Ah, the joys of great weather and baseball. Could one ask for anything more than those two things?

I have just had three days of baseball and I am falling in love with it all over again. Just like the movie “It Happens Every Spring,” I wish I were like chemist Vernon Simpson and able to apply a special substance to the bats of every opponent that the Chicago White Sox will play this season. (Even though the movie’s baseball team is the St. Louis Cardinals).

Never mind about the “Windy City” bias that is supposively on the sports page in this paper. The last time I looked at a map, the great city of Charleston and Eastern Illinois University were located in the state of Illinois, not Missouri.

Growing up and living on the South Side of Chicago, seven blocks west of Comiskey Park, I am a White Sox fan, so one can only imagine how excited I am to get back home and see “The Men on Shields” play and try to grab the AL Central division title from the Cleveland Indians.

Much like basketball games, one can find notable dignitaries at baseball games at Eastern. The Panther baseball and tennis teams had home games on Saturday and in-between talking to head coach tennis coach Brian Holzgrafe, I had the opportunity to sit with two friends, sports editor Kristin Rojek and editor in chief Bill Ruthhart.

I was a stone’s throw from David Kidwell, sports info guru, and professor Howard Price from the journalism department.

The atmosphere of our new baseball stadium is awesome. It jolted me from my post-basketball mentality and threw me full force into a spring and summer full of eye-black, pine tar and bubble gum.

You have to love baseball and all of its grandeur. Eastern professor Dr. Ted Quinn teaches of the “religion” of baseball and its impact on the world today. I have to admit I was so caught up in the thoughts of baseball and Sox vs. Cubs games that I almost forgot about the two Final Four games that night.

It’s a spring fever that most sports fans catch and is culminated by the two words – “Opening Day” the two greatest words in baseball language or so Tim Kurkjian, senior writer for ESPN the Magazine, said, and I agree with him.

Baseball brings out the youth in all sports fans. I know it reminds me of riding the pine as I kicked dirt and had copious amounts of Big League Chew between my teeth. I hope this season will be as exciting as last year. Even if it isn’t, who cares?

I will still watch the White Sox and still go to games. I just hope I can kept my senior-itis from acting up and preventing me from school work as the dreaded Wednesday night doubleheaders come rearing their ugly heads.

And for those that can’t wait to get some stadium time in a big league park, you can’t pass up catching the Panthers here in our new stadium.

It’s baseball at its purest.