaked their delivery, who changed where they stand in the batter’s box, or who really like their team’s chances before our enthusiasm wanes a bit and we’re left with the stark reality that these stories are all generally uninteresting, and the games don’t matter. We’re greedy and spoiled and petulant that way, us baseball fans.

This is a picture of a sign about Spring Training / Brad Barr-US PRESSWIRE

The good news is that Spring Training is still fresh and the novelty remains strong. Some baseball is better than no baseball, after all. But I fear it won’t be long until we’re left wanting for something more. That’s where the new internet website Bad Spring Training Twitpics enters the conversation. If you’ve reached a point of oversaturation with the standard Spring Training fare, or would simply like to delay the inevitable for a while, Bad Spring Training Twitpics provides you the opportunity to take part in all the joyous wonders of Spring Training nonsense, without the unfortunate side affect of being driven moderately insane. The goal of the website is simple. In their words, the website is “A tribute to all those beat writers capturing horrible, blurry images of some of the most mundane sh** imaginable.” You see, many numbers of baseball writers converge on the popular locations of baseball Spring Training, and while they’re not getting quotes for another fluff piece about offseason conditioning habits, or asking a team manager about some feel-good too-old prospect nobody has ever heard of, they take bad cell phone pictures and post them to Twitter.

These pictures are something that if taken in small, singular doses, could prove just as annoying as all the other Spring Training inanity, but when compiled together all in one convenient and snark-filled location, these images enter a deeper level of pure ridiculousness and prove endlessly entertaining. Gaze longingly at the blurry visage of some hard-to-recognize relief pitcher. Examine what an empty baseball field looks like in February. Stare into the abyss of some barren desert landscape. The digital photographs and pithy captions speak for themselves, and I would urge you to visit the Bad Spring Training Twitpics website in-between your regularly scheduled and thorough Call to the Pen reading. We salute you, Bad Spring Training Twitpics, for making the hapless slog towards meaningful baseball a small sliver more entertaining and enjoyable, and for mocking others to humorous ends. You are an inspiration to smart-alecky baseball readers and writers everywhere.

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Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.