The clock is ticking… slowly, as I patiently wait for the Baseball seasons to officially start. Cleveland Indians versus Chicago White Sox. Normally, I would not get excited about this game, but given the pitching match-up, and the fact that Jim Thome is in my fantasy team, GigaYanks, I have to watch the game.

Talking about the fantasy league, folks from Yahoo have generously sponsored the league, and named it OmBall (which is a pun on my rotund figure) and upgraded it to premium status. Yahoo has done and amazing Web 2.0 makeover of the fantasy ball pages. There is a general snappiness to it. I would leave experts like Niall to do a full review, but I am impressed the most with “talking smack” feature.

The line-ups, and the names of the teams are colorful, and I see some seriously BBall fanatics in the league. Dean, welcome to the thunderdome. It is funny, how the trash talking has already begun, and not online alone. I ran into Tony Conrad at Blue Bottle yesterday, while partaking finest coffee in San Francisco along side Niall Kennedy, who is also in the league. Despite the presence of Tony’s boy Harry, he and I ended up talking smack.

Also, I made my first trade: Jeff Kent (LA Dodgers), Luis Gonzalez (Rockies) and Ramon Ortiz (Washington Nationals) for Derek Jeter, Ryan Langerhans (Atlanta Braves) and Daniel Cabrera (Baltimore Orioles.) I dropped Letroy Hawkins and instead picked up formed Yankee Brad Halsey. I have one more pending trade, Renteria for Sheffield. I am not sure if it is going to go through, but lets see.

Others are not making many changes – so either I am going to flop miserably, or well, it could be a good season. I do have an awesome pitching staff. Barry Zito, Rich Harden, Bartolo Colon, Woody Williams, and Chris Reitsma. I am a little light on relief pitching. Duaner Sanchez (Mets), Scot Shields (Angels), Jorge Sosa (Braves), and Hector Carrasco (Angels.) Not very inspiring line-up, and no legit closer in the ranks. Things seem all right on the batting line-up. Derek Lee, B. Giles, David Dellucci (former Yank and ex-Ranger), Jim Thome, David DeJesus, Taguchi. But that’s where the good news ends.

I also have Bobby Kielty and Marco Scutaro. I wish Scutaro gets some seriously playing time this year, but not counting on it. Meanwhile, bad news – Kielty has been sent down to the AAA league. And on top of that — I have Johjima as my catcher. Any tips, suggestions are more than welcome.

PS: I am working on an essay on why baseball and immigrant assimilation go hand in hand. If you would like to share any stories, please do.