April madness? November madness? Just play baseball!

 Every year Major League Baseball returns with the warm Spring winds, like a colorful flower blooming in the sunshine... regardless of who runs the game.

Charles Schultz

Charlie Brown feels my pain (Joe Shlabotnik could not be reached for comment)

It's opening day, even if it's on a Thursday in the month of March rather than the first Monday in April.

The city of Cincinnati will host its traditional opening day ceremonies, including a parade, like they always do. Cincinnati traditionally plays the first game of the season in honor of being the city with the first professional franchise in 1869.

Despite the fact that ESPN has incorporated Sunday night games the night before in the past, and will start a game on television an hour before the Reds begin, it's still opening day.

The Reds will play the Milwaukee Brewers, who were originally an American League team. Even though they should still be one, it's opening day, and it's baseball, so life is good.

Besides, the Brewers will still get to play some of their old American League rivals, thanks to the creation of interleague play. Despite the fact that baseball, for almost 90 years, never did it, they do now.

Interleague play causes lopsised schedules, meaning one team might play a tougher schedule than another over the 162-game season.

That scheduling conflict could skew the outcome of a wild card team, the team in each league with the best record that doesn't win their division.

The wild card gets to be in the playoffs because each league now has three divisions, so a fourth team is needed for an extra round of seemingly unnecessary playoffs.

But it's still baseball. Stripped down, it's the game of batter vs. pitcher, strategy, using a combination of brains, brawn and skills, nine men playing as a team.

Or 10 in the American League, where they still have that crazy designated hitter rule, allowing a batter to bat for a pitcher, which dramatically changes game strategy.

Even if it's in March, which it is because Commissioner Bud Selig said that needed to be done to keep the World Series from being played in the cold days of November.

And even though there's snow on the ground in Cincinnati for opening day, well, it's still special because it's opening day.

Even though there's too many playoff games, and despite the fact that there are never any scheduled double-headers on Sundays or holidays during the regular season.

Despite the fact that an interim commissioner that is a former owner, and took over for the commissioner who was voted out of office by owners, has remained in the position for 20 years, overseeing all the nonsensical changes made in that period, it's still baseball.

Once the game begins, there's the first pitch zipping into the catcher's mitt. A crack of the bat. A well-executed double play. A mad dash to third base for a triple. An over the shoulder catch of a deep fly ball, a dusty collision at the plate. A close bang-bang play at first. A pickoff throw to first. A runner steals second. A squeeze play. A successful hit-and-run. A nasty slider. A defensive shift.

There's the dugout, and the bullpen, where managers and coaches ask one another how the batter favors southpaws, when should we pinch-hit, who takes the mound next, can our sinker baller entice a grounder with ducks on the pond.

In the crowd there's the smell of beer and hot dogs, or fresh-roasted peanuts. Grandparents second-guessing a manager and telling their grandkids how Stan the Man or The Mick could run circles around today's players. Fathers counter that the Big Red Machine was the best. The kid sees Joey Votto hit a long homer and states his own case.

That's baseball. That's opening day. That's an Independence Day double-header. That's Pee Wee Reese placing his arm around teammate Jackie Robinson. That's what leads to the ancient war cry of "Wait'll next year!"

That's why baseball survives today. No matter what money and greed may bring into it all, no matter the stupid concocted rules to make a buck, no matter how many players switch teams in the off-season, no matter how much ticket and concession prices skyrocket, no matter how many players inject themselves in the butt to unnaturally slug a ball, no matter how much these folks deny deny deny until caught... when it's opening day, all that matters is on the field at that moment, the true game itself.

I've been a bitter fan for a long time. I still hate to spend money on it, as my own personal silent protest. But I'll watch the Reds (on television) try to make the post-season again. I'll root for their individual young players. I'll get excited when Albert Pujols battles their pitchers. I'll scream at a player to hustle into third.

That's how I get throught it; I take out those negatives and focus on one game at a time, as best I can.

That's why it survives, despite itself. That's why there will always be baseball. No matter how much money and greed skews it, the pure game survives.

And as Charlie Brown would tell you, this just might be the best season ever!