Get Your Eye Black Ready

Dr. Phil predicts an early spring.

The calendar says it’s due March 20.

But by baseball standards — and what better standard is there really? — as pitchers and catchers report to Arizona, spring is officially here. Brewers players, a collection of future and former Sounds, report to Maryvale on Tuesday; and Wednesday marks 50 days until the Sounds home opener against New Orleans on Thursday, April 4.

And because we’re not too far from leaning against the BP cage as Hunter Morris and company crack the white in Nashville this summer, we found an amusing memory from a 1989 batting practice session at Greer Stadium via ESPN’s Buster Olney.

It came Monday, when ESPN changed the format of its longtime Baseball Today podcast, featuring Eric Karabell, Keith Law and Mark Simon, and turned it over to Olney in what is now called Baseball Tonight (the podcast). In his debut show, which you can hear here (advance to 24:50 mark), Buster recounts a run-in (or not) with Deion Sanders at Greer Stadium in the very early stages of his sports journalism career.

Greer, being a 35-year-old stadium, is packed with classic stories. And as Sound Bytes Blog discovers them, we’ll get them to you right here. Thanks to @WaltClark for the casual tip.

Related at the Jukebox: “Deion May Have Wanted To” by the Ramones