Boston Red Sox ,Texas Rangers - April Fools

Maybe the day is appropriate. Our lefty starter gives up a jimmy-jack in the second inning. He lasts 4 2/3 innings of lackluster ball and leaves with the Rangers down 4-0. Jon Lester is on. Jon Lester is June 6, 2009 on. 9 innings, 11Ks. Red Sox win 8-1 after the bullpen janitor gets blitzed in the 6th. Uh oh. Now allow me to direct you to your calendar and point out the following: April Fool's!

Truly there is only one thing to celebrate today and it isn't prank calling your grandma or seeing what lame "invention" Google came up with; it's our Opening Day. We're signing up for another year that will test our mettle as often as it rewards our reverence. That's where it's at. That's baseball's sweet spot and is one that only baseball can offer. Today, we will celebrate willingly devoting ourselves to this game for another year, each and every day. It's possible the above scenario could play out, but regardless of the outcome, around Three O'Clock this afternoon, we're bulletproof again because baseball is back.

Fools? Maybe. Maybe it is foolish to find obligation in a sport. We've heard this winter about bad traffic & heat, manipulation & misleadings, differing management styles, and shambles. There have been tweaked groins, cold bats from big names, uncooperative shoulders and vanishing release points. We've worried about the closer, the closer starting, the 8th inning guy if the closer starts, the possible 8th inning guys now that the once-thought 8th inning guy was named a starter, and 3, 4, & 5 guys. But none of the fretting matters today because there's baseball to be played, American League Champion worthy baseball, and it's not going to stop for hand-wringing. Nor should it. If ever an Opening Day was worthy of our allegiance, it is today's. Not just because of 2010's successes. Not only because of 2011's promise. But because, out of the shadows of unprecedented success, the sun shines down upon this team waiting to thrill anew. We have 162 games to be fools for loving this game once again. This time, perhaps, they'll finish the job and fool 'em all.

Why the Phillies Will/Won't Win the East

As any Yankees fan can tell you, the problem with sky-high expectations is that they leave you with only two possible outcomes: satisfaction or disappointment. If, like me, you feel that a large element of a baseball fan’s joy is the game’s potential to surprise and delight--to give you more than you might reasonably hope for--the idea of "World Series or bust" might not seem all that appealing. Our surprise and delight came on that December night when the rumors gave way to fact that Cliff Lee once again was a Phillie; but as soon as he signed, the story of the 2011 season transformed into "World Series or bust."

Now, my belief is that any predictions made when it’s consistently 40-50 degrees but with warmer weather presumably on the way, about which two ballclubs will be left standing when the thermometer returns to that range on a downward trajectory, are an affront to the baseball gods—whom we’re trying to appease, after all. So I’m not going there. But it feels a bit safer, and probably more interesting anyway, to speculate on which teams might play into October. And maybe the exercise counters that expectations problem; it wasn’t so long ago that most of us would have been beyond thrilled with one division championship, so the idea that we’d shrug the Phillies’ fifth straight NL East title like we’re entitled to it doesn't, and shouldn't, sit very well.