Good Vibrations are happening!  Pitchers and catchers will start to report to spring training all this next coming week, the beginning of a new baseball season is here!  As a matter of fact, the Seattle Mariners’ camp already began a couple of days ago.  You ask why Seattle has jumped the gun on every other team in baseball.  It is simple Jeeves, they start the season early this year when they open up with a two game series against the Oakland Athletics in the Tokyo Dome in Japan on March 28 and 29.  The regular season for the rest of the teams begins a week later.  You ask why Oakland has not begun its spring training also.  The Athletics told MLB that they did not want to start early, preferring to start with the rest of the teams.  (Memo to myself: bet on Seattle those first two games.)

This is definitely my favorite time of the year for sports.  You see baseball has always been my #1 love.  Not only does this time of the year mark the beginning of the MLB season, it also means that winter has broken and that spring and summer are on their way.  There is no need to wait until the weekend like for football games; in baseball your favorite team has a game almost every day for almost six months.  Not only that, the games are free to watch on the television. I do not mean only your team, but all the teams are right there on the tube for your viewing pleasure. If you are not around a television, you can listen on the radio.  Baseball is a game that thrives on the radio.  Listen to Vin Scully once and you will see what I mean.

Optimism is running amok.  Pick any team you want (even a lowly one), and if they can just get three or four key guys to have career seasons, they can go on a magic carpet ride and make the playoffs.  My favorite team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, was predicted by the “experts” almost unanimously to finish dead last in their division last season.  Yet Justin Upton, Ian Kennedy, and Miguel Montero had All-Star seasons, and they won 94 games and the NL West pennant.  It could happen to your team this season!

Baseball is as American as it gets:  Peanuts, hot dogs, beer, the national anthem, the American flag, they are all key elements of a baseball game.  Who does not wear a baseball cap?  Baseball is in our blood.  We are pre-wired by our genetics to love this game, a game that has been played in professional leagues since 1876.  It is a sport game that was loved by our fathers and their fathers and their grand-fathers.  Not only that, detailed statistics have been kept over the years so that we know the history of this game.  Every new season, the history of this glorious sport is added to, and baseball fans cannot wait to see what history will be made in 2012. 

I wish all of you fans great success for all your favorite teams this season.  Optimism is in the air.  The green grass has to be mowed so that your rookie outfielder can win Rookie of the Year, your favorite player can win the MVP, and your ace pitcher can nab the Cy Young Award.  The World Series is just a few glorious months away. Your team will be the champions.  Batter up!