Hardball Heaven

Hopefully the boys have caught up on their sleep since returning from Tokyo. Tonight - in a bit of deja vu - it's Dice-K against Joe Blanton in Oakland in the domestic regular season opener. I actually saw ESPN refer to yesterday's game as the domestic opening day for baseball. Has a nice ring to it, eh?

As for yesterday's games, let's just say if you're a closer it wasn't safe to come out of the bullpen. I think my favorite image - which I saw just as my eyelids were closing last night - was Eric Gagne giving up a huge 9th-inning bomb to the Cubs' Kosuke Fukudome. Some things never change. It's still unfathomable to me that Gagne's getting $10 million this year to throw gopher balls. What a country.

Anyway - nothing hugely exciting yesterday. The Yankees couldn't play their historic last opener in Yankee Stadium due to the rain. The Mets - behind Johan Santana - easily dispatched the weak Florida Marlins. The Indians and White Sox tangled in a barn-burner, and if you have Jim Thome on your fantasy team you're a happy camper. And the Tigers - a lot of peoples' pre-season World Series champ pick - went down to the Royals in extra innings.

A lighter schedule today, but we're jacked for some real Sox baseball.