Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just after 4:30 a.m. in "The City."

The current temperature is 34° under clear-skies with negligible wind, so it feels like 32°. Today's high is forecast to reach a balmy 43° under cloudy-skies! Tomorrow will be cooler with a 60% chance for snow-showers in the late-afternoon and still colder temperatures on Wednesday.

The Cubs came off  Saturday's 12 - 2 drubbing of the Oakland As with a 2 - 4 loss to the Dodgers yesterday. The Cubs' rookie manager, David Ross, was not there as he is battling flu-like symptoms. What is it about spring training that seems to produce those flu-like symptoms? To be fair, the Cubs have been well organized under the plans implemented by Ross for these first two weeks of.camp in Mesa, AZ.

Rookies sensation, Nico Hoerner, is getting playing time @ second-base, but to get enough playing time, the 22 year-old may end up in the minors to start the season. The Cubs and the Mariners play today @ 3:10 p.m. EST.

My beloved Red Sox have several players to watch this spring. Jarren Duran may be the center-fielder in waiting if Jackie Bradley Jr. opts to become a free-agent after this season. LHP Chris Sale reported to camp late with an unspecified illness, but pitched a bullpen session in front of the Sox pitching coach, Dave Bush, yesterday.

Once and maybe former second-baseman Dustin Pedroia was placed on the 60-day injured list. That move was not a surprise. Pedroia is still in shutdown mode after having a significant setback with his problematic left knee in late January. Remember, you read it here first in one of last year's blogs. The Sox are in split-squad mode today with games against the Twins and the Rays @ 1:05 p.m. EST.

The Tigers and Miggy looked healthy, as they defeated the Braves,yesterday 5 - 1 and the Pirates, 8 - 4 in split-squad games. Rookie phenom, RHP Casey Mize, got of to a rocky start against the Pirates, but settled down and used his split-finger fastball to get out of the inning and avoid getting the early hook from acting manage, Lloyd McClendon, who was managing for regular manager Ron Gardenhire. The Tigers play the Astros today @ 1:05 p.m..

We walked to the First Presbyterian Church of Grand Haven yesterday for that presentation on water resources by award-winning author and former print-journalist, Jeff Alexander. He presented a mixed-bag of news, the Great Lakes are not dead, but they are also trying to overcome the invasion of several non-native species that have decimated the native fish population. However, those native species are trying to fight back, so maybe many years in the future, things will be much improved. Worthy of note is that the level of all the Great Lakes continues to rise at an alarming rate.

We came home and Mary had to improvise a sauce for her world-famous vegan thin-crust pizza. Plus, we had read earlier in the day that pepperoni topping for pizza is better when it is sauteed in a pan with some olive oil before using it to top a pizza. It turns out that that applied to my vegan pepperoni that I had made earlier in the day too. At any rate, the pizza was terrific and I liked it a lot. Here are some pix of the process and the finished product taken by our Senior Staff Photographer with her Smart-Phone camera.

The sauce, simmering in the pot.

The vegan pepperoni sauteing inthe cast-iron skillet.

The mega-delicious finished product.

Today, not much is happening, to paraphrase that old shop-worn beginning to a bad novel. I finished my latest novel yesterday and continued a non-fiction book about writing that I had started a few days ago. I also began another foray into my non-genre list, entitled The Amish Wedding Promise, by Laura V. Hinton. I blame Mary for thart.

That looks like enough for one day. Ciao.