Charlie Manuel (right) and possible future Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg share a moment Sunday. (Big League Stew)

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The Philadelphia Phillies signing right-hander Kyle Kendrick to a two-year, $7.75 million contract extension Sunday won't prevent GM Ruben Amaro from using Nippon Professional Baseball as leverage again if he has to.

Back in spring training 2008, the Phillies famously concocted a most diabolical practical joke on Kendrick, telling him he was traded to the Yomiuri Giants for someone named Kobayashi Iwamura. Not a real person. Not a real deal. But Kendrick fell for it hard when Amaro (then the assistant to Pat Gillick) handed him the paperwork, and manager Charlie Manuel explained that he was headed overseas. Former teammate Brett Myers (the brains behind the gag) consoled Kendrick. All of it was caught on TV and it was one of Big League Stew's first big hits on the front page of Yahoo!

Anyway, on the occasion of Kendrick's extension, Amaro was asked if the Phillies gave him a no-trade clause to Japan.

"No, we did not," Amaro said. "But we could still send him there."

Kendrick, no longer an unsuspecting kid entering his sophomore season, wasn't buying it this time. 

An unsuspecting bat is left unattended as Tanner Scheppers' dog adorably makes off with a baseball. (AP)

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Spring training can't officially start until somebody's adorable puppy dog makes off with a batting practice baseball. Congratulations to this guy, a French Bulldog Boston Terrier belonging to right-hander Tanner Scheppers of the Texas Rangers, for kicking off the 2012 season.

Welcome to another Spring Swing with the Stew, our fifth tour of camps around Major League Baseball. I'm starting on the Gulf Coast of Florida with the Philadelphia Phillies, winners of 102 games during the 2011 regular season and not enough games come playoff time. The Phillies should still be the favorites in the NL East and to get to the World Series, but they also come with some doubt.

Earlier on Thursday, baseball learned that Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter had died, after having brain cancer, at age 57. In September 1992, Carter ended his major-league career on a happy note, hitting a go-ahead double at Olympic Stadium to help the Montreal Expos beat the Chicago Cubs.

Note in the video that the ball barely makes it over the outstretched glove of Carter's former teammate in Montreal, Andre Dawson.

Gary Carter led the Montreal Expos to their only playoff appearance in 1981. (Getty)Gary Carter just loved baseball so much. Someone gave him the nickname "The Kid" because he wore his joy and enthusiasm for the game on the sleeves of his uniforms. The Montreal Expos. The New York Mets. The San Francisco Giants. The Los Angeles Dodgers. And Palm Beach Atlantic University, where he was the head coach.

No matter where he was or what he was doing, it was obvious that Carter was in love with baseball.

Carter died on Thursday after suffering from brain cancer. His daughter Kimmie Bloemers published an announcement on a family website. The Hall of Fame catcher, the biggest face of the Expos franchise and a leader among superstars on the World Series champion Mets in 1986, was 57 years old. He hit 324 career homers, made 11 All-Star teams and seemed to have a blast doing every bit of it.

Back in May 2011, we passed along the stunning news, which the New York Daily News first reported, that doctors had found small tumors on Carter's brain. His condition was always grave, but occasionally there seemed to be glimmers of hope that Carter could outlast his condition a little while longer. Can anyone doubt that he gave it everything he had? It is sad that Carter was ill and it is sad that he is gone. But with death, hopefully there also comes relief. And some peace.

[Related: Gary Carter photos | Video obit]

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig released a statement:

"Driven by a remarkable enthusiasm for the game, Gary Carter became one of the elite catchers of all-time.  'The Kid' was an 11-time All-Star and a durable, consistent slugger for the Montreal Expos and the New York Mets, and he ranks among the most beloved players in the history of both of those franchises.  Like all baseball fans, I will always remember his leadership for the '86 Mets and his pivotal role in one of the greatest World Series ever played."

That '86 Series seemed in the bag for the Boston Red Sox until Carter came up with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6.

A tattoo artist has spent about 33 hours illustrating baseball fan Benjamin Christensen.

