The Best Sports Day of the Year!

With it being Opening Day in baseball, the new gig is taking up most of my attention today. If you're interested, please check out my 2007 Detroit Tigers and AL Central previews over at Bless You Boys.

Otherwise, I can see that plenty of people are stopping by to see if I have anything to offer on John Beilein and the Michigan men's basketball job. Unfortunately, I just have to go with what's been reported. Michigan's offered the job, and Beilein is listening.

More on that tomorrow, hopefully (and not just because the Tigers will have an off day.) Please forgive me for the rerun, but since today is the best sports day of the year, I hope you'll indulge me repeating much of what I wrote around the same time last April (with a few appropriate edits).

Today might be my favorite day on the calendar. Christmas brings some nice presents, and so does my birthday. Halloween allows you to dress up. Memorial Day often means the first cookout of the spring.

But the first Monday in April, with Major League Baseball's Opening Day games being played in the afternoon and evening, followed by college basketball's National Championship game at night, is a sports holiday. We should all have the day off - especially if your team is playing at home today, as the Tigers are in Detroit.

Some of you might think the opening Sunday of the NFL season is more exciting. And I wouldn't argue much with that. I'm much more likely to spend the entire day in front of the TV (especially because it's a Sunday) on that day than I will be today.

I'm not saying it's my favorite time of year. That would be September, with college and pro football getting started, and the late-season pennant races in baseball. Every weekend (and most weeknights) seems to have something at stake in the fall.

But there's something about today - with the end of one season and the beginning of another - that feels more special to me. And this will be the first time in a long time that I'll really be able to enjoy it. In the last few years, I either couldn't (or didn't) get the day off from work, or I had a paper due and ended up pulling an all-nighter because I spent all day watching TV. Of course, I could never fully enjoy watching baseball and basketball with the dark cloud of a term paper and a night of no sleep looming over my head.

Not this year. The calendar is cleared. I have a big sandwich ready. The day began with picking up the Detroit Free Press baseball preview this morning, and they're on my coffee table, along with Sports Illustrated's preview, ready for my perusal. It's time to rock. Bring on the Blue Jays and Tigers!