Thursday, March 31, 2011

We're Back to Life!

A Day Like No Other

It's better than Mardi Gras, better than Easter, better than the Fourth of July. Better than just about any holiday you can mention. Maybe it's not better than my birthday, but it's close, and indeed, now that there have been so many birthdays, it may be even better than that.

It's Opening Day of the baseball season, of course, and now we're going to have baseball for the next seven months. The five months without it are the longest, darkest of the year. Exactly why Opening Day is such a rush is no mystery. Baseball fans get entwined with their team like English Ivy crawling up a tree trunk. It's almost like a marriage. During the winter, you're dormant.

But come opening day, you come back to life. And baseball will nourish you over the sunny seasons. Your ups and downs over the spring summer and fall months are in exact sync with the fortunes of your beloved team. Anticipation of this day has been growing in the hearts of all true baseball fans, getting ever more fervent, since early February, when the pitchers and catchers first reported to the training camps.

And for Texas Ranger fans everywhere, the day is even more special, because for the first time ever the Rangers, as the defending American League Champions, are the team wearing the bulls eye. Everybody's gunning for them. What  a delicious spot to be in.

Naturally, I've got some qualms about the team this year. I worry about the usual thing: pitching. We've got a couple of starters on the DL as the season begins, and spring was not a particularly good one for the relief corps in the bullpen. Hitters? There are no worries there. The addition of Adrian Beltre over the winter makes a potent lineup even more so. So I'm not worried about scoring runs. This is a team that is capable of scoring 900 runs this season. I've just got my fingers crossed that the pitching staff doesn't give up that many.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Unknown said...

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