MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / February 11, 2000

Sorry Punxsutawney Phil, you were wrong.

Forget the groundhog seeing his shadow, the traditional forecast for six more weeks of winter, last Wednesday. For me, spring officially beganThursday. That was the opening of the high school softball season inLouisiana. The LSU baseball opener is today and high school baseball will beginlater this week.

Yes, I am a baseball nut. As soon as the holiday season is over, I’m ready forthe baseball season to begin. I already have a season cranked up on my Segaand am planning my fantasy baseball team for the upcoming season (hopefully, it will do much better than my football team did).

Majorleaguebaseball.com is a bookmark on my computer and a trip to Barnesand Nobles to pick up a “Baseball Weekly” is a weekly pilgrimage.

I played (term applied loosely) Little League baseball for seven years and still miss those days (although my coaches probably don’t). I can’t wait until Iturn 30 (ok, I lie, I can wait) so I can start striking out and giving up gopher balls again in the Over 30 leagues.

I get my love for the game from my dad and grandfather. My grandfatherstill stays up late at nights to listen to Minnesota Twins games on the radio.

My dad grew up following the Milwaukee Braves in their days of Aaron, Mathews and Spahn.

It should be no surprise, then, that my two favorite teams are the Braves and Twins. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum. Atlanta’s pitchingstaff probably makes as much as the entire Twins team. And yes, I was inheaven when the two teams met in the 1991 World Series, the best Fall Classic ever. The hardest part was deciding who to cheer for.Oh, and I’m not one of those who jumped on the bandwagon when the Braves started winning in the 1990s. I started following them in 1982. That was theyear they won 13 straight to open the season. I was thinking, hey what’s sohard about this game? In the latter years of the 1980s, they answered that question.

Dale Murphy was my favorite player growing up and still is the player I admire most. Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek became favorites as did Greg Madduxand Fred McGriff.

Oh, sure, I strayed in those years. I became a Cubs fan when Bob Dernier andRyne Sandberg were leading off their order. I followed the Astros when MikeScott was pitching them to the playoffs in 1986. And as much as it pains meto say this, the first team I followed was the Dodgers in the 1981 World Series against the Yankees. I quickly changed that tune the following yearwhen the Braves challenged the Dodgers for the NL West title (thank you, Joe Morgan).

Since then, I’ve become a fan of the sport at all levels. When I first went toLSU, they still had fall practice and I remember sitting in some pretty cold weather to watch the Tigers play. The best friends I made in college were thepeople who sat around me at the Box. Those were the days, watching guyslike Paul Byrd, Chad Ogea, Mike Sirotka, Armando Rios, Jim “Big Mac” Greely, Todd Walker, Russ Johnson, Brett Laxton and Gary Hymel play.

I’ve also been fortunate to be able to see Major League Baseball up close. Mydad took me to my first game in 1982 to see the Yankees and Montreal play an exhibition game in the Superdome. I also got to see the Astros play in1986, the year they won the NL West. I saw Nolan Ryan pitch for the Rangersin 1991, the same year I saw the Twins defeat the Rangers to start a 15- game winning streak that helped them on the way to the World Series.

You can only imagine my reaction when I found out New Orleans was getting a Triple A team. Of course, every time I went to see the Zephyrs play atPrivateer Park, it always seemed to rain. I think I got to see one completegame there. Things really improved once they moved to Zephyrs Field, a gemof a ballpark, in 1997.

So pass me the peanuts and Cracker Jacks, I’m ready to go. When Phil sawthat shadow, it didn’t mean six more weeks of winter. It meant less than amonth until the four best words in the English language could be uttered – pitchers and catchers report.

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