One of the enduring charms of baseball, for me anyway, is the infinite number of tiny personal mannerisms individual players have. Just the different ways they do the same things. So let's try to assemble a few of those for this year's squad, while the vision is fresh in our minds.
I'll both start the proceedings (and give you an idea of the type of trivial stuff I'm thinking about!) with some examples.
1. Vernon Wells' one-handed twirl of the bat as he stands in the batter's box waiting for the pitcher.
2. Josh Towers' leg lift in mid-motion. He doesn't have a leg kick as such. He lifts his left leg so that it forms a kind of reversed capital P, and his left foot actually "breaks the plane" of his right leg for an instant.
3. Roy Halladay's twist. Just as Doc starts the leg lift in his motion, he makes a very short and very sharp upper body twist away from home plate.
4. Reed Johnson's tripod. We can't overlook that!
5. Alex Rios's sag. After he gets settled in the box and takes his practise hacks, Rios seems to visibly sag for an instant, like a deflated balloon... his knees fold, his posture slumps, the bat falls on his shoulder... and he then kind of springs back into his hitting stance.
More! More! More!
The angle is different from the image in my head. Many of you probably see Towers from behind, the centre-field camera view. Aaron presumably took this picture from the third base corner bay, and I'm thinking of the perspective from the third level behind home plate.
Wow. Did I make that?