A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

With it being 100 days or so remaining until Tedapalooza and the last Red Sox game played on October the 28th, I've reached some sort of baseball purgatory. All I've got to tide me over is my World Series DVD, my commemorative books, and memories.

Tonight after I got home, we took the kids outside to play; today was one of those North Carolina winter days where the temperature was around 65 with no humidity and the sky is what I imagine Dean Smith sees in his dreams. Pure Carolina blue.

As I watched Ciera ride her bicycle into the neighbors wet yard leaving tire tracks you could row a canoe in, Trot stand on the swinging door of his eggcar while he tried to climb onto the roof, and Rakes position his bike at the PERFECT place where the road meets the driveway (This prime spot allows him to peddle like Lance Armstrong, tires spinning merrily along while, thanks to his training wheels, he goes... nowhere), I was struck by the fact that I REALLY miss baseball.


A little while later I found out that Truck Day is this Saturday, and suddenly my mood lifted. Truck Day, if you don't already know, is when the team packs up all the crap in Boston on 18 wheelers and drives it down to Ft. Myers in preparation for Spring Training.

Which means the yearly "When will Manny show up?" stories will start to make the rounds. You'll see Jerry Remy, dressed in some hideous floral shirt pontificating about the strength of the bullpen, and at least one random interview with some pale refugee from New England ranting about the Yankees and that "SOB Steinbrenner".

All of which basically means one thing; baseball is coming.

Soon.

It won't be that much longer until Opening Day, Remy and Orsillo in the broadcast booth, and Manny pimping a majestic shot that JUST hits the top of the Monster, turning a potential triple into a REALLY long single that ends with him maniacally pointing at the dugout.

Mike Lowell making the impossible play look routine at 3rd, Jacoby turning a single into a double, and Big Papi sending us all to bed smiling. Or Youk grinding out a walk in the bottom of the 9th, The Munchkin making a game saving stop his 5 foot body has no business making, and Josh Beckett picking a fight with Prince Fielder because he looked at him funny.

In other words, honest to God real life Red Sox baseball.

I.

Can't.

Wait.