Category: Baseball

In cities all over the country, there is hope this morning as Opening Day of the 2007 baseball season erupts in time with the Forsythia. Fans have endured the struggle of a long, cold winter of waiting and an endless five or six weeks of spring training for this moment. In half of the parks (the fact that Baseball is played in a Park sets it immediately apart from the other land acquisition sports) the bunting is out and field is painted.

Oh, and by tomorrow, half the teams will be tied for first and the others in the basement. Play ball!

  I’m cautiously excited by the sleeper Rockies this year. A young, solid team in a division where no one really jumps out, this might be their best opportunity to step up. Hey, if the Tigers can do it…

Though I look out my office window at a snowstorm, hope begins anew in Tucson as the Rockies take on the White Sox in their first spring training game. Why, it will seem just like Summer this afternoon when the play by play comes on the radio…perhaps I’ll go change in shorts.

As I look out my office window at the frozen piles of snow that have been our landscape since December, I wonder if the grass is ever going to peek out again. Spring training in Tucson has begun and the first feel good story of spring has to do with the appearance of reliever Dave Veres in the clubhouse. It’s already a great season…

5 days, 4 hours, 56 minutes until pitchers and catchers wing into Tucson…

Is this more unwarranted optimism that’s being played out in baseball circles around the league this week as the long season begins its first throes? Maybe not. The Rockies’ youth movement and development within the farm system coupled with the overall lack of improvement in the other Western division clubs might make it more promising than what we’ve seen in the past.

I suppose that we’ll have to wait until June or July to find out but either way this season goes, Rockies fans will have to admit that there is nothing quite like watching the sun go down over the Rocky Mountains visible over left field on a warm summer night…all is well with the world.

5 days, 4 hours, 51 minutes until pitchers and catchers wing into Tucson…

Vinny leaves the game behind. He is a class act all the way. Good luck Vinny.

Helton stays, the axis of the earth has not shifted. The Rockies may not be any better this year than last but just thinking about watching the sun set over the Rocky Mountains beyond left field next summer will make facing the frozen tundra that is outside my windows today will be just a little bit easier.

Snow forecast for the sixth week in a row but hope springs eternal. The Rockies’ first spring training game is in five short weeks…