False Spring

Owie Owie Owie

It snowed today here in the mid-central New Jersey hellmouth, on St. Patrick's Day. It wasn't much, because we ducked the six inches that hit the southern part of the state, which meant that the fact that it was cold and bitter and awful outside yet again was something of a relief, since we didn't have to shovel and scrape and salt and wonder, yet again, why the hell we moved back here in 2006. Other than the home ownership and job and family, of course.

More baseball players that we care about underwent Tommy John surgery today -- the A's Jarrod Parker, the likely Opening Day starter for the favored laundry, and Atlanta's Kris Medlen, who we traded the utterly hated Justin Verlander for last summer when Verlander was doing his End Times Doc Holladay impersonation.

So the A's are down 40% of their rotation before a meaningful pitch has even been thrown, I'm out of my SP2 in fantasy, and I've just said sayonara to Minnesota 3B power prospect Miguel Sano, who I stashed for an entire year on my keeper league roster in the hope that I'd have that rarest of properties, a young power hitter for below market value. Sano, of course, just had Tommy John surgery, because, well, why not. Sano backs up Orioles 3B Manny Machado on my team, and Machado has spent the spring not running and increasingly doubtful for making Opening Day from last season's September knee surgery. It's nice to want to tank the year before you even draft.

Oh, and the local team that I tend to watch the most (Phillies, because Mets and Yankee fandom is far, far worse, especially when you bring into account the odiousness of the broadcast teams, and yes, that matters a lot in baseball, what with all the dead time) is going to be one of the five worst teams in the sport this year, and utterly unwatchable.

This is all, by the way, to be preferred to wallowing in the 21 losses and counting necessary train wreck that is the Sixers' season.

So, a quick and simple question...

When, exactly, will sports, and to a lesser extent, my life, suck a little less?