Baseball is back

It won’t be long now. Trucks and planes are heading to Florida and Arizona. Spring training is almost upon us. My beloved Philadelphia Phillies will begin defending their championship title in a few weeks.

That’s the beauty of baseball. Your favorite team can start over each year and redeem itself for the failures of the previous one.

However, what if your team has won the World Series? How do you approach that season as a fan knowing that anything other than a win in the fall classic will be a disappointment?

This is a strange concept to me, since the last time the Phillies won the Series I was ten years old. He was more concerned with Space Invaders and Centipede than pondering the title defense a lot.

Today, as a slug fast approaching forty, I’d like to think that I’m ready to take on this challenge with some “New Years Resolutions.” So these are the things I commit to commit to at the beginning of this baseball season:

1. I’m not going to wait for Brad Lidge to go through another season without ruining a save. I mean it was Superman last year, but kryptonite has to go into 2009 somewhere, doesn’t it?

2. I will no longer reflect on 1950, 1964, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1983 or 1993. Now I can stop having those nightmares about Whitey Ford, Chico Ruiz, Joe Morgan, Dusty Baker, Manny Mota, Jim Palmer and Joe Carter .

3. I will expect great things from Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Jimmy Rollins, and Clay Condrey. Well, maybe not Clay. 4. My final resolution is one that is very close to my heart. As I sit in my living room this fall with my father and son, I want to be able to watch Mr. Lidge throw the 2009 World Series final.

I know I know I am preparing for a difficult ending. But a man can dream, right?