MLB Network is ruining our lives.

Late last night or early this morning, in the middle of the ninth inning of a Padres-Brewers game*, the broadcast team started picking out shots of sleepy children clutching blankets in the crowd. The announcers cooed a little over the kids and their "woobies"--something they might snuggle to their chest and never put down for the first four years of their lives.

Then they said, unironically, that closer Heath Bell is the Padres' woobie.

This might be the best use of early childhood nonsense terminology since Bill Belichick's hoodie. Good call, Padres announcers.** However, since the inning was rife with defensive errors and Bell barely escaped blowing the save, we do have one caveat:

Dear Remy and Orsillo,

Raise the bar. Bring the cute. Tell us how John Smoltz is playing the proud parent in a pitching staff re-enactment of Make Way For Ducklings, with Clay Buchholz and Justin Masterson trailing merrily after him.

Just don't tell Jonathan Papelbon he's anyone's woobie. It's too dangerous.


*Yes, we do stay up late watching meaningless spring training jousts between teams that we don't even care about. Thank god there's less than a week to go before the real season starts and we can get our baseball fix in more sane and sanitary ways.

**At least, we think they were the Friars' guys. We could be wrong. It was late, and they kept talking about Tony Gwynn and Tony Gwynn, Jr. until it all sounded like "Malkovich Malkovich."