Spring Training

It is spring, you know what that means! Baseball and Soccer right around the corner. I’m usually not one to be super excited about baseball, but it finally feels like the Mariners have done some actual moves in an attempt to be competitive. I like that. However, I’ve been excited before and been completely disappointed. I’m looking right at you Richie Sexson. I’m pointing my finger at you Adrian Beltre. That being said, I get an irrationally positive feeling for the new signees. I get some good vibes. I feel like these guys are a step in the right direction. I hope I’m right; it would be nice to have more reason to watch Baseball this year than fantasy leagues. Yes, I just properly used a semi-colon in a sentence, I’m almost ashamed.

Now Soccer! It looks like Major League Soccer is going to have a season, despite their labor dispute. This is good news for me because I’m addicted. A word of support for the players though, I think they deserve a better deal. I’m not saying they should make money on par with other sports leagues in the United States, but they deserve to have a little bit of free agency. I think MLS is missing out on some talent and making things unnecessarily complicated when they do land the few that are willing to sign. I’d go into more detail, but instead I’ll use a poor simile. It is like a pie that is owned by everyone and a piece gets cut and that piece says, “I’d like to go to either Harry or Sue.” You then have a raffle based on who got the last piece and the winner bargains with Harry and Sue. The point is that if the pie wants to go to a certain person they should be able to go to the Sounders…I mean Harry or Sue.

At this point I gotta say, I’m also incredibly excited for the NBA post season and March Madness. That’s the thing about basketball and me: I don’t like regular season games. The players in the NBA play at a much higher level when every game counts. The College players play well in regular season games but I can’t seem to get excited about them during my “NFL is over” hangover. It takes until at least March before I snap out of the empty NFL void and realize there are other sports. If I had my way the NBA and College Basketball wouldn’t play in anything but post season games.

Finally, Hockey. That was an exciting game, USA V Canada. It is almost enough for me to get back into hockey. But it can be really hard when the NHL team closest to me is named the “Canucks.” No thanks, for now I’ll remain mildly aloof and claim the hockey is only a Canadian sport.

All for now,

-Nate