With all of the madness of baseball’s offseason seemingly over, us baseball fans can finally start looking forward to Spring Training next month when pitchers and catchers report to camp followed by position players a few weeks later.

It’s already been a crazy offseason with the Yankees shelling out big bucks for left-hander C.C. Sabathia, right-hander A.J. Burnett and 1st baseman Mark Teixeira.  Randy Johnson dawned a new uniform as he’ll be joining the starting rotation for the San Francisco Giants, it’s the 2nd team he’s played for in the NL West besides the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team he won the World Series with several years ago.  Barry Bonds still hasn’t found a team that wants him, I hope he’s not surprised by that.  Jason Giambi, surprisingly enough, is back in Oakland after departing there to join the New York Yankees after the 2001 season, most likely he’ll fill the DH role on an occasional basis, although it’s currently occupied by young Jack Cust at the moment and possibly a little 1st base if the need arises.  Oh, and noone wants to play for Team USA in the 2nd Annual World Baseball Classic, except for Chipper Jones and Derek Jeter, God forbid a player put his country first before the money and the TEAM he plays for and gets paid from.

All this leads me to be so excited for the baseball season.  In the coming month or two, I’ll start throwing out my predictions for the year, who will finish where, what their record will be, who the players to look out for are and a few other topics that we’ll cover as Spring Training opens up in Arizona and Florida. 

Here are just a few story lines to follow, at least I will be.  I’m sure people are wanting to see how spending the big bucks is going to work for the Yankees or if it’s going to end up like the past eight years, no hardware, no championship, money wasted, though that is music to my ears personally.  How about the Tampa Bay Rays and the amazing run they had last season, though it came up short against the stronger Philadelphia Phillies?  Can they re-group and make another run or was this just a one year, one hit, wonder kind of thing?  What about the NL West, as bad as it was last season, can they possibly get better or will that division continue to struggle to keep all 5 teams above .500.  Who will be the new owner of the Cubs when the sale is complete and what will that mean for them, will they be able to spend the kind of money the Yankees spend and will it finally be the end of “the curse.”  Will the Angels still be the best in the AL West, a runaway champion, or have the Oakland A’s made the right moves during this offseason to keep up?

Those are just a few of the interesting stories we’ll be following all year long.  But, as for right now, I’m just anxiously awaiting the start of Spring Training, where all of us baseball fans can dream big, even if we know that the dream is as good as it’s ever going to be.  One can hope for a World Series trophy, but in my case being a San Diego Padre fan, I know that’s just not realistic.  But hey, a man can dream right?

The boys of summer are coming…are you ready?

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