Rustle of Spring

Something about the coming season of Major League Baseball feels different, but I've found it hard to articulate why. Pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training is normally a time of joyous optismism in which I am so happy to see baseball being played by professionals that the actual quality of the game and the fact that Opening Day is still six weeks away eludes me, but this year I'm having trouble finding that state of mind.

It could be that the league's labour issues, with owners doing everything short of openly stating that they are colluding against players, is weighing on my mind more than in years past. The free agent class of 2019 was supposed to be the biggest ever, but instead it's the worst. It's no fair and it makes upset at the sport.

It could be that the Jays are in the middle of labour issues as well and purposefully manipulating Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s service time instead trying to make the team better. It bothers me, but I also accepted that it would happen long ago.

It could be that the team will be very bad this year and more or less writing off the next 2-3 seasons, but I've been through that before and it doesn't scare me.

Something feels different though, for sure. There's a persistent reminder in my stomach that something is off and not the same, but I can't figure out what it is for the life of me.

To try and fix this feeling, I decided that I would re-visit what I think is my favourite book ever, Roger Angell's The Summer Game, during Spring Training. Already, in the book's first section which happens to cover Spring Training, I find myself being pulled back into baseball's romantic gravitational pull. I then realized that a huge part of the back also covers Angell falling in love with the all-time worst 1962 New York Mets and that it will also serve as a valuable companion during a terrible baseball year.

Maybe that's it. Everything I love about the sport is still here, I just need to hurry up and wait.