The online Springsteen community is buzzing this morning over the AOL First Listen preview of the coming Devils & Dust single. The link is here.

Alleluia.

Probably the first man to buy season tickets for the Los Angeles Dodgers, sending his check to Brooklyn, has sat in the front row for games ever since the team's arrival. But the Dodgers have now ended that tradition, after coming for the 86-year-old's pocketbook.

In the Style section of today's Washington Post, a staff writer looks at how commentators have Edward R. Murrow "spinning in his grave" all the time. At the end of the story, there's a few notes from Murrow's son.

How the layoffs happened at the Dallas Morning News.

The Washington Post Magazine devotes its cover story to the city's wonderfully awful history with the national pastime, the game's own ruined but thoroughly enjoyable life, and why none of these troubles matter because it's almost Opening Day.

Yet another franchise came along in 1901, now in the American League. This time, Washington did something we had never done before: signed a bona fide star still near the peak of his powers. Ed Delahanty was a strapping, square-jawed slugger, the best hitter of his day. An esteemed authority on baseball history, Bill James, has compared Delahanty to the seemingly incomparable Joe DiMaggio. The man batted .346 over 16 seasons. He once went 9 for 9 in a double-header.

But after just one full season in Washington, Big Ed started drinking even more heavily than usual. Suspended from the team during a trip to Detroit, he boarded a train for home. Blotto, he brandished a straight razor at other passengers. The conductor stopped the train near the Canadian border and dumped Delahanty trackside. Our star went reeling into the night, plunged from the International Bridge into the Niagara River, washed over Niagara Falls, and was pureed by the propeller of a sightseeing boat.

Full story here.

Post columnist John Kelly asked readers to write in about the inner-monologue pressures of Metro seating, and they responded. "Whenever I'm on Metro and someone seated beside me gets up to move to a different seat, I wonder if I smell bad."

… this man is Derek Zoolander.

Dan Neil has started his popular culture column.

March 6: "At places where high viaducts crisscross, such as the interchange at the I-15 and I-10 in Ontario, you can't see the bridges in the dark, and the few cars appear to be flying in stately progress across the sky."

March 13: "After all, this is a one-shtick reptile: Wade ashore on the mainland, snap a few high-voltage power lines, bear up under the awesome firepower of the miniature tanks. Not to mention that Godzilla is, well, a confirmed bachelor. He's a press agent's nightmare."

March 20: "There is a choreography to all this, even a kind of ritual: Inevitably, men baptize themselves with a little seawater on the backs of their necks and steal a glance at the sun, as if getting their bearings in a world that's just gotten a lot bigger. Is this a mannerism we've picked up from some old movie? Did Gary Cooper rub water on his neck just so? Did Balboa do the same?"

I'm not quite sure what to think.

The column feels somewhat like the country mouse to his auto column's city mouse. Or, maybe more accurately, Horace as the country mouse. Modern tellings like to put the mice and their homes on near-even ground, but the Roman poet — who originates the tale — sides clearly with the country mouse. That mouse gets the last word, and it's a swipe at the city. Owning a country villa himself, Horace sings of its advantages time and time again in his Odes. Not a whole lot happens at the villa, but he enjoys his time and writes well there. Whether I want that mindset in a newspaper column, I don't yet know.

A blurb in CNET's Digital Dispatch e-mail puts it best.

Remember Friendster? I'll give you a minute. Right, it's that social networking site that consumed a week of your life and now sends you those "[Insert name here], by request: see what's New at Friendster" e-mails that you keep ignoring. A Friendster movie is now in the works featuring Topher Grace and no doubt a lot of erroneous and silly tech in the form of instant messaging and camera phones. Look for it in theaters in 2006, two years after Friendster became uncool.

More on the movie.