March 1 Musings

To quote the old sea captain on the Simpsons, "It wasn't long before this yearly custom became an annual tradition."

He was explaining the origins of Halloween. An event which has managed to survive the test of time and which faithfully reappears every year.

Which brings us to the matter of this blog. Now in its third year of life. The starting of this blog every spring has become an annual tradition. Last year, team-by-team previews throughout the month of March very nearly covered every team in baseball. After that good start, unfortunately, blog posts slowed to a trickle, revived briefly, and then called it a season before Labor Day. In that respect, baseballbreaksyourheart.com has been very similar to the Orioles and Nationals: Early season energy but done by September.

Season 3, I hope, will start a new annual tradition of season-long baseball commentary, lamentation, and unjustified optimism. And why not? Theres alot to talk about. Off the top of my head: We have the Yankees once again on top of the baseball mountain, an off-season swap of Cy Young winning pitchers that has to be one of the biggest deals in recent MLB history, hype over a flame-throwing Cuban defector, Manny Ramirez talking about moving to Japan, and the arrival in Washington DC of a pitcher so highly-touted that he's been unofficially nicknamed "Jesus."

And theres also, higher ticket prices, AGAIN, in Baltimore, the controversial return to the game of Mark McGwire, and the ever-looming but still unrevealed "Selig's List" telling us who among our heroes wasn't playing by the rules in 2003.

Oh, and Jon Miller goes into the Hall of Fame this summer. Will he do his legendary Vin Scully impersonation during his induction speech?

2010 will keep baseball fans busy. To start the year off right, baseballbreaksyourheart.com will preview each Major League team beginning tomorrow and running until Opening Day. Each day, an in-depth look at 30 big league clubs, most written by devotees of each team.

We will kick the season off tomorrow with the World Champion Yankees followed on Wednesday by their vanquished World Series foes, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Play Ball!