Enthusiasm, wit and a broad knowledge of baseball will matter to the judges selecting the next inhabitants of MLB's Fan Cave. But Oakland Athletics fan Benjamin Christensen knows what's up regarding his own chances. The illustrations on both sides of his torso — a tattoo for each of the 30 teams in the American and National leagues — are probably his best selling point.

"I wanted to get every major league team on my body somehow, and the best way possible was ribs to hips on each side, so American League on the right side, and National League on the other," he said.

The audition video he submitted is pretty good, too. It helped him make a cut of 50 people who are being considered for the MLB Fan Cave, out of thousands of entries. Fans have until Feb. 22 to vote and whittle it down to the 30 finalists who'll go to Arizona for Fan Cave spring training. (Click through the video link to submit your vote for him.)

[Signing Yoenis Cespedes was necessary gamble for the A's | Y! Movies: Moneyball]

Given a quick glance, the tattoos might seem like straight-up reproductions of mascots and logos. But in many cases Christensen and the artist — Felix the Tat at Julien's Black Lotus Tattoo in Eugene, Ore. — added personal remembrances, historical anecdotes and often hilarious gags that will make Christensen's canvas forever unique.

Here's a sample: Screech, the Washington Nationals eagle, is wearing the Montreal Expos uniform that the franchise left behind in Canada. So rebellious.

And to think, Christensen's tattoos wouldn't tell nearly as compelling of a story if the 28-year-old hadn't gotten so sick a year ago.

Protip: if you're posing for a picture with a future Hall of Famer, don't give your mom the camera

— @Matthewverygood, via Twitter

My grandfather was a photographer and wire operator for the Associated Press, and he always had advice, sometimes unsolicited, for others taking pictures. One of his bedrock principles: "Everybody has feet." In other words, don't necessarily worry about capturing the entirety of a person in a given photograph — just concentrate on getting the best possible photograph.

The photographer who took the picture in this post, of her son @Matthewverygood and San Diego Padres legend Trevor Hoffman at the team's recent FanFest, certainly resists the temptation to get everyone's feet into the shot. She might have taken it a little too far, actually.

Legendary comedian George Carlin used to do a bit in which he pretended to be Al Sleet, the Hippie Dippy Weather Man (who brought us "the hippie dippy weather, man"). Al would say things like: "Weather tonight: dark. Turning partly light by morning."

Of course, Texas Rangers left-hander Derek Holland isn't in that league (yet?) but he does seem like an affable free-spirit who's not afraid to make himself look silly in front of everyone. Having grown tired of being a limo driver and later Kurt Vonnegut, Holland has moved to greater challenges. Naturally, his foray into TV meteorology was disastrous as far as telling viewers about the weather in the Dallas Metroplex, but it also was humorous to see him step in for actual weather man Pete Delkus on WFFA-TV on Friday:

"I went to college down in Alabama for this," Holland said after Delkus foolishly handed him a clicker to control the background images.

Jim Evans umpired in the majors for 28 seasons. (Getty)What do the Ku Klux Klan, bowling and aspiring baseball umpires have in common? No, those three seemingly incongruous elements aren't part of a forthcoming Coen Bros. sequel to "The Big Lebowski." Instead, they came together to ruin, most likely, what had been a respected umpire school.

The Jim Evans Academy for Professional Umpiring has sent graduates to the minors and majors since 1989. But it has been disgraced and discredited after some of the staff laughed it up at the school's annual bowling party by choosing a team name and wearing costumes that invoked the KKK. Domestic terrorism themes are never fun and festive, even if there's bowling.

Also unfunny: another team using slurs and offensive themes to denigrate Latinos. Hey, do these guys know how to roll, or what? If they had to do it over, maybe they choose cosmic bowling instead. Reporter Andrew Keh of the New York Times writes:

In the following days, one of the school's instructors, the lone black employee, expressed unease over the night to his superiors. He also circulated photographs of the evening to a colleague.

This week, the black employee's unease has led to this: the president of Minor League Baseball informed the Evans Academy that it would sever ties with the school and no longer accept its students into the professional ranks.

It's not simply that a few made racist acts (or, at the very least, took part in incredibly insensitive behavior) at a bowling party. It's also how Evans handled it. To him, it was just good ol' boys being good ol' boys.