MIKE BURKE

Allegany Communications Sports

It’s bad enough to look out the window to your front yard and see one of the scary trees from “The Wizard of Oz,” then look out to the back yard and see Lambeau Field; but when you turn on the radio in what you believe to be the warmth of your own home and the first thing you hear is the Rolling Stones blaring, “You’re so cold, you’re so cold, cold, cold; You’re so cold, you’re so cold,” you understand you’ve had enough.

Of course, it could be worse, We could be in Fargo. Don’t you get cold just thinking of that movie? I guess our 20 degrees on Thursday afternoon seemed almost balmy compared to Fargo’s 3. What’s the difference? Seventeen degrees, that’s the difference, and at this point of this winter, I’ll take any extra 17 degrees that you’re not using.

It’s as Stringer Bell told his staff during a sales meeting in the HBO series “The Wire,” “That’s good. That’s like a 40-degree day. Ain’t nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day. Fifty. Bring a smile to your face. Sixty, (shoot), (our customers) is (darn) near barbecuing on that (grill). Go down to 20, (customers) get their (objection) on. Get their blood complaining. But 40? Nobody give a (darn) about 40. Nobody remember 40, and (all of you salesmen) is giving me way too many 40-degree days! What the (heck)?”

At this point, who wouldn’t be on it like a 40-degree day?

I don’t know about you, but I’m doing a Snoopy dance in the front yard under the scary tree on the next 40-degree day.

No, this hasn’t been the worst winter we’ve ever experienced, but it’s been the most semi-consistent winter we’ve had for a few years, but what’s the use of complaining, right? Well, for beginners, complaining makes us feel better, so, of course, we’re going to complain. That’s what the weather’s for.

All I know is the groundhog (the real rodent groundhog in Punxsutawney, not the team mascot who pulled the short straw and had to dress up at City Hall) said nearly three weeks ago that we had six more weeks of winter coming.

As long as there’s not a foot of snow or blasts of wind, that seems doable. Of course, if there is a foot of snow and/or frightening wind (I’m telling you, “The Wizard of Oz” messed with my head from the beginning), what are we going to do about it? Get ready for baseball, that’s what.

This is what sane people do in February once football has come to an end. Sure, we watch basketball, maybe a little golf and hockey. Some of us, I have heard, watch NASCAR. But really, once the big football game is over, the brain matter is trained to baseball.

Charles Colson, chief counsel for President Richard Nixon and the sweetheart who gave us Watergate (which would be, like, a parking ticket now), is supposed to have said, “If you’ve got them by the (region below the belt), their hearts and minds will follow.”

That’s pretty much the grip baseball has on those of us who are like us, particularly at this time of the year. You know, so close, yet so far, and if you don’t believe it just go outside …

A friend of mine records a couple of baseball games every summer that he knows he will not watch live and usually begins watching them in February. Until he watches them, he has no idea how the games played out – he doesn’t know who won, he doesn’t know who lost. He says he watches two innings or so a night before calling it a day, and he thoroughly enjoys it. It’s the perfect way to wind down his evenings, he says, following these baseball games the way some people follow a soap opera.

Another friend of mine does the same thing. He records about a dozen games through the summer, avoids the scores at all costs, then puts them away until the dead of winter so he can enjoy fresh baseball while those around him shiver.

Yet another friend squirrels away any and all baseball books he has not read so he can read them during the winter. Before he knows it, the season is about to begin. Thus, in his case, the withdrawal all of us experience through the winter months has been minimized.

I have another friend who lives by the words, “I don’t love the Orioles; I need the Orioles.”

It’s just the way it is. It’s the hold of the perfect game. Baseball never leaves us, but once it returns we are re-energized.

The dawning of a new season provides hope to us all. Spring training games began on Thursday. The Orioles and Pirates open Saturday against each other, and the game will be aired on both MASN and SportsNet Pittsburgh.

Still a ways to go, but we’re getting there.

Baseball’s coming, baby. Goodness knows, we need it.

Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT