Baseball Season is Here...

* Sweet. I don't really count the abbreviated Red Sox-A's series in Japan that technically served as the season opener. The fact that both teams resumed spring training after those games seemed to devalue (?) those games. In any case, tonight's Braves-Nats opener was a great start to the season. From the debut of Nationals' Park, to the crowd roundly booing President Bush as he threw out the first pitch, to Ryan Zimmerman's walk-off bomb to end the evening, a fitting start to the season. Here's hoping that VT's own Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Dustin Moseley and, perhaps, Nick Adenhart, can help the Angels weather the early months sans John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar. After all, with Peter Angelos entering his 15th year as principal owner of the Orioles, my childhood favorite will likely offer few moments to celebrate.

* It was fascinating to see the reaction of the crowd at Nationals' Park to President Bush throwing out the first pitch juxtaposed with his throwing out the first pitch during the World Series in 2001, shortly after 9/11. The hope, strength, leadership, resilience, goodwill and potential that seemed evident to me in again watching that moment have, over the last six and a half years, been squandered, resulting in the president's being roundly booed by the DC crowd this evening. A microcosm of the judgment that surrounds the current administration and the challenges the candidates for the presidency face in the coming months and years.