Opening Day. It was something to look forward to. Opening Day was always greeted with the smell of fresh cut grass and leather mitts. Opening Day meant Spring. Opening Day meant an end to Winter.

But like the ball players depicted in the classic Field of Dreams, baseball has been regulated to a cornfield in the Midwest. I don't look forward to tracking the batting averages of my favorite players. I no longer want to travel to ball parks. I gather no joy from watching professional baseball.

We, as consumers to the sport, have been taken on the proverbial ride for the past decade. We all bought into the hype that was McGwire/Sosa in the late 90s. We all cheered Roger Clemens reaching milestones well in his 40s. We all stuck with baseball through the Congressional hearings on the early 2000s. I know why. I think James Earl Jones said it best in the aforementioned film:

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

But baseball has marked the time, and what troubled times we are living in.