Wednesday, February 23, 2005

The Curmudgeon in Spring

For 64 days now, the hours of daylight have been lengthening. And now today, another sign of approaching spring. I heard my first Twin's commercial of the season. That's the Minnesota Twins baseball team for those of you not from Minnesota or into baseball.

It's enough to make this old curmudgeon's heart feel lighter. This particular commercial was on the radio, as I was driving home from work today. It was a humorous ad, as they have been for several years, and it's subject was Johan Santana, last year's American League Cy Young Award winner.

Not only is Johan back, but for the first time in anyone's memory, all 11 pitching spots are already filled. Spring training began just two days ago, and it began with no openings in the pitching staff. That's an encouraging start. We did lose some good, and popular position players from last year's roster; so we will have a little suspense to see who fills the spots, and how well they fill them. But that's all part of the fun of a baseball fan. Watching a team grow, change and evolve. Can we make it four division championships in a row? We'll see; and hopefully have lots of fun doing it.

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