It's the best day in the sports calender, the one which marks the very beginning of baseball. Pitchers and catchers report for many clubs today to get a small jump on the Spring Training season. It is that ideal moment when all the teams have an equal chance to win the coveted World Series, when every player can become an All-Star (which is in the local Cincinnati ball park this year by the way).
No other game is as elegant as baseball which by definition can never have a tie. Football and basketball and hockey are ruled by the clock, subject to the relentless march of time where as a baseball game can potentially last for eternity, endless extra innings spanning into the distant future. No other sport can promise immortality and endless opportunity, at least in theory.
And Spring Training is the beginning of the beginning when the pure ideals of sport still blaze in the Arizona and Florida skies like perfect gems unsullied by the grit and grime of the world. That dirt will almost instantly begin to mar the perfection of the season, but for the time being it's a perfect world for anyone who is paying attention.
Just as Spring itself promises renewal, so too does this beatific moment in baseball.
Here are some covers which celebrate watching what still is (for me at least) America's (and Japan's and Cuba's too for that matter) most perfect game.
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