Hit-And-Run, February 11, 2026

Random thoughts for a Thursday morning.

**Women are the most beautiful thing in all creation.

**I'm getting bogged down with this Braves pitching piece and am having trouble focusing on it. I can't decide whether to look backward at the Myrtle Beach and Rome rotations from 2009, or whether I should look forward at guys who could be/should be in those rotations for 2010. What would you rather read about? This will be my main project Friday.

**The Twins international prospects piece is on hold pending something cool that should make it worth the wait.

**Speaking of Twins prospects, I seldom make product endorsements, but I feel strongly enough about Seth Stohs' Minnesota Twins 2010 Prospect Handbook to give it an enthusiastic thumbs-up. If you have any sort of interest in the Twins and their farm system, you have to get this book. Seth is taking pre-orders and I strongly encourage you to pick this one up.

**A recent fanpost asked if people should order both the on-line and print versions of Baseball America. I get both myself....although most of the content is the same, you can't take the computer to the bathroom with you.

**Comedy aside, I find that I absorb information more readily if I read it on paper than if I read it off a computer screen. If I read something in a book or newspaper, I have instant recall of it; I remember everything I read in a book or write by hand. This talent came in very handy in college. However, things I read on the internet or on a computer screen, I do NOT have instant recall on. Oftentimes I have to read on-line items three or four times before it gets fully absorbed.

    The same goes with mathematics. This will expose me as a hopeless Luddite, but I still use pen, paper, and a hand-held calculator when doing most math stuff. I have trouble making sense of spreadsheets, or at least absorbing the data that I read on them.

    This must have something to do with the wiring of the brain. Apparently my neural system needs tactile contact, even when working with abstract data, in order to fully absorb information. I guess this makes me a dinosaur in the modern age. I have absolutely no interest in the Kindle or other computer readers. This is ironic, given that I make my living on the internet and couldn't do most of my work without it.

**I can't wait for spring training to start, so we can have some actual baseball news to discuss.

**My main goal for today is to get the Luis Valbuena and Luke Hochevar Not-A-Rookies written up, then read a bunch of draft stuff.