It’s here. The unofficial end of Winter and welcoming of hope for so many Americans for so many decades arrives and I for one am happy to see the old ball game.

 Sure Baseball is not what it once was. The world has changed and so has the game. But it remains a national treasure even though it’s gone global. In fact when you look at the higher percentages of non American players in the league and the intensity foreign fans had in the just completed World Baseball Classic, it might not be far off from truth to say Baseball is held in higher regard in Asia and Latin America than it is here.

  But for those of us who grew up in and around the game it’s return is refulgent with wonderfully nostalgic sights, smells, and sounds. It’s aromatic with hope and a boys grand ideas and iconic images. It’s memories that are attended with not only the game as played on the big league level of course. These feelings are nourished and imprinted by the accoutrements of the Baseball milieu. It’s flipping cards, trading them and trying to get a steal like a big league GM. It’s the smell of that pink sheet of bubble gum that comes with the cards and seems to stay on them for months like new car smell. It’s breaking in your new mitt. Or getting the old one out after a Winter of dissuse and getting it into game shape. It’s the smell of the leather of that mitt, the feel of it’s strings as you tie them to your specifications.

 Opening Day and the season in general offer us the game from afar. Or it does so at least  for those of us for whom opportunity and or viablity on the playing field has faded away. But despite that distance, a distance that grows ever more frustratingly with each season further from our own opening day’s and one season closer to our final Winter, the game goes on. And in it’s ritualistic return each April those of us who grew up on the game, who know it as a fan and have at least some echo of what a ball popping in the glove and cracking against the bat sound and feel like from countless hours of play, can find solace in a long seasons ups and downs.

  Whether we played in backyards, front streets or nearby parks, and whether it was hardball, stickball, or tennis ball wiffle, playing Baseball was the soundtrack, movie, and lifeblood of most of our Spring and Summer days. And nights. There were far too many evenings to remember playing until it got so dark it was getting dangerous. We wanted to get every ounce of the pure joy of the game. And the game means more than the score, the innings, the rules or any of the strictly proscribed aspects of Baseball. It was the chatter, the fellowship, the aforementioned sounds and smells. It was the identification with certain players and teams. The memorizations of stats, uniform numbers, and batting stances. Adults my age are probably the first generation of adults to still play video games into their 30′s and 40′s and I think part of the reason for this is that we can’t go out and play games on the streets, fields, and yards anymore. Video games offer a taste of play, it’s innocence and benign intensity. But it does so without all those glorious elements to attend to it. There are no smells, no real sounds, or organically valid results. There is no cameraderie.

There is no dusk till dawn as I used to call it: “You want to do dusk till dawn?” THis was a common question of mine towards friends on Summer mornings or Spring and Fall weekends. Sure you can play video games all day and night. I’ve done that too. But I doubt the days used to that end will be recalled with wistful nostalgia decades later.

 But Baseball season brings much of this back. The plays I made in Little League, the plays I watched both at Shea and Yankee Stadium which no longer exist as of this year and those I watched on tv from black and white 12 inch screen with 13 channels, to 25 inch color tv with cable, to 50 inch hi def with too many channels to care about and access to every game. There are secrets the game possesses that only true fans can understand. Many a book and a poem has been written waxing literary on baseball from every angle including historical, tragic, human, and fiction. Much has been made of Baseball holding a mirror to America as it has grown up the past century or so. Some of it is hype, but most of it is true. I’ve connected to those parallels and symetries since I was in my teens. I got it and it got me.

 Now a Baseball season is another opportunity to feel connected to that greater picture that offered some of the truest, best, and perhaps little connection to community I’ve known. Baseball season is much of this for many fans with their own particular additions and subtractions that have made the game mean more than the lines of a boxscore. From it’s initial hopes, to dawning reality, to attempts to alter course midway through with trades or promotions, to it’s end that sometimes goes with a whimper, sometimes a bang, the game offers not only nostalgia, but controversy, rumor, discussion, insider perspective, outsider recognition, the exalted, the mundane, bright colors, charming new parks, social parallels, and a sense of things in microcosm within the tidy confines of a season.

