Opening Day - Sunday April 5

On Sunday, Major League Baseball begin it's regular season. This 162 game period graces our presence every spring, summer and fall with exuberance and joy. Baseball's timeless institute that we so desperately need now. With our country is economic and political despair, and with the entire American population realizing that Barack Obama is neither a terrorist, nor the son of God sent down to us as a savior, where can we turn? When because of no more oil, what do we watch? Who do we cheer for when basketball turns into game for only superhumans like Lebron, Kobe, and Ginobili, full unimaginable dunks and layups that can't be done on the public court down the street? When the entire game of football is played by only the biggest, strongest, and fastest who can now single handily play all the positions, then what do we do? When soccer is.................ah...............when soccer..................when soccer starts....................when it starts to be ......................dominated by hordes of wild bears who play in regional bracket systems and have no sympathy for electing a world champion! Then what?! Well, we'll always have baseball. A sport where you don't need to be the strongest man alive (despite what Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez told you), where no one needs to be shirts or skins, where you can't run out the clock, where if you succeed 3 out of 10 times you're considered a good player, where you can use 'ghost runners' if you don't have enough players, and where you're wife won't mind you getting excited over someone else's curves.
Some people say it's boring, I say they're communist. You must try and enjoy the finer points and occurrences of the game. There is no more smoothing sound than that of a ball hitting a bat right in the sweet spot. Nor is there more a angelic image than a swung on strike three, split-finger fastball. The skillful throw to second by the catcher on a 4th inning steal that lands in the perfect position for the field to make the tag creates an awe inspiring image. "OUT!" God, there is nothing like it.
Baseball is a game to be savored, not gulped. There's time to discuss everything between pitches and innings. Talk with your friends, reminisce, eat a hot dot, try to put the batter off his swing at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability. I enjoy the baseball season every year, and even more so when the Braves make the playoffs. But the game it self provides for a relaxing stimulant to help us in our lives that seem far too fast paced for our own good.

"The two most important things in life are good friends and a good bullpen."
-Jesus Christ 31 CE