Opening Day

Opening Day, or perhaps more precisely, Opening Evening, crept up with great stealth on me this season.

It seemed only a few days ago the Super Bowl was finished and the doldroms of a brief period without either football or baseball had set it as quickly as the anticipation of pitchers and catchers reporting.

Of course, in England one is able to keep oneself preoccupied with a myriad of other choices: The Premiership, wherein Manchester United are poised to regain their lost mantle of supremacy over the new Evil Empire of English sport; Chelsea.

And if the professional league, arguably the best in the world isn't enough to keep your sporting mind occupied there is also the battles of the Champions League which have seen the likes of Man U, Chelsea AND Liverpool advance to the quarterfinals; three English representatives out of eight quarterfinalists, a rather remarkable number. (And if you aren't familiar with the Champions League, this is a sort of Super Competition transposed over the top of the regular season each European league conducts wherein the top two, three or four teams from each of those leagues fights for the title of best professional team in Europe...)

And if these professional competitions still fail to satisfy well, by God, there's still the qualifying matches for the Euro2008. If you have the misfortune of being an England supporter this, in particular, is a painful series of sporting events to watch; England drawing nil nil to Israel and then waiting til late to dispense with tiny Andorra.

Yes, the Euro2008 qualifiers are indeed plenty of fodder to keep the baseball and American football-less minds occupied. Why, second-guessing and berating England manager Steve McClaren has in itself become almost a national pasttime.

And if football isn't your sport there is still more in this bottomless wealth of alternative national sports to occupy the time in England.

Why just last month England's chances to win the Six Nations Championship came down to a last second try allowed by Ireland against Italy, followed by a last second try by France against Scotland and well, by then the English had to satisfy themselves getting humiliated by the Welsh.

Lastly let us not forget glorious, bloody cricket.

This seemingly innocuous sport has in the past weeks of its World Cup brought us not only the compelling escapades of the English captain, Freddie Flintoff, wasted and humiliated by a night out on the piss, but has also brought us the Mother of All Sporting Death Scandals, the death murder of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer.

And yes, somehow amid all these endless 24 hours, trans-globe sporting events there was time to visit the Dorset Jurassic Coast this past weekend. A few days away from the controversy and excitement of English sport.

Small wonder, then that I overslept beyond my 1 am wakeup call to catch the beginning of the 2007 baseball season to watch my beloved Mets extract a modicum of revenge from the team that kept them from the World Series last season.

Yes, there is indeed a world outside of ESPN, amazing as that might seem and whilst it has been easy to while away these weeks without any major American sport of interest to compel me, Opening Day is here and I'm ever so glad to see it's return.