New Life

If you want a profound Easter post, you can probably find one with very little effort, but, then again, nobody comes here looking for profundity.
No, the new life I'm excited about at the moment is that which begins at 7 pm, CDT, on Sunday evening. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan will welcome ESPN viewers to Fenway Park. The Boston Red Sox will host the MFYs in the opening game of the 2010 Major League Baseball season. And all will be right in my world again.
It has been a long time since November 4, when the MFYs beat the Phillies in Game 6 of the 2009 World Series. An insufferable football season was played to completion. College basketball and the NBA slog on and on. Do they still play hockey? Does anyone care?
This Sunday night, baseball will be back. Baseball means Spring. Baseball means that the Cubs have a chance to play in the World Series. Shoot, they could even win another one after 102 years. The Red Sox have done it twice after 86 years, and the White Sox got one after 88.
Bobby Cox will begin the last season of his Hall of Fame career on Monday. Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre will continue their progression towards Cooperstown. Albert Pujols will continue his reign as the best all-around player in the game. The Phils will seek their third straight NL pennant, and the Cards, Dodgers, Braves and Cubs will try to stop them. The MFYs will look to repeat, but my Beantowners will be hot on their trail. The Rays still have the core that took them to the Series in 2008, and in a new, openair ballpark in Minneapolis, Ron Gardenhire will find a way to keep the Twins in the chase in spite of already losing Joe Nathan for the season to Tommy John surgery.
A kid named Jason Heyward will play right field for the Braves, coming off a spring where he has looked every inch the best prospect in the game. Old veteran Mariano Rivera will try to be the Sandman for one more season. Chipper Jones will try to be Chipper Jones again, and Joe Mauer will try to be worth that contract.
I'll be visiting with old friends each evening. Vin Scully will call Dodger games for the 61st consecutive season, and Chip Caray will go back on Braves TV. Joe Castiglione and Dave O'Brien will keep Red Sox nation informed, while the execrable John Sterling will prove, once more, that all the money in the world can't buy class in the Bronx. John Rooney will try to make sense of the beloved Mike Shannon, and the Brennamans will see Reds fans through another season. Jon Miller, bound for the Hall of Fame as this year's Ford Frick Award winner, will once more provide the San Francisco Giants' fans with the best broadcast in Major League Baseball, while his protege, Dave Fleming, just gets better and better. Pat Hughes' good humor and Ron Santo's utterly blind loyalty will encourage, or more likely, comfort Cubs' fans all summer long.
Locally, we will occupy our seats at AutoZone Park throughout the summer as our Redbirds try to defend their Pacific Coast League championship. My granddaughter's baseball education began before she could possibly have known that she was at the ballpark. Baseball Second Grade will commence on April 16.
The next six months will be grand. The Perfect Game is back, and just in the nick of time. The old water heater flooded the house last week. The Career (sarcasm intended) is on the rocks. The winter doldrums have been brutal this year. My country lost its freaking mind over the idea that everyone should be able to get healthcare. Bush's idiotic wars have become Obama's idiotic wars, and for reasons that I will never understand, people still send their children to die in them. Patriotism? As though there is any reason we and our enemies see the world as we do other than the geographical accident of birth.
But Baseball is coming. Tony Campolo made a forture preaching that "It's Friday But Sunday's Coming." Good for him.
My message of hope tonight: It's still March, but Baseball's Coming!
Hallelujah!