PLAY BALL!!!

So tomorrow, is a personal holiday for me. Well, up until this year, to tell you the truth. Monday, April 5th, is the opening of the Major League Baseball season. Yes, it's a time of optimism and hope that your team will have that magical run to the post-season, ending with a World Series Championship. It's that time of year when every team is tied for first place in the division, and everyone is (presumably, unless you're the Mets or Phillies) healthy and ready to strike people out or hit home runs. Yes, Baseball is back, and I'm trying to be excited about it.

Anyone who knows me would wonder what the hell happened to me to end that last paragraph in the way I did. "How could Brad, a through and through Baseball guy, be having a hard time getting excited about this season?" I don't know why, specifically, but I have my theories.

The number one thing that is making me inattentive to the upcoming season is I'm not working at the Casino. There, I would talk about the upcoming season with any number of coworkers to pass the time, namely Melka. Even if he was more concerned with betting on the NBA or College Basketball or the also-upcoming NFL Draft, he was knowledgeable enough about all major sports enough to be able to talk baseball. Phil O'Neill was also a good person to talk MLB with, but that was a long time ago. Mike Barry as well, but as was also the case with Phil, they only talked about the Tigers, which is fine. I like the Tigers...But not as much as my beloved Braves.

After a season like last, when the Braves were in contention for the playoffs for most of the second half of the season, you would think that I would be jumping for joy at the prospects of the upcoming season. Oh believe me, I am, to a point. But the number two reason I'm not freaking out about the onset of another wonderful MLB season is that my Nashville Predators are on the verge of entering the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I have devoted so much of my time to the Predators this season that my focus is squarely on them at this time.

I believe that after I read this latest issue of Sports Illustrated, which is a 2010 baseball preview edition, I will be much more excited about the upcoming season. And I'm sure that when the first pitch is thrown at 3:05 CST-ish on Monday afternoon at Turner Feild against the Cubs, I will be watching. I will be freaking, a little. Because no matter what, I love baseball and I love the Atlanta Braves.