Opening Dayadness Madness

Kudos to you if you predicted that after [any number] games Rick Ankiel would lead baseball in home runs, Erik Bedard would be the league leader in saves, and the Houston Astros would be in first place. Also, you may want to know that the villagers are forming a mob as we speak, because you’re also a witch! The odds of any of these things happening individually is enough to boggle the mind; having all three happen at once is enough to make Giorgio Tsoukalos ramble on about alien intervention this, and antediluvian conspiracy that. It is, quite simply, a confluence of circumstances that circumvents reality as we know it, rendering all logic useless and risks thrusting the world into a new dark age.

Or, that's the narrative we're all supposed to believe. The fact is, weird shit like that happens all the time in sports. The best team doesn't always win. In fact, sometimes the worst team ends up winning. Just ask the 1969 Mets about that one. 

Does anyone really believe that the Astros will somehow finish in front of their now division rival Rangers? Probably not.  Does anyone really believe that any of the cockimany half-theories espoused by any number of twitter contributors heap upon us (myself included) to stay ahead of the would-be comedic pack of jackals? A few people probably do, but we'll pretend that they don't exist.

The fact is, we're clamoring to make a huge deal over the first game of the season, partly because ESPN has exclusive rights to the only game to open the season. Hooray for their network for having the capitol to artificially create actual rooting interest in a team like the (first place) Astros, but in reality, well, it;'s just one game--the only game. So, yea, we're making a huge deal about it right now, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future (first pitch on April 1). But when the very next game is played, just a few hours from now, we'll all conveniently forget all the artificial importance we placed on the strange and unusual happenings that unfolded before our eyes on March 31, 2012, and we'll settle into our old/new routines of tweeting about the new meme of the day.