Baseball

The Boston Red Sox won the offseason, adding Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler to a team that was already capable of making a playoff run.

On Opening Day in Arlington, facing the defending American League champion Texas Rangers, all the attention was on the new faces in the lineup and bullpen. However, after falling to a 9-5 defeat, the blame fell squarely on two players who have been in Boston for years: Jon Lester and Daniel Bard.

According to many fair-weather Red Sox fans, the loss of the first game may spell doom for the Boston team.

Out in the lost wilds of Texas, where longhorns are periodically turned into prime beef, the Red Sox were succulent morsels for the Texas Rangers.

Rounded up like the usual suspects, the team that only a week ago had fans humming 100 wins this season began to sink like the sun after a hot day into the Western sky.

Everything looked a bit different on Opening Day today as I watched the Mariners after six months of waiting. Maybe it was because of the new ROOT Sports look instead of FSN. Maybe it was all the changes the M’s had made to their team in the offseason.

Maybe it was the fact that we were missing Dave Niehaus and his sweet, sweet voice...I found my eyes misty as I watched the pre-game Opening Day introduction narrated by Niehaus.

While a lot of fantasy hype might be around young prospects like Jason Heyward and Mike Stanton, don’t forget about some of the proven veterans, especially at some thinner positions.

A player like Chipper Jones is normally going between the 18th and 22nd round in most drafts. However, during the spring he has a batting average close to .388. While Chipper used to be one of the staples at third base before injuries caused him to miss time. If he can stay healthy, Jones could be a steal like Paul Konerko was last season.

Going into opening day for the Athletics and the Mariners, most people were expecting a pitching duel between Felix Hernandez (13-12, 232 K's, 2.72 ERA, Cy Young winner in 2010) and Trevor Cahilll (18-8, 118 K's, 2.97 ERA). 

The first three innings didn't exactly live up to these standards. Cahill was up to 65 pitches after three and the Mariners hitting was effectively working the count on him.  He looked a little shaky, throwing several pitches way out of the zone and walking in a run.

I have been a Texas Rangers fan my entire life.  Well, except for when I was a kid and loved the A's, but that was just because they were the best team of the era and as a kid you always pick the winner.

It has not been easy being a Rangers' fan, and despite their debateably unexpected success last season, it is still not easy.  I am convinced that even if the Rangers had beat the Giants the media would have come up with excuses as to why the Giants lost.

Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2011 season and the layout of the playoffs will be among the topics discussed.

Baseball should also take a page from the NBA and the NHL and reorganize the American and National leagues into a Western and Eastern Conference.

This was something that bothered me for a while, but after mulling it over, makes sense for the sport.

Think about it.

Both the Red Sox and the Texas Rangers seemed like they were still playing a spring training game.

Each team made early, generally inexcusable errors, while both C.J. Wilson and Jon Lester did not have complete command of their pitches, often missing spots.

For the Red Sox, there was certainly a lot of bad (considering they lost the game), but a lot of positives came from Game 1 as well.

I’ll start with the negatives so we can end on a high note!

Negatives

The weather is getting nicer outside, and Opening Day came and went with six games that each had interesting endings.

We had studs like Mariano Rivera and Heath Bell shutting the door on their opponents, and John Axford and Ryan Franklin looking just a bit shaky.

Let's take a look at the news we missed in the preseason edition and then dive into Opening Day.

Quick News

How does Major League Baseball grade for diversity in 2011—64 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line? 

Take a walk with me along the river of my thoughts and grading scale, and you’ll probably be able to pick my brain for the answer by this column’s end.

No longer just a buzzword in college business classes, diversity is a must in almost every walk of global corporate life.