Major League Baseball has returned. Undaunted by allegations of steroids and whatever, the greatest game ever devised by humankind* continues in the sunnier climes of our Great Republic. It's one thing you can count on, besides death and taxes, and this is something to actually look forward to. I hope to get down to see my team, the SF Giants, playing a game in their old-style bay side ballpark in a couple months. No matter what happens to Barry Bonds in his legal imbroglios, good or bad, the season will start in April and their will be 30-some teams playing 162 games featuring talented players from across the Pacific to Latin America to guys who will take the field in the uniform of a team they may have watched as young Little Leaguers on television fifteen years earlier. In some ways, the anticipation is the best part of the season: all possibilities are open. All fans have a chance to dream they will see a championship team in October.
Right now, the folks in Florida and Arizona have all the fun watching the Spring Renewal take place on small outdoor arenas. There is no time limits in a baseball game and everybody gets to bat, as long as your not a pitcher in the American League. What game can be more democratic but intently competitive at the same time?
I can hardly wait.
* " 'Yeah, right'," I'm sure my foreign visitors are saying. "This is typical American arrogance'". OK, rest of the world, go ahead and watch gangs of men in shorts kicking a two-tone rubber ball hundreds of times until it gets passes a goalie into a net. Whoopee!
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