It ain't over til it begins

A week into the Major League Baseball schedule and all of the experts are perplexed. Sports reporting has become as silly as political handicapping.

In the American League Central, Detroit was picked to win it all. They'll have to win one first. The Kitties' much vaunted pitching staff is oh-fer and the offense might be better off if it hit from a tee. The White Sox—picked to be cellar-dwellars—are sitting on top after a sweep of the hapless Tigers.

The AL East is topped by Baltimore and Toronto with the defending champ Sox tied for third with the Yankees. It is so bad in the East that ESPN has taken to commenting on how much the cold costs older pitchers like Mike Mussina.

Only in the AL West are things close to as expected, but the experts can't crow about that because they've discounted the West for years.

The National League is in similar turmoil.

The Mets are on the bottom in the East even after adding Santana, the Torre-led Dodgers are also-rans in the West, and the Central is led by the Brewers and the Cardinals.

All this does is prove that paper strength is meaningless and that the season has to be played to find a winner.

In the end, the Tigers may take the American League and the long beleaguered Cubs may get a second title in a century, but the season is still 162 games.

For over 100 years, baseball commentators have been making wild predictions, but it seems like the modern experts are offended when the on-the-field play doesn't follow the script they've written. Sports reporting has become driven by ratings and rantings instead of love for the play.

The model for this kind of reporting comes from American football where the short season makes every game a potential season ender. But baseball—more than any other sport—can't follow that model. The season is too long, the climatic conditions are too varied, and the number of teams is too great for anyone to say with accuracy that one series in April has any meaning.

As a writer and a fan, I like April games because they are filled with potential if not necessarily with portent.