So... Baseball?

Baseball is back.

Normally I would greet this news with a somewhat underwhelming yawn.  The first stretch of the interminable baseball season is always, without fail, annoying.  The Sports Punditry will anoint some team as the one to watch for eight or nine months down the road in the fall and when that team loses two or three of the seemingly three hundred or so baseball games that get played every year, ESPN will be awash with stories and furrowed brows about how this might spell trouble for The Anointed Team come the fall- it could be bad omen a portent of things to come, the first sign of DOOOOOOOOOOM...

And I get irritated because baseball starts when the snow has barely melted in some places and ends when it's starting again in others- it's like eight to nine months long- so why give a shit until August?  I never do. What these days are, however, are the days when you actually feel good that baseball is back. It's like, 'oh, football's long done, basketball is about to be done- and oh hey, the weather might be getting warmer- because baseball's back.'  It's a nice feeling that lasts until about June- and then the novelty wears off just in time for the All-Star Break and then (to me, anyway) baseball gets really interesting- or marginally less boring.

But, I have to admit, my interest is a little more piqued this year.  Last year, everything seemed to go pear-shaped for the Twins early on, but this year they seem to be winning a game or two and The Sports Punditry seems to think that their vaunted farm system spells better news in 2015.  Let's hope so.

Grantland also had a nice, long piece reassuring the Cubs faithful that they should breathe easier and look towards 2016-2018 and you know what- Iowa Baseball seems to have a pulse!  They flashed out to their best start since 1940, which is pretty damn impressive considering I watch next to zero in the way of college baseball.

The past couple of months have been utterly loopy and with our reconnection to Direct TV, I seem to have lost NBC Sports and with it my Premier League Soccer (sad face) but I'm actually looking forward to what Champions League action I can get, baseball and the countdown to the World Cup is on- but baseball wise, the big event of the year is going to be taking The Cigarillo to his first baseball game this August.