Popeye The Slugger!

Above are some Popeye baseball covers. There are quite a few of them it turns out.

This is my favorite sports season of all, hot stove time in baseball. As interesting as baseball can be, I love it during its often vigorous off season when deals are made and every single team has a perfect record. That's the elegance of the game, the instinct in every fan that his or her team will win this coming season despite sometimes bountiful evidence to the contrary.

I'll confess that baseball talk seems to mostly about the size of contracts now and secondarily about the skills, but nonetheless the talk is about the ability of some teams to win and others to improve. I root for the Cincinnati Reds, a small market team with a rich history. With a wretched football franchise, this region is a baseball-first area and I like it that way.

The Reds have been lousy, but they've been good and even great in the past. They are improving quite a bit, they have become a real contender. As I sit here on a very snowy December day, they could win it all, and right now this very frosty minute they are tied with all the other teams for first place.

It's the best season of all.

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