It is Time for Baseball

Brad Peacock (Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports)

I waited a day. In reality, personally, I could have written this about two weeks ago. Instead, I figured I would let one full day elapse in between the most anticlimactic Super Bowl ever and the official start of baseball season.

For me, at some level, it is always baseball season. But for the most part, football does a good enough job of distracting me when the fields become empty. Of course the Hot Stove league certainly helps and plays a large factor in this which also helps fill the void.

The two weeks between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl are rough. I really do not need to see the same interview over and over and hear essentially the same story daily for 14 days. It is just too much. So during that time, I start to switch my focus and begin to look towards the 2014 baseball season. However at the same time, I still keep some attention focused on football, and that was especially the case this year since it was what I thought would be, a compelling matchup.

Clearly that was not the case, and if I were not at a party and focused on my various Super Bowl pools, I would have started looking through baseball statistics in the third quarter.

So after giving everyone a day to clear the slate, and digest the trouncing that took place in Met Life Stadium, we now present to you the start of the 2014 season. Now that might seem a bit redundant as in fact our focus has never truly left the Astros and baseball here at Climbing Tal’s Hill.

But today is different. This is truly the beginning. Now baseball has the full focus, and the intensity of said focus will only begin to increase in the coming days and weeks as teams begin to report to Spring Training.

While the Astros are likely destined for another last place finish, there is some, and I repeat some, hope that this year might be a little different than the last few. The Astros should be more competitive, and we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and Jeff Luhnow’s plan beginning to come to fruition.

Things are starting to look up for the Astros and that is exciting. It will still take a few years, but now the picture is beginning to come into a clearer focus.