Better than the Weather

Jeremy is Berning: Top of the NESCAC

A regular season NESCAC championship? Yawn. A league title? Yes ma'am. The NCAA tournament for the 10th straight year? You bet. One of the top 25 teams in the country? Check. If I don't have your attention yet, I'm sorry to disappoint, but you've stumbled on the Orient's sports column. There's not much else the Bowdoin Women's Basketball Team can do. March: the month of mud, spring break and basketball. But in Brunswick, the Madness of March is over and we're left with just the mud and the all-too-distant-and-hazy memories of vacations in the sun. Sure, "The Tourney" still rages on around the country. Brackets are still poised to be made or busted and that company pool prize still seems within reach.

Jeremy is Berning: The Return of Hockey

I've got all of my teeth, my hair is short, and I don't say "eh." I don't skate too well and I haven't been in a fight since fifth grade. I've only seen Mighty Ducks four times. And despite all of that, there is a hockey player inside of me just waiting to burst out and finally figure out which channel is Versus. Hockey is back, baby! I might be a little late to the train, but there are now certainly four major sports on the American landscape. Memo to soccer and NASCAR: you had your chance and you blew it.

Jeremy is Berning

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

April 10, 2009

If you think baseball is a boring three-plus-hour game where fat steroid-users parade around with big muscles, big heads, and "bacne," you're right.

And you're missing the point.

Sure, the games are long and the pants are tight. The muscles may be more artificial than the hot dog meat and the grass not as green as the players' bank accounts. The fans may be more interested in perfecting The Wave and the tickets might cost more than a 50 percent share in GM. But it's baseball, and it's back.

It's 45 degrees, mostly cloudy ,and it actually could snow tonight. Yikes. March Madness just ended, it's snowing in Chicago and Detroit, and it's cold and rainy all over the country, but I'm in shorts and a T-shirt. I don't care what any groundhog has to say, it's officially summer, baby!

It's time to break out the jerseys and the gloves. And for that matter, the halter tops and skirts. Baseball means summer and summer means fun. Therefore, through some mathematical mumbo-jumbo they call the Transitive Property, life is good. Don't argue with me, or with baseball, that's science.

Because what's important about baseball, isn't baseball. And that's what makes it special.

The game is fine, the game is fun, but the game is hardly ever exciting. What's great about baseball is hanging out in the sun, drinking a few sodas, and heckling an overpaid Yankee. What's great about baseball is meeting the in-laws and actually having something to talk about. What's great about baseball is that winter is freaking over!

And now that they're here, these guys will never leave. This summer I'll spend more time with Youk and Tek than I will anyone else. They play 162 games in about 190 days. Heck, I'll hang with Papi more than I will my own dad.

Baseball has a rhythm and is full of joyful sounds. It is its own religion with its own priests and gods and as passionate a following as one can find. I've certainly drank the Kool-Aid. Or at least eaten the CrackerJacks.

Even through scandal, baseball is strong. The sport is full of likable stars and amazing talent. If the steroid mess is far from over, and Bud Selig still hasn't sent me a personal apology note, nothing can make it better than the fresh start of a new year of America's pastime.

I get why you don't like baseball. If I didn't live in an MLB city I'd probably be among the doubters, too. But I've witnessed the transcendent greatness that is baseball in October. I've seen the making of legends and felt the sorrow of defeat. It isn't every day you can see the birth of hero. It's only 162 games a year.

Scrooge might not like Christmas, but I guarantee he'd like Opening Day. The NBA may be "Where Amazing Happens" and the "The Cup May Change Everything" in the NHL, but Major League Baseball has the most important slogan in Brunswick. Baseball: My Anti-Winter.

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