The Next Year We Waited For

It begins today. No, I'm not talking about Mattress Sale Blowouts cleverly disguised as President's Day Events or post VD chocolate markdowns at your crappy grocery store who grossly overestimated the girth of their patrons.

Pitchers and catchers report.

Can you feel it? That sense of optimism of every team. Even the lowly Tigers who seem to be constantly re-tooling? This year it's another new manager, Jim Leyland. He was good (maybe even great) when he managed Pittsburgh. But then if I got to manage Andy Van Slyke, Bobby Bonilla and Barry Bonds (pre-roids), I might look like a manager of the year too. And if you don't recognize any of those names, don't worry. They were bona fide studs. Great players always make the manager look like a genius. Leyland was less successful in Florida and outright awful in Colorado. Luckily, he smokes which is probably a good thing if you're going to manage the Tigers.

But despite that cynicism, it's the crack of the bat, the smell of new cut grass, the cry of vendors ("Hot Knots" being my personal favorite of pretzel sellers everywhere), the taste of a ball park hot dog that you can't seem to get anywhere else, the crunch of peanut shells underfoot as you juggle a massive beer and a program down to your seat, the feeling of the sun on your face as you emerge from the darkened underground to the field proper, the misguided optimistic feeling that your team instead of the God Damn Yankees and Bosox might actually have a chance this year if everyone can just stay healthy for longer than two weeks.

Play ball, boys.