  And the fact that the season has it’s life in Winter and the Hot Stove League enhances the anticipation. For good or bad the game still holds a mirror and the mirror doesn’t stop reflecting even after one story is told. Part of the bad the game now reflects is the growing disparity between the haves and have nots. It’s hurt out country and I think it hurst the game. We need to cut some fat and so does MLB. Unfortunately they will continue to field too many teams, with watered down talent, in too many cities that can not mantain competitive balance with the New Yorks and Bostons year in and out. But things have always changed in the game. Some as prelude to change in America. sometimes following. Often in lockstep. Just look at the history of race relations in the game and the country. Or labor-management. Now america outsources and so does the game. Arguably this hurts both though none would deny the growing passion for the game outside our borders or the influx of talent from abroad. I could say and relate so much more. perhaps in other posts. But I want to get into the game.

So enough waxing. Here are my picks on the record so I can gloat if I get some of these right, because I haven’t seen asy picks quite like these.

 National League

East                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Florida Marlins                                                                                                                                                                                                         Atlanta Braves                                                                                                                                                                                                          New York Mets                                                                                                                                                                                                     Philadelphia Phillies                                                                                                                                                                                    Washington Nationals

Central

Chicago Cubs                                                                                                                                                                                                      Cincinnatti Reds                                                                                                                                                                                                            St Louis Cardinals                                                                                                                                                                                          Pittsburgh Pirates                                                                                                                                                                                       Milwaukee Brewers                                                                                                                                                                                        Houston Astros

West                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Los Angelas Dodgers                                                                                                                                                                                       Arizona Diamondbacks                                                                                                                                                                                           San Francisco Giants                                                                                                                                                                                            Colorado Rockies                                                                                                                                                                                                        San Diego Padres

American League

East                                                                                                                                                                                                                                New York Yankees                                                                                                                                                                                             Tampa Bay Devil Rays                                                                                                                                                                                        Boston Red Sox                                                                                                                                                                                            Baltimore Orioles                                                                                                                                                                                            Toronto Bluejays

Central                                                                                                                                                                                                              Cleveland Indians                                                                                                                                                                                                Kansas City Royals                                                                                                                                                                                     Minnesota Twins                                                                                                                                                                                               Chicago White Sox                                                                                                                                                                                             Detroit Tigers              

 West                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Texas Rangers                                                                                                                                                                                                  Anaheim Angels                                                                                                                                                                                                        Oakland A’s                                                                                                                                                                                                            Seattle Mariners

  Now I’m not much for playoff predictions in April. So much of October Baseball these days is who’s hot and not and who’s healthy and not at that time of the year. But in an effort towards comprehensive coverage I’ll thow a few things out including some award picks.

 NL Championship Series I see coming down to who I see as the two best teams in the NL. Two teams not a lot have, one of whom no one has. The Los Angelas Dodgers and Florida Marlins respectively.

ALCS I’ll whittle down to Yankees vs Texas Rangers. Yes the Texas Rangers. What am I nuts? I’m gambling on some things though. They have a couple of good minor league arms I’m betting play a role and I think they are in a good position to make a deal trading away their signature excess of young hitting talent for some pitching that will surely be available on the trade market by the end of July. I think the INdians fall into this category as well though certainly Boston, the Yanks, and Cubs are also in good position to make deals happen if needed.

  I hope I’m wrong on the Mets but I don’t think the starting pitching is any good after Santana. I don’t get why poeple continue to insist it is or not see the role they had in the fames bullpen meltdowns the past 2 years. Lots of David Wright for MVP picks out there but I think Wright goes the other way, especially in Citifield and has his worst season.

  NL MVP I’d lean towards Ramirez.

   Ok that’s a cop out since I can’t decide which Ramirez. Manny or Hanley. I’l lean towards the latter in Florida. I’m giving the Marlins ROY also in Cameron Maybin. They may get Cy Young too with one of their youngins but it’s hard to pick against Lincecum in SF again.

   I’ll go Josh Hamilton for AL MVP. AJ Burnett rather than Sabbathia in NY for Cy Young, and I’ve got no clue on ROY. I’ll throw Feliz in Texas in there though he’s not even on the team right now.

   Let the games begin!