Return of the Sox.

This weekend the Boston Red Sox will attempt once more to "Reverse the Curse" with its opening series against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. None other than Pedro Martinez, the Achilles of the 2003 Sox Postseason, will get the start for the first game, tomorrow night at 8 p.m. Bring your parka if you're going - even all the way down in Ball-more it'll be cold and windy with a chance of rain or snow, with a low of 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It's amazing that the modern baseball schedule now spans three of the four seasons, a far cry from the "Six Months Out of Every Year" lamented by Joe Hardy's wife in the 1950's Broadway musical Damn Yankees. At least the Yankees are still damned!

Speaking of the Bronx Bombers, they began their season last week in Japan against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in a quasi-exhibition series that has been widely panned by players and sports pundits, including Salon's King Kaufman (you'll need a Salon Subscription or a Day Pass to view the article). Why is everyone so down on inaugurating the baseball season in Japan? American sports fans inevitably grumble about anything that recognizes a world beyond the borders of America, but I'm surprised at how much resistance there is when baseball tries to takes its big show overseas. Case in point - this year's Olympics. You'd think that in the interest of showing off the best of the best, a way would have been found to accomodate the Games starting mid-August in Athens, not just for the American team (which incidentally failed to qualify, again for the lack of enthusiasm), but for the other national teams that could have showcased MLB talent playing for their native countries.

It's not like baseball isn't wildly popular elsewhere. Why not an occasional acknowledgement of this? Someday I'd personally like to see a World Cup of Baseball, or better yet a Champions' League, like UEFA's postseason soccer tournament between the best of the European leagues. Tell me a Red Sox - Industriales series in Havana wouldn't be something to see! Or the New York Yankees versus the Tokyo Giants... oh wait - apparently the Yankees did play the Giants last week in an exhibition game. Though I'll be damned if it was covered here at all, I bet the ratings were pretty darned good over in Japan. How much cooler would it be if there were something more than curiosity at stake? Finally the title "World Champions" would actually mean something.