"I stare out the window and wait for spring"

It's getting towards that time of the offseason when I start to get a little itchy and my thoughts turn - more seriously than idly - towards spring training and the new season it will herald. It was therefore nice to see SI.com feature an excerpt from a book which - if Santa Claus and Amazon have done their job properly - should be waiting for me in my Christmas stocking on December 25th: Faithful, by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King...).

The excerpt features two entries from Spring Training 2004, the second of which is King's and which ends like this:

It's too early to play really hard, and too early to wax really lyrical, either (God knows there's too much labored lyricism in baseball writing these days; it's even crept into the newspapers, which used to be bastions of statistics and hard-nosed reality -- what sports reporters used to call "the agate"). But it can't hurt to say that being here -- especially after a serious bout of pneumonia -- feels pretty goddamn wonderful. It's like putting your hand out and touching a live thing -- another season when great things may happen. Miracles, even. And if that isn't touching grace, it's pretty close.

Oh, shit, that's too close to lyrical for comfort, but it's been a good day. There was baseball. So let it stand.

Now there's a phrase to bring a warm smile to a cold winter day: "It's been a good day. There was baseball". Roll on the month of March...