Play Ball!

Well this was certainly an opening day to remember. For starters, and perhaps most importantly of all, nearly every MLB team played today except the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. That right there is reason to celebrate, although it was unfortunate to see ESPN cancel Baseball Tonight in response to the seeming lack of content. Fortunately they were able to make it up to us by taking the time to actually explain the bottom scroll on the new ESPN NewsHD channel. Which is good, because as I type this their screen is blank.

My fantasy team, Nun the Wiser, racked up 30+ points today in our 13-team roto league on the arms of Zambrano, Penny, and to a lesser extent, Meche. Not to mention the 3-3 performance of Cubs rookie Fukudome. Lucky for Webster they don't include proper nouns in their dictionaries, I'd hate to see them spell that one phonetically.

Kristin is out of the house this week for her biz school immersion. Poor girl is in class from 8am till 8:30 each day this week. No, not a half hour. Since she's gone (staying at a swanky lodge 2 miles away), I've taken the liberty of arranging a bunch of folding snack tables as a makeshift desk in front of the downstairs television so I can work and watch the ballgames. The Mariners won their opener against the Rangers to a score of 5-2. It got off to a rocky start with Michael Young taking Bedard deep in the top of the first. I hate when guys on my fantasy team hit a home run against Mariners pitchers. It creates a very awkward situation for me. I usually end up celebrating like a stroke victim -- one side of me gets excited and fist pumps the air while the other half of me just sort of hangs there immobile and emotionless.

But enough about the minutia of the baseball season getting underway. It's really about the beginning of spring. And not just the metaphorical sense of the word as it relates to hope and other flowery things, but the actual weather. That's why I was so excited to take the dogs for a walk when the game was over. After all, it was only 7pm and it was still plenty light outside.

So I pulled on a winter coat, gloves, and hat and lead the dogs out into the blinding snow. What better way to cap the opening day of baseball season than by stomping through the slush, coughing on an inhaled snowflake, and dodging errant snowballs from a couple of kids with really poor aim.

And no, that isn't Cracker Jack next to the yellow snow.

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