2013 – The New York Mets name 3B David Wright as team captain, the fourth in franchise history, the first since John Franco last played for the team in 2004.

The Padres get some bad news as an exam reveals that their best player last season, 3B Chase Headley, broke his thumb while sliding into second base a day earlier. He will be out a month and will miss the start of the season.

Only eight days after pitching his final game for Cuba in the World Baseball Classic, Yadier Pedroso dies in a car crash on a highway outside Havana. Pedroso had beaten Yu Darvish in the finale of the 2004 World Junior Championship, been named Serie Nacional Rookie of the Year (2004-2005), had won a Silver Medal in the 2008 Olympics and had been the All-Star relief pitcher in both the 2010 Intercontinental Cup and 2011 Baseball World Cup.

The seemingly cursed Yankees get more bad news when they learn that 1B Mark Teixeira’s wrist injury is more serious than thought and that he will be out until mid-May, with no obvious back-up plan in place. At least, SS Derek Jeter and reliever Mariano Rivera seem to be doing well in their bid to come back from season-ending injuries, but the Yanks’ spring training complex is starting to look like a field hospital, with GM Brian Cashman addressing reporters on crutches resulting from a sky-diving accident.

With the Yankees struck by a number of key players either injured, or trying to return from serious injuries, GM Brian Cashman joins the fray. He breaks his fibula and dislocates his right ankle while making a charity parachute jump with the U.S. Army’s skydiving team, the Golden Knights, at Homestead Air Force Base.

2013 – SABR announces its 2013 class of Chadwick Award winners, headed by historians Fred Lieb, Francis Richter and John Thorn, the Hall of Fame’s official historian.