Well, I'm back in Colorado. My recent air travel has elicited the usual thought process: what is this country doing to speed along the perfection of transporter technology? Seriously. For people of height like me, this ought to be right up there on the agenda with curing cancer and keeping the Commies down. I for one would be willing to accept the slight risk of being sent into an alternate universe or divided into separate aspects in trade for a certain two days of back pain.

In a later post I will talk more about my time in Illinois, if only to relate the story of my telling the bass player from Fall Out Boy (his mom and my mom are old friends) that Will Carroll liked his record. I also have a decent Loot Day haul to discuss. Most notably, I'll be going to spring training in Arizona in March. I hope to see at least one Rockies game in the Phoenix area if I prove to be unable to make it down to their "home" digs in Tucson. Alas, Jeromy Burnitz will not be playing in the Cactus League next season as he has signed with Baltimore. Why does this sadden me so? Well, I caught a home run that Burnitz hit against the Rockies at Coors last summer and I was hoping to have him sign it. Just my luck that he would sign with a Florida-training team that doesn't play the Rockies in 2006. Perhaps I will console myself by offering the ball to Jeff Francis, who served up the home run. With the number of long balls Francis allowed last year, I don't imagine this to him will seem an unusual request.

On the Rockies front, we'll go with the good news first. Byung-Hyun Kim "is on the verge of re-signing." This comes as a great relief as I do not have a great deal of confidence in either Zach Day or Sunny Kim as starters. Don't laugh, but Cook/Jennings/Francis/BK makes for the best front four the franchise has ever seen. Actually, that's not at all funny.

Also not funny: ESPN Insider reports that Colorado may have interest in trading for Seattle's Gil Meche. This is such a flagrant violation of the "better than Mike Esposito" rule that alarm klaxons are sounding here at BA central. If Dan O'Dowd's thinking here is that Meche will be comfortable at Coors since his ERA at pitcher-loving Safeco Field already resembles that of a Rockies starter, he's crazier than we all think. Dan, free advice: no.