To help, Refrigerator Logic is providing a list of reasons to watch every Major League Baseball team for the 2008 season. Anyone that’s read all the team lists should be able to pull up the MLB schedule on any day in early June and find reasons to enjoy any contest on the board that night.

Please join in the comments to add your own reasons. Tell everyone why your team is worth three and a half hours of their lives on any given day. Make us care and we’ll be there with a tasty beverage and an appreciation for what you feel each time your team takes the field.

The Juan Pierre Puzzler

Though there’s no obvious proof, we’ve always suspected Joe Torre hid a dark secret from the New York press for his entire tenure as Yankees manager. Now that he serves another team in another league in a quiet backwater media market like Los Angeles, he’ll be able to express his love for a Boston institution: Car Talk.

It’s easy to imagine Joe chuckling to the very self-amused NPR mechanic-philosophers on his drive to Yankee Stadium each Sunday morning. Oh, those wacky fellows really know what it’s like to be a guy, y’know? And they’re brothers that pick on each other but love each other in the end. Joe can relate.

However, as Joe drives into Holman Stadium this spring to manage his new wards, he may notice a new Puzzler that seems awfully familiar.

“Hey, Tommy… do you remember last week’s Puzzler?”
“Of course I do, Ray!”
“What is it?”
“The Puzzler is that I can never remember last week’s Puzzler!”
(45 seconds of chortling)
“Okay, Tommy, here’s last week’s Puzzler: why wouldn’t you want Jeff Kent, Juan Pierre, and Nomar Garciaparra to start 130 games for your baseball team?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, that’s last week Puzzler. I remembered!”
(30 seconds of guffaws)
“Okay… why wouldn’t I want Jeff Kent, Juan Pierre, and Nomar Garciaparra to start 130 games for my baseball team?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm. Is it because I want them to start 162 games?”
“HA! God no.”
“Huh. Okay. (pause) I have the answer to this week’s Puzzler, Ray!”
“What is it, Tommy?”
“I don’t want Jeff Kent, Juan Pierre, and Nomar Garciaparra to start 130 games for my baseball team because it’s 2008!”
“Coooorrect!”
“Who’s this week’s winner, Ray?”

If the Dodgers have designs on the 2008 NL West crown, they better hope Joe Torre wrote this answer down on the back of a $20 bill and mailed it to Cambridge, MA. If Torre clings to his preference for gentlemen that are eligible for Hall of Fame voting after retirement over players that can provide value this season, not even the law firm of Pierre, Cheatem, and Howe can bail out the team this season.

Beyond that, Torre’s tactical prowess (never a forte in the Bronx) will be tested in numerous other ways. Will he find ways to get Juan Pierre 300 at-bats around the outfield instead of declaring him the starter in a corner? Does the former backstop see the benefit in not riding his young catcher for 130 games this season? Will he jam James Loney into the cleanup slot because he’s a huge man that plays first and therefore must be some type of power hitter?

Also, there’s no Zimmer or even Mattingly to lean over and whisper into Torre’s ear to wake him in the seventh to get down Jonathan Broxton from the shelf for the eighth straight game. Torre’s a bright enough fellow and will have no problems with the double-switch that many analysts seem to believe requires years of study under a National League master in a remote mountain retreat with.

Still, how will he react to demands for a more creative managerial role? It will make for fine viewing on any given night.

Location. Location. Scully.

If you’re lucky enough to live near Los Angeles or have purchased one of the many ways to take in a Dodgers game from afar at MLB’s Web site, do yourself a favor and try the following at least once this season:

Tune into the Dodgers home game, assuring you will get Vin Scully’s brilliance over your computer’s tinny speakers. If you have a laptop, use that. If you have MLB.tv, use the video for the pan shots of Chavez Ravine; otherwise, you really just need the audio.

If you have a laptop, take it to bed with you and set it on the nightstand. (If not, curl up with a blanket and a cup of warm milk in front of the computer.) If you have a loved one with you, insist that they join you with the covers pulled over your head so you can hide your transistor radio of the future from your parents and not get busted for staying up late on a school night.

Let Scully’s melifulous voice wash over you as he announces the starting lineups for both squads or tells a story about Orlando Cepeda’s three-steal night back in the day or break down Andruw Jones’ swing in such a fashion that a baseball neophyte can close their eyes and imagine the motion with crystal clarity.

Around the fourth inning, don’t be ashamed to doze off and miss the rest of the game. You’ll merely join tens of millions of people that have had the same privilege in Scully’s lifetime.

Don’t dawdle on this exquisite American experience; you don’t have many chances left.

The Mark Sweeney Traveling Pinch-Hit Extravaganza and Lemonade Stand

In news that only true baseball geeks may have noticed, Mark Sweeney signed with the Dodgers this week. Mark Sweeney is known for two important distinctions.

First, he’s not Mike Sweeney.  You can tell the difference because Mark doesn’t walk around holding his back and grimacing.

Second, fully one-third of Mark Sweeney’s trips to home plate in his 13 year career (and two-thirds of last year’s trips) have been of the replacement variety. He’s the calvary, the rescue squad, the last hope. He’s the pinch-hitter. He has more pinch hits than all but one man in MLB history. (Lenny Harris, watch your back.)

There are very few pinch-hitting specialists left in baseball, thanks to relievers occupying half of most major league rosters these days (and all the Reds’ roster). It’s a real treat to see one in action, much like knuckleballers and Canadians.

(Just help him keep track of how many outs there are at the end of the game.)

The Andruw Jones Renaissance

Yes, so Andruw Jones got his millions in Los Angeles. He’ll continue to loaf through his twilight years, uninterested in his job and collecting his paychecks. He’ll disappoint another fan base before being shuffled off to end his career in Kansas City or some such. Yawn.

Bill Plaschke is welcome to just pick up the above paragraph and save himself the trouble of thinking about Jones again this season.

Here’s a secret for the rest of us: Andruw Jones is still awfully good. 386 HR. Career OPS of .839. Still a good defender in center unlikely to be exposed in Dodger Stadium, especially aside the two young guns he should be blessed with. Huge, infectious smile when he’s not having a miserable 2007 that doesn’t look anything like his previous 11 (yes, 11) seasons.

On a new team without the crushing weight of Braves’ fans expectations, don’t you think he’ll be just a bit better? Maybe return to form, a la Mike Lowell? It’ll be a lot more fun to tune in and find out rather than assume failure.

James’ Wattage?

This man is 6′3″ and at least 220 lbs of toned muscle. He will likely start at first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers to start the 2008 season. He is not a power hitter.

One of those things sure ain’t like the other, is it?

James Loney did crank 15 homers in 344 official at-bats for the Dodgers in 2007 at the tender age of 23, but it’s the first time he’s shown a lick of power in his professional career. Will he keep it up and become a prototypical first baseman as expected upon being drafted by Logan White et al in 2002? Will he become a less frisky version of Mark Grace? If so, he’ll have to hit .330 a lot in his career, much like he did in 2007.

I caught a handful of Arizona Fall League games a few years ago and got to sit a few feet from Loney. The man’s huge. If you saw him in the supermarket, you would identify his career as “athlete”. You wouldn’t know what he might play, but you’d damned well know what he is. It’s not a stretch to see where scouts projected prodigious power from.

I’m pretty excited to see him work in the majors again, barring a Joe Torre flashback that puts Mark Sweeney at first on Opening Day. If that happens, they’d better put a wallet in Logan’s mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue off during the convulsions of rage.

You Leave Me No Choice…

If you ignore all of the above and choose to avoid Dodgers games this season, your contact information will be left with this woman:

God have mercy on your soul if she finds you.