Royals are in camp, I'm back from the flu

*** It's been a solid 10-11 days since my last post. In that time period I had the flu for the first time in a long time. Not a fun week last week. That's one of the perks of having three kids in school.....every germ in town pays a visit to your house. Did get over it in time to get to a card show last weekend, but it was fairly lackluster compared to past shows. I picked up a few vintage football RCs I'd been looking for ('76 Nat Moore, '74 Lynn Dickey, '76 Robert Brazile plus an upgrade to my '76 Ray Wersching) for a buck total, and some packs, out of which I didn't get anything to write home about. I'd gone wanting to maybe pick up a big hit, maybe a USFL Steve Young RC, whatever was older and caught my eye. I only saw one Young USFL RC at the show and it was fairly bad off-center, so I didn't really consider it. The search continues....

Meanwhile, the Royals are in camp in Surprise and, from all reports, healthy as can be expected. Everybody is in except Alberto Callaspo, who has some minor visa delays from Venezuela. Not a whole lot to report yet. Miguel Olivo said he was "disappointed" he was coming in as the #2 catcher behind John Buck, which I can understand. It's not like Buck hammered the ball the last half of last year. He hit under .200 and slugged .290. He hit .320 in April and didn't hit higher than .239 in any other month.....after May he didn't hit higher than .218. He hit for a .606 OPS at home. Sorry, but that doesn't automatically earn you the benefit of the doubt for a starting job. Hopefully this motivates Olivo, which in turn pushes Buck to do his job at the plate. Billy Butler is hoping to hold down the job at 1B instead of being full-time DH. Time will tell. It's so far, so good with Jose Guillen as he appears to be joking with the guys -- I don't know what some fans are expecting. I guess since he's had some clubhouse problems elsewhere he's gonna be a problem from day 1? That doesn't make much sense. Games don't start until next week, which is when speculation will slowly start to congeal into reality. Who's gonna be the fourth and fifth starters? (Personally I'd like to see Mike Maroth and either Luke Hochevar or Brian Lawrence step up.) Is Grudzielanek's knee gonna hold up as he has another year of mileage on it? Can Alex Gordon and Billy Butler develop into the middle-of-the-lineup guys fans hope they are? Will Mark Teahen hit like a #3 slot guy or a #7 slot guy? How is Alberto Callaspo gonna fit into Hillman's plans (which ties into the Grudz question, too)? Is Hillman gonna make us all forget about every manager since Hal McRae, like at least I hope he will? Questions abound....

I've also signed on to be a contributor over at the Spring Training '08 website, which kinda puts pressure on me to churn out posts more often. It may be my first and last foray into other blogdom.