The long offseason is finally winding down to a close, as evidenced by the commercials on TV entreating us to come out to the ballpark, the emails in my inbox pestering me to draft my fantasy team and the signs of spring in the air. Though for us in the Bay Area the idea of baseball more often than not evokes memories of freezing weather* and shivering under a cold, whipping wind and a moist level of fog that almost but not quite makes you wish you had watched the game from the warmth of home. But the irrepressible buzz of the crowd–the deafening roars of joy and the energy in tense silences–and the sense of communion surrounding the nine players on the field keeps you coming back. The bright lights and the bright faces smiling in anticipation of seeing something great keeps you coming back. The smell of warm, so-bad-but-so-good for you food wafting, and the shouts of the concession sellers punctuating the organ medleys and stadium anthems keeps you coming back. Those impossibly turned double plays and shoelace catches in the flesh aren’t too shabby either. Victories are even better.

As a side note, it is nearly impossible to write on the subject of baseball without acquiring either an overly sentimental tone or an overly cynical one. The sport is seemingly made for both sap and disillusionment, though I say that in the best way possible. It wouldn’t be hard to find a fan who admits to having shed tears at some point–when their team won the World Series or their favorite pitcher threw a perfect game, say–while in the same breath wryly comments on their team’s penchant for hitting into double plays, or how they had thrown away three hours of their night watching a sorry excuse for a ballgame (only to do so the next night, and the night after that). And that’s the nature of baseball. A seemingly interminable season, a daily event that will inevitably leave you with a high, or leave you with a low by the day’s end. There’s no waiting a week or several days for the next game, but a short span of 24 hours that holds the promise of redemption, or just more frustration. You watch your favorite players flourish before you and become unstoppable for several weeks, only for their human bodies to break and grind to a halt midway through the season. Players get old, they get sent down to the minors, they’re traded away and sold for millions of dollars, and they fall from grace when we learn their talent hasn’t been pure. Stadiums are full to bursting in one city, and in another there are rows upon rows of gleaming, empty plastic seats. Heads must bow in disappointment in the shallow ground while another group dances on the mound.

I say all this to illustrate exactly why baseball is so great. Some say baseball is boring. Not if you’re paying attention. If you’re paying attention baseball will gut you to the core and then raise you up the next day. And because there always is a tomorrow in baseball, there’s always that pesky sense of possibility and hope, down to the ninth inning, that something great will happen. It’s a lot like life in that way (cue the sentimentality–unavoidable!), except it’s fundamentally a child’s game, and you share a common goal with millions of other people different from you. So it’s a little better than reality.

The season will be officially underway come Monday. Who will come out on top, who will sink to the depths of last place in their division? Who will dazzle with their strikeout pitch or give up the long ball one too many times? Who will we boo, who will inspire us? Who will surprise us? I can’t wait to find out.

* And by freezing I mean in the California sense, below 60 degrees. That wind and fog, though!