Season Opener

Listen. Can you hear it? Somewhere the bats are cracking... The white chalk is forming lines between bases... The popcorn is popping. And hotdogs are turning on a grill. Yup. Baseball season is here.

I enjoy watching baseball -- not as much as football -- but it ranks right up there. I think the difference for me is that on a cold winter's day, there's nothing wrong with curling up in a blanket on the couch to watch 6 hours of football. On a warm summer's night, however, I'd certainly rather be there, at the ballpark, than watching the action from my living room.

In our typical summers of late, we get so wrapped up in our own baseball schedules -- between the 3 boys -- that it just leaves time for little else until about August. However, we usually get to at least one Major League Baseball game a summer. We either travel down to Miller Park when hubby's Cincinnati Reds are playing the Brew Crew. Or we'll catch a game at the Metrodome when my Twins are playing. Sometimes we're lucky enough to do both.

Unlike football, you don't have people disliking or downright despising you for the team you cheer for. Thus, it's a welcome change to put the purple away and not be judged a traitor -- at least for a few months.

Since Jim's team is in the National League, I don't feel a rivalry between us. In fact, I hope the Reds do well for him and have nothing against the Brewers going gangbusters again either. I do have a friendly rivalry with one of the guys at work. We expect his White Sox and my Twins will be battling for 3rd place in the AL Central Division this year behind Detroit and Cleveland. We're much more realistic than optimistic.

I will admit I am not as big a fan as I once was. The summers of 1987 and 1988 were the absolute best. I was a camp counselor at Luther Point Bible Camp near Grantsburg, Wis., and just about every other weekend a bunch of us on staff would head down to a Twins game to see Kirby Puckett, Dan Gladden, Kent Hrbek and the gang. Those were good times.

Nowadays, it is not so geographically convenient. And I've let other priorities sneak in -- kids, job, etc. So I am not the same, immersed fan of those golden days. With trades and free agents, there were so many changes after last season, I was hard pressed to name 5 people on the current roster. Thanks to a "Twins tutorial" in the Sunday paper yesterday, I now know who's on first, what's on second, etc. I also know it's going to be a tough season -- or what we call a "building year."

We'll just have to wait and see how this season shakes out. The Twins start off with the Angels, who consistently knock us out of the playoffs (when we are lucky enough to reach that point at the end of the season). Let's hope we have that problem again.

In the meantime, it's time. Play ball!