Today is a great day!

Why, you may ask?

Well, even though there is an incredible amount of snow on the ground, even though the temperature requires one to wear a heavy coat, even though the trees are still bare, TODAY IS THE FIRST GAME OF SPRING TRAINING!

Once again another baseball season heralds the prospect of warmer weather and delightful summer afternoons.

The beginning of spring training and the start of the baseball season is about renewal to me. I hate New Year’s Day and today is everything New Year’s Day should be. The beginning of a baseball season sets the clock back to zero. It means everyone has a clean slate and the past is well and truly behind us. The preceding year is just another year for the record book and everyone has a chance to go all the way to the World Series.

Being a Mets fan, the last few years have been especially brutal.

First there were two seasons of September swoons after being a game away from going to the World Series (in 2006) and last year was like watching the professional sports equivalent of Survivor as every week bought a new injury to another key player on the team.

This season, expectations are very, very low for the Mets.

Most pundits are predicting the Mets to finish no higher than third in their division and many are anticipating the firing of one or both of the pair of Jerry Manuel (Manager) or Omar Minaya (General Manager). This is somewhat ironic given the team last year was picked to go all the way.

I don’t listen to many of the baseball pundits for one very good reason - they have one primary goal in most instances and that’s to generate as much controversy and stir up as much interest in their columns/shows what have you. So, when they shy away from picking the Mets to do anything good I’m actually a bit relieved. Also, these are guys who never go out on a limb in terms of prognosticating. They always, I MEAN ALWAYS, take the safe bet. It’s very rare to see a writer or broadcaster who sits down and analyzes baseball and goes against the easy money.

Shhhh... I’ll let you in on a little secret.

A baseball season is usually over by May.

Sounds weird, no?

Well, bear with me.

Since the baseball season is so very long and teams play 162 games not counting the post-season, playing .500 ball (winning as many games as you lose) is more important than a lot of people realize. If a team played .500 ball over the course of the season, their record at the end of the season would be 81 and 81.

Playing .500 ball nets you 81 wins over the course of a season.

Yet, most teams that win their division and wind up going to the playoffs do so with a win record of somewhere between 95 and 100 wins - sometimes less, rarely more.

So, lets say a team needs 97 wins to win the division and go to the playoffs.

That’s only 16 games above .500.

To put that into the context of a baseball season?

A team that has a couple of good winning streaks, a couple of good weeks, not losing a single game over a 7 day period, say going 6 and 0. All that team needs to do is have two or three weeks like that over the six months of the baseball season and they can play .500 ball the rest of the time and they’ll most likely win their division.

If a team gets off to a bad start in April and winds up in the second week in May below .500 they can ruin their season. Inversely, if a team starts off the early part of the season and has a record of say 15 and 5... well, guess what?! THEY ONLY HAVE TO WIN SIX MORE GAMES THAN THEY LOSE THE REST OF THE WAY!

The funny thing is you rarely hear broadcasters and newspaper writers talk about these things. If you watch baseball with any regularity though and think back to past seasons, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s very simple.

Anyway, today is the first day of the season and my team will be playing the Atlanta Braves and it will even be on TV! I’m excited, I’m hopeful, but most of all I’m looking forward to the Mets getting off to a hot start because if they can it will make the entire season a lot better for everyone.

PLAY BALL!