Alex Rodriguez

Opening Day in Major League Baseball marks the start of new life. 

Winter is turning into spring, "cold" is changing to "warm", and baseball is coming out of hibernation.

The early stages of the season can tell us a lot about a team: strengths, weaknesses and if they have the potential to make a run at the postseason.

Game No. 1 of 162 has been played for each team, and we take a look at what we learned about each team on Opening Weekend 2011. 

Following a disappointing season in which they were comprehensively beaten in the ALCS by the Texas Rangers, the New York Yankees enter the 2011 season with an unusual label—underdog. With the Boston Red Sox making all the headlines with their free agent acquisition of Carl Crawford and trade for Adrian Gonzalez, the Yankees have taken their place in the background.

Another baseball season has gotten underway with a smattering of baseball games on Thursday, and once again spring is here...figuratively, if not literally.

Baseball, of course, is driven by statistics more than any other sport, and the game is filled with wonderful statistical milestones that set apart the mortals from the immortals.

The 2011 season promises to see many players crossing significant career milestones, with Derek Jeter crossing that holiest of holy marks, the 3,000-hit barrier.

Let's have a look at 20 significant milestones that we may see in 2011.

Today did not feel like Opening Day in baseball should feel. It was absolutely freezing at the stadium, windy, and at times we were hit with freezing rain/hail.

However, the Yankees looked pretty great for Opening Day. The bats came alive after a slow start, and the pitching looked top notch. 

CC Sabathia tossed six innings, giving up six hits and three runs (two earned). He had seven Ks and two walks, tossing a total of 106 pitches. 

That’s right the Boys of Summer are back!

Baseball season kicks off this week and ladies, you have got to be prepared. The days of just knowing that A-Rod is a hottie, or that someone hit a home run, or who’s dating who are over.

Gwen awakened from a fitful sleep. She was bothered and knew that she would be bothered for a long time. Her idol, her favorite player, the man they referred to as A-Rod, was no longer the best third baseman in New York.

Her mind was immediately filled with A-Rod's 2010 statistics. He was coming off the worst year of his career.

No player has felt the demand to perform every plate appearance like Alex Rodriguez has since Dave Winfield was nicknamed Mr. May in the 1980’s. However, this week there were several instances of Yankee fans going to bat—so to speak—for Rodriguez over Derek Jeter.

It seems like an eternity since Major League Baseball finally got around to admitting it had a problem of the performance enhancing variety, but in reality it has barely been a half a decade.

Players once thought to be first-ballot Hall of Famers are struggling to garner more than a pittance of support from sports writers and fans alike as the sport carries on the best it can.

Although in the twilight of his Hall of Fame career, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter’s appeal among baseball fans is eons from fading into the sunset.

This is the final installment if a seven-part series predicting the records of each team, and now the playoffs.  The teams that make the postseason in this installment are based off of previous ones.

Now that the 2011 season is closer than ever, and Opening Day is only eight days away, we writers are giving our preseason predictions, and these are mine.  Through careful analysis of records, schedules, transactions, and more I have compiled my postseason picks.

Now, it’s time to break them down.