Opening Day

Whenever I talk to my buddy on the west coast around this time of year and mention Opening Day, he askes, "Opening day of what?" After a dozen years of this ritual, I have to assume it's just to annoy me, but it reminds me that to much of the misguided world the beginning of baseball season is just another day. Man, what keeps them going through February and March? (Oh yeah, on the west coast the answer would be, "Surfing, going to the beach, strawberry season, biking, hiking....")

Well, here where you can't feel your toes for months at a time the coming of baseball season is sometimes the only thing that keeps us sane. We don't arrive at the park in the third inning and leave in the seventh. We know how to balance two metts and a beer on our laps while we clap for mediocre teams. Thousands of Greater Cincinnatians will line up along a parade route in the rain this morning to watch Pete Rose look-alikes wave from a float.

It's a Cincinnati thing -- you wouldn't understand.