Play ball! Spring training deals for the beginning of baseball season

For baseball fans of a sufficient intensity -- I'm one of them -- March is less about NCAA Madness than the glorious time of year known as MLB spring training. Even as we speak, the Detroit Tigers -- and baseball's 29 other, lesser teams -- are sweating it out in Florida and Arizona spring training facilities, preparing for summer.

This is a good time to get your shopping done, whether for fan apparel, books, DVDs or for those hard-to-find memorabilia items that make for nice gifts. It's also the season to line up any TV subscription services or video games you'll want for the 2015 campaign.

What to wear

For official major league merchandise, if you want to go directly to the source, MLB.com maintains a full-service online shopping center with everything from replica jerseys to collectibles to a crazy array of licensed doohickeys for the home or office. All categories are sorted by team, so it's easy to drill down quickly to the stuff you want. It's the best place to start if wide selection is a priority, when buying for yourself or someone else.

The MLB store also runs regular specials and sales. For instance, the site is running a spring cleaning sale through the end of March with 25 percent off clearance items -- t-shirts, bobbleheads, even some rather surprising women's shoes. You can also get free shipping on most baseball cap orders -- by far the top-selling category for all teams.

If you're bargain hunting, consider team-specific retailers that specialize in local sports teams. Growing up in Detroit, I used to haunt the shops around the old Tiger Stadium, like the excellently-named store The Designated Hatter, which has since evolved into the online retailer Detroit Athletic Co. It's worth an online search for your own favorite team -- almost all local sports shops have some kind of online presence now, so you can still shop for hometown deals and team-specific memorabilia, even if you're far from home.

By the book

Spring training is also the time when I like to get in my baseball reading. There are shelves upon shelves of great baseball books out there -- libraries, really -- but one of my recent favorites is The Baseball Codes, subtitled: "Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime."

In the book, veteran sportswriters Jason Turbow and Michael Duca compile a history and analysis of baseball's insular culture of unwritten rules, protocols and superstitions -- assembled over the course of 10 years. Baseball has a rich tradition of lore, and this book has interviews and first-hand accounts from hundreds of players, managers, coaches, trainers, owners, journalists and broadcasters.

For instance, one ironclad but unwritten rule in baseball is that you always join your teammates in a bench-clearing brawl. Even if you have to run out from the clubhouse shower – which one famous big leaguer did, sporting only a towel and a cigar.

TV and games

Modern technology, of course, has radically changed the experience of baseball. I prefer to take a multimedia approach to the baseball season, digging into live broadcasts, online resources and even video games.

For several years running now, my baseball-crazy middle-school son has been defeating me in MLB: The Show, the venerable baseball video game franchise for Sony PlayStation. The series' latest iteration, MLB 15: The Show, is a powerhouse sports sim for the PlayStation 4, with top-shelf graphics, gameplay and ultra-detailed statistical features that are updated live every day.

Finally, for the seriously hardcore baseball nerd, the online subscription service MLB.TV delivers live out-of-market broadcasts throughout the season to your computer, video game console system, set-top box or mobile device. Premium service for the 2015 season in pricey at $129, but my experience in previous seasons is that it's worth every penny if you plan to watch a lot of baseball over the summer.

And I do. It's been a long, cruel winter. Play ball!

Have you started your Yahoo Sports' Fantasy Baseball team yet? Here is Andy Behrens with pointers on choosing your players.