Double plays, dancing in my head

Funny I should be thinking of baseball on a cold January afternoon in which the temp is entrenched in the 20s.

It reminds me of a beloved Peanuts cartoon. Charlie Brown is standing on his pitcher's mound, which is covered by a pile of snow. He's ready for opening day. So am I.

Then again maybe it's not so funny. Correspondence with a friend earlier today turned to our national game. So of course my mind flashed forward about three months -- to those azure blue skies and Technicolor greens that mean spring in my world.

Like a Grizzly in the woods, I wish I could hibernate through winter. Much as I've tried, I've never taken to it. I don't like the cold. I don't like the gray. I don't like skies that won't snow.

Sometime in a few weeks, I'll pull out the Ken Burns documentary or maybe "Field of Dreams," just to give me a fix. Sometime around my birthday, I'll be sitting in the Halls High press box with Dustin Mynatt. The first Monday in April will find me sitting in front of my TV set, grilling burgers, watching eight games at once.

(I'm not doing UT baseball this year, at least not as a season ticket holder. Money is tight and I only made it to a handful of games last year. Plus, I can't justify the ticket increase after such a disastrous year, "improvements" to Lindsey Nelson Stadium be damned.)

I can already hear Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy kicking off the Red Sox's season. I have visions of double plays dancing in my head.

Until then, I'm left to face winter and its unsatisfying sports, waiting for the true New Years Day when I spill mustard on my pants, the wind blows gently in from right field and somebody yells those magic words:

"Play ball!"