Truck Day!

As a native New Englander, one of the surest signs of spring is when the Red Sox equipment truck leaves Fenway for Spring Training. It's not quite Groundhog Day, but it's close. Witness the 2006 edition, which featured an advertisement by CVS for the ~1,500 mile trip from Boston, MA to Fort Myers, FL. Even in this decade where the Patriots have been the class of the NFL (at least on the field), Boston remains a baseball town 1st.

Sadly, here in the greater D.C. metro area, the focus today is not on an improving Nationals team but the naming of a new Redskins coach. No report, as there was this time last year, on when the Nats will be televised. I know because I hunted online for nearly an hour before I finally gave up and wrote an e-mail to MASN, which has been long accused of being Orioles-biased. To their (dis)credit, there's no O's spring training telecast information available, either.

It's frustrating to me because this is arguably the lamest Sunday in the sports calendar year. The NFL's Pro Bowl is theoretically the big draw, right? OK, name me who won last year. What's the equivalent to the Fred Lynn grand slam in '83? Even ESPN, the bastion of sports journalism (not), mocks it. Think if the game were moved from Hawaii that it'd be around much longer?

I'm already in full cabin fever for baseball. I've bought the 2008 Minor League analyst so I'll know more about the players I'll see this summer in Woodbridge, Bowie, Hagerstown, and Frederick (that's not a complete list, but an ordering of the top four stops on my annual summer tour). I've subscribed to John Sickels's weekly e-mail updates and bought an audio book of baseball short stories to listen to while I wait for spring to come. Hell, I'm even researching when MLB08: The Show comes out for my PS3.

Pitchers and catchers report this week. And it could NOT possibly be too soon.