The Season of Hope

The Season of Hope is what I think Spring Training should be called. Name one other major sport that when teams going into their spring training, training camp or preseason that you have no clue what is about to happen. I know. I know. You are saying in your head that everyone knew the Red Sox were going to win the World Series and the Yankees were going to make the playoffs. But who knew the Rockies and the D-Backs were going to be fighting for the NL crown. If you did know, then congratulations you are either one of the following:

1) a Rockies or a D-Backs fan
2) a person who just banked in Vegas and should become my friend.
3) or a psychic

I am guessing it is the top one of the three.

So this is why I believe Spring Training should not be called the Spring Training but the Season of Hope.

Every year when the boys of summer come out of hibernation and join together in Arizona and Florida a sense of hope is created. Ask pretty much any baseball fan and they will tell you how this could be the year

For Royals fans they would say, we have a new coach who has never failed in any of the leagues he has coached and Jose Guillen is in the outfield; we are going to get out of last place finally. For Devil Ray fans, we have young talent in the field and added a veteran pitcher in Garza; we are going to prove our division wrong and show we are no push over. For the Dodgers., they just have one word: Torre.

This echoes across the league from fans in the west to the east. Some have hopes of World Series others have hope that this is the year everything starts to look up. But their is still hope. The hope stays their throughout Spring Training until a week or two into the season. This is when the Season of Hope turns into the Regular Season and it seems the hope disappears in some people. But the glory of baseball never lets it slip away. As the Rockies and Phillies proved this past year, it is not over until the standings say you are eliminated.

So when my team, the White Sox, step onto the field in Tucson in less then a week to start, I will show hope. I will talk about the improvements we made to the bullpen; I will talk about the addition of Cabrera and Swisher and I will talk about the fact we have something to prove after not showing up last year. I will speak of hope. I will forget about the Tigers and what they added. I will forget what the Indians did last year. All I know is my team is back, and we are not the same team as last year. We are a new team and you never know what will happen.