Spring Rolls on in AZ

Today is the first fullscale day of regular season baseball, though the Braves and Phillies opened last night. Dave and I went to one of the last spring training games a few days ago and saw the Giants and Rangers in Surprise. Here's Barry Zito delivering a pitch...blow the pic up for more detail. Zito pitched seven mostly strong innings, longer than he has usually gone during the regular season! Hopefully he'll do better this year; the last two seasons he has cost the Giants over a million dollars per victory.

Josh Hamilton patrols center field for the Rangers. Hamilton's a bona fide five tool player...hits for power and average, fields, runs, and throws well. All his talents were on display during this game. He made two fine running catches at the fence and hit a towering 420 foot home run. And, from the sound of the bat at contact, he didn't get nearly all of that pitch.

Meanwhile, the desert continues to bloom. This paloverde tree is in full flower. Many of the trees in natural settings are not blooming and don't even have any buds...it's been a fairly dry winter around Phoenix. But the trees near water sources, such as drainage ditches and in people's yards, are flowering nicely.

This is the flower of the teddy bear cholla. I have to be REALLY careful when photographing these; this cactus is best known for sticking people bigtime when they merely brush up against it. In that case a clump of the cactus will come off...in your skin...and it takes skill with tweezers or sticks to remove it. The flowers are pretty but are a little hard to spot from afar as their color is

similar to the plant itself.