The Night Before

Well, Orioles fans, it’s the night before Opening Day. As Buck Showalter would say, you have “one more sleep” before the most wonderful time of the year” is upon us. It will be  some time before you have to endure another night without the promise of baseball. Sure, there will be off days along the way, but nothing like the void that we’re experiencing now. This year, the night before baseball season is much like the offseason itself: it’s cold, dark, and way too long for our tastes. If you – like we – are anxiously awaiting hearing those magical words “play ball,” then I need you to stop and think about something:

The worst defeat of the season will pale in comparison to the misery of six months without baseball season. Think about how you feel right now… about how much you want to hear the crack of the bat and those magical words “play ball.” You’re going to need to draw on this feeling during the season, because as much as we hope to see dongs and saves, and defensive gems, there will be a fair share of bad calls, injuries, and three-game losing streaks. Baseball is a beautiful game, but she can, at times, be a cruel mistress.

On the other hand, it’s all uphill from here. Tomorrow, you’ll be able to hear the melodious sounds of Joe Angel and Fred Manfra on the radio and Gary Thorne and Jim Palmer on MASN. Your Twitter feed will be alive with the magic of Orioles baseball. And so it will be for a long, long time.

Sleep fast, Birdland.

Let me pull back the curtain for a minute. When Scott and I prepare for an episode, we  work very hard on putting together the best show possible. We’re great friends, but we’re also two guys who have very strong opinions, and every once in a while we lock horns. This can make for entertaining podcasts. The most “colorful” conversations revolve around which two songs we’re going to include to serve as interstitial music. The Beatles make the cut more often than not, because… they’re awesome. And I have a Bealtes “problem.” So if this blog post were a podcast segment, it would be introduced with this song:

[sz-youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0mQGH7cq4Y” /]