Opening Day 2008!

It's like a time machine, man: Mike's posting about baseball again. What happened? He got married and like fell off the face of the Earth. Crazy stuff.

Anyways, here are a few of my thoughts about opening day:

• Yes, the poetic waxing about Yankee Stadium is already a little much (and it will surely only intensify as we approach the All-Star game and "The Ghosts Come Out in October at Yankee Stadium". But I thought it was pretty cool that yesterday's rainout ensured that a March game never took place at The Stadium. Today's opener will be in April, just like all the others before it. Bummer for the folks who thought they had tickets to the opener, but now don't have tickets for today's game.

• Steve Phillips was almost bearable on the Giants-Dodgers broadcast yesterday. Had it not been opening day, I would have turned it offl; Phillips is that bad. During one random rant, Phillips let this gem loose (I'm still not sure why he was talking about the Cubs or Fukudome): "He's like Ichiro, but won't hit for as much average, and a little like Hideki Matsui, but without as much power..." Umm... thanks, Steve? I think you described most everyone with that description - myself included. Without my parenthetical reference to Fukudome, I doubt many folks would have had a clue as to who you were talking about.

• I'm trying not to be a bitter White Sox fan here, but the Indians radio team was really jacked up yesterday. I can now better empathize with the folks who hate the Sox homer TV announcers. The Indians duo was ecstatic for every moment that was positive for the Indians and despondent each time the Sox did something reasonably well. They were even giving updates throughout the game on the Tigers. Apparently it's never to early to start the scoreboard watching.

• While everyone is talking about the Red Sox repeating this year, they're on pace to win 81 games. That's 15 fewer than last year. Yes, it's early. But the Red Sox started their season a week ago. And they haven't shown any signs of turning things around. If the Red Sox continue at this pace, they could find themselves looking up at the Rays in the standings.