OPENING DAY RAIN OUT

The forecast called for a downpour.
The prognosticators predicted a season of hand-wringing and gloom.
Still, thousands passed through the turnstiles
As giddy as kids with ice cream sundaes.

Showers fell, the sky wept, the tarp got rolled out.
But the excitement couldn’t be dampened.
Something was fundamentally different in the air.
It was baseball season again.

Baseball’s return is like an azalea’s fragrant bloom.
It may augur nothing, it may promise nothing,
It may usher in nothing but heartbreak and futility.
But it is everything.