One of the most fun/excruciating parts of the baseball offseason is wondering just how many days are left until the season begins anew. Wonder no more!

Evan "Funk" Davies, the awesome WFMU DJ who spins every Tuesday at 11pm, alerted me via tweet to an extremely simple webbed site that will inform you exactly how much longer we must wait. The site is called Pitchersandcatchersreport.com, and it's about as bare-bones as a site can get. But it does what it says: Tells you exactly how many days remain on the calendar before pitchers and catchers report to spring training. It also has countdowns for when all players report and Opening Day. So just bookmark that and keep checking it until the number hits 0.

In case you're much too busy to look at the site (but not busy enough to read this one), as of today, there are 16 more days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, 19 until all players report, and 67 until Opening Day. As my body thaws out from a walk-heavy commute in single digit wind chills, that is a warming thought.

UPDATE: As Mr. Davies pointed out in the comments, this site may be off (as in, it probably is). Unless they're using some New Math I don't know about. Whatevs. LET ME THINK IT'S ONLY 16 DAYS UNTIL SPRING TRAINING. TELL ME SWEET LITTLE LIES.

A whiles back, I wrote about a site called Tiny Art Director and how it represented one of the darker, more soul-crushing aspects of parenthood--how your children can be Heathers-level cruel to you on a daily basis. But kids do cool stuff, too. Like make up hilarious stories with enormous universes and characters ruled by a logic that only makes sense to them.

Witness Axe Cop, an online comic drawn by an adult but "written" by a five-year-old. Apparently, the young auteur (Malachai Nicolle) tells his stories about the titular character to the artist (Ethan Nicolle), who illustrates them. Magic ensues.

I will not ruin your experience by revealing any details of the exciting Axe Cop story arc. Suffice to say, it's pretty much exactly what you might expect from the mind of a five-year-old. Click and enjoy. I promise awesomeness.

Thanks to namethebats, who first alerted me to said awesomeness.

Like Joe Posnanski, who I covered in a previous Warm Thoughts... post, Ive written about my love for sportswriter Tim Marchman before on this site. Unlike Posnanski, Marchman doesn't have much of a national profile. He wrote for the now-defunct New York Sun for a few years, and now pens the occasional column for SI.com. He runs a very close second to Posnanski as my favorite baseball writer.

Marchman isn't quite as poetic as Posnanski, and he has a calm, cool style that's somewhat at odds with recent trends in sportswriting. Nowadays, you either have to be a manic Super Fan liek Bill Simmons, or a angry, grousy crab like virtually everyone else. Marchman, by contrast, is measured and erudite. You can tell he chooses every single word carefully, which you can not often say of his contemporaries.

But he can also bust out the occasional bon mot, as he did in a column last December about the Mets' lack of hot stove activity.

Think of the market as a greasy street at the ash end of Las Vegas at a quarter to five in the morning, and Minaya and his rivals as the sad lot slumping along the sidewalk. Should they really listen to the sharps and touts sidling up to them, making offers? One supposes that they could catch some luck. They could catch something else just as easily.

Marchman's specialties are the numbers of baseball: sabermetrics and dollars. Take his recent column about Tim Lincecum's impending arbitration case. It's a case that has a lot of owners shaking in their boots, because Lincecum asked for a record high salary ($13 million). Marchman touches on players' historic lack of luck in this process (they lose 60 percent of all cases) and what Lincecum's prospects are for remaining a great pitcher (prognosis: positive).

Or another recent column about the Reds' signing Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman. By his math, the economics of the deal don't quite add up. At the same time, he likes to see that teams like the Reds are taking high risk/high reward chances like this.

I love that the Reds are laying marks on real talent rather than squandering $5 million on Kyle Farnsworth or someone like him. I love that Reds fans are (rightly) so excited about this. I love that Chapman can finally start thinking about the best players in the world rather than worrying about money. Mostly I love that it was the Reds, rather than the Yankees or Angels, who signed him.

So let me get this straight. Everyone's all bent out of shape because I haven't magically fixed the economy and gotten us out of Iraq in my first 12 months in office.

Are all of you people fucking retarded?

Hey, remember the last guy to hold this office? The one who ruined everything and wouldn't allow himself to be questioned? It took him eight years to dig the cesspit we're in now. It's gonna take more than one year to claw our way out of it.

You do know that, right? Or are all of you seriously retarded?

I don't know who's worse. I got professional douchenozzles like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity who say shit about me that, in any other country, would get a person thrown in jail. Sometimes I wish I'd been president in some little banana republic. I'd have those assholes whipped in public, every day.

And then there's you whiny little bitches on the left. "Wah, he's not going fast enough! Wah, he's just like Bush!" Just like Bush?! That guy wiped his ass with the Constitution and couldn't put two coherent words together! Are you fucking people blind?!

Jesus H. Christ.

It just so happens I have a plan right here that will get us out of this recession. But it will take a few years, and clearly you people have no patience whatsoever. So how about ice cream for everyone! Hooray! Everyone gets a big bowl of ice cream! And when that runs out, I'll whip out a nice shiny object you can stare at! Happy days are here again! Zippa-dee-doo-fucking-da!

/folds arms

/shakes head slowly for seven minutes

I mean...

Christ Almighty.

I posted this video on the site last September, but a gem like this deserves a second look.

In case you forgot, Hall of Famer George Brett was captured on video torturing Royals players during a spring training exercise by telling an excruciatingly detailed story about pooping his pants. Some genius took that video and not only autotuned Brett's voice, but also inserted a plethora of hilarious visual cues. Enjoy.

I've had this string on my index finger for so long now, I can't remember when I put it on! In fact, I even forgot it was there until this morning, and I saw it in the mirror while I was shaving. Weird, huh? For the life of me, I can't remember what it's supposed to remind me of. Let me think, let me think...

I think I put this string on right after the season ended. So maybe this was supposed to tell me to do something for the team. Was it to remind me to bid against myself for a slugging outfielder? Nope, did that.

Was it to overpay for a bunch of spare parts? No, I took care of that.

Was it to trade for a terrible fifth outfielder we didn't need? No, I just wrapped that up.

It was something like...switcher? Was I supposed to switch something? No, it just sounded like switcher. But there's no other word that sounds like switcher, right? Maybe it just sort of sounds like it. Nick Swisher? James Michener? David Fincher?

This is getting me nowhere. Boy, I'm thirsty. I could use a cool drink. Say, Darlene? Could you bring in some water when you have a chance? Like, a lot of it. A whole pitcher, if you can. On second thought, make it two pitchers. I could use two solid pitchers.

Where was I? Oh yes, I was trying to remember what this string was supposed to remind me of. Ugh, this is gonna bug me all day.

Most jock memoirs are exercises in narcissism, which is to be expected. Athletes who reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport have, in all likelihood, been praised and coddled like little emperors their entire life. So they must be on top in everything. Even if they try to stress their humility, it's to show that they are far more humble than you could ever be. Even if they talk about a fall from grace, like declining skills or drug addiction, it's to show that only they could plunge to such depths and rise again.

That's what makes The Complete Game by Ron Darling such a rare specimen. The book opens with the famous first paragraph from Bart Giamatti's "The Green Fields of the Mind" ("It breaks your heart. It's designed to break your heart..."), which should give you an idea of the tone employed in the book.

The book is divided into 10 "innings", each of which chronicles an actual inning that Darling pitched in his career. A few of them are from triumphant outings, like game 4 of the 1986 World Series, or a complete game shutout he pitched against the Blue Jays while with the A's. But far more of the book is dedicated to struggle: fighting your way through a game where you don't have your best stuff, or failing miserably, or being done in by tide, time, and the affairs of man.

One chapter is devoted to a shellacking Darling took at the hands of the Cubs, giving up two homers and six runs before being yanked, and he delves deep into what it feels like to have a manager take the ball from you and tell you to hit the showers in front of an angry crowd. Another chapter covers a crucial late-season game against the Cardinals in 1987, where Darling pitched five hitless innings, then made the unwise decision to dive for a Vince Coleman bunt. In the attempt, he tore all the ligaments in his pitching thumb and was done for the season.

Even one the best performances of his career, recounted in the final chapter, was ultimately a failure. While at Yale, he pitched 11 no-hit innings against St. John's in the college world series, the longest no-hitter in NCAA history. But he finally gave up a hit in the 12th inning, the runner came around to score, and his team's anemic offense could not bail him out. So one of the best collegiate pitching performances ever went for nought.

The book is one long reminder of just how hard it is to pitch in the major leagues, and how thin the line is between success and failure. You could easily read it in one sitting, but that's more a testament to how engaging it is, rather than indicative any lack of depth or insight.

In that way, it's very similar to Darling's personality as commentator on SNY. Whenever he sees a pitcher struggling on the mound, he always references his own bad outings. Because failure is much more instructive than triumph.

I don't think I've read any other book about baseball (or any other sport) that traffics in so much failure, yet ultimately affirms everything there is to love about the sport. If you don't want to pony up the dough for the hardcover edition, the paperback is due out in March. But in either case, read it.

For part one, click here.

Thanks to confluence of various time-crunching factors, I was unable to post my week-daily Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter story yesterday. So to make up for it, we'll have a doubleheader today.

My first post will be short but sweet. The Mets have a mini-camp this week, with players like Johan Santana, Oliver Perez, and Daniel Murphy in attendance. What is a mini-camp? I don't really know, but it seems a lot like high school gym class warmup exercises.

So a small portion of the Mets are in Florida, stretching, long tossing, and doing other calisthenics that only vaguely resemble baseball. At this point in the winter, it's close enough for me.

We're into the waning seconds of regulation in the NFC championship game, all tied at 28, the Vikings have the ball, and they are on the precipice of field goal range. Now...wait a second, Minnesota just received a penalty for 12 men in the huddle. That will cost them five yards of precious field position.
Joe, that's because Brett Favre is so focused on the game. A lesser quarterback might have noticed there were too many players on the field, but Brett has a one track mind, which is what you really need in a winning quarterback.
I agree, Troy. Now the Vikings will try to get back into field range. Favre drops back, he's got some room to scramble, but he decides to throw for some reason, and the pass is picked off by Tracy Porter. Do you think that was a good decision, Troy?
Absolutely, Joe. What you saw there was Brett Favre trying to make the big play. He thought he could bounce a pass right off of Porter's helmet and into Bernard Berrian's arms. That kind of circus catch would have taken the wind right out of the Saints' sails. It didn't work out, but you can not blame Brett for trying. You simply CAN NOT.
Indeed, Troy. Brett Favre is not to blame here. Not for anything, ever. But that pick means we go into overtime. New Orleans wins the coin toss, so they will receive and try to drive down the field for the winning score.
Watch Brett Favre watching the game on the sideline. That is the way a true champion sits and watches. Head up, looking at the action. Not to the side, or above or below, but at the action.
You wanna talk about a champion watcher, Brett Favre is every bit of that. Oh, and Garrett Hartley nails a 40-yard field goal to win the game for the Saints. Now, Brett Favre will rise from the bench and head down the tunnel into the locker room.
This is a player who KNOWS how to walk into a locker room. One foot in front of the other. We are watching a professional.
It is just a joy to watch him walk. He walks like a little kid out there! And now he's in the locker room, and he's taking his socks off. And he's placed one of his socks on his right hand, and he's talking to it. And now the sock is "talking" back to him, like a puppet.
Again, this shows leadership. I don't know any other QB in the NFL who can talk to his socks like that. He is truly greater than Jesus.
Now he's popped the top off of a AA battery with his brute strength, and he's pouring the battery acid down his throat. Do you think that was a good decision, Troy?
I do, Joe. Most coaches in this league will tell you they don't want their QBs ingesting caustic chemicals, as would most doctors and rational human beings. But Brett Favre didn't get this far by listening to the so-called experts.
We'll take a break. When we come back, live coverage of Brett Favre lying on the floor, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. And if we have time, a few shots of the team that is technically going to the Super Bowl.