You will have to excuse me because I’m a little tired today. From Monday night stretching into Tuesday morning I attempted to study for a test and stay up for opening day of baseball, what once used to be my favorite day of the spring.

But maybe it shouldn’t even be called opening day anymore; “opening morning” or “opening late-night snack plus a little bit of baseball before going back to bed night” could be better options.

Only Major League Baseball would be the one of the major sports to be doing this. If somebody could please explain the logic behind starting the new season at 4 a.m. central time because the game is in Japan, and even worse featured the Tampa Bay Devil Rays who aren’t even a real major league team, please feel free.

The one argument that baseball will give the normal fan is that the organization is trying to expand the game’s horizons to new destinations. Places like Japan and the Dominican Republic have been sending over some of the league’s top talent for about the past decade, but these fans shouldn’t be catered to before the true baseball fans here in the United States of America.

What happened to baseball being America’s game, the national pastime and all that is Americana?

Instead, it starts overseas at a time in the morning in which most people don’t see much else besides the back of their eyelids. That has to be great for baseball commissioner (not my) Bud Selig and his fledgling business.

Baseball can’t fill their stadiums anymore, television ratings are dropping and football has taken baseball’s place as the nation’s favorite sport. So what does he do to stop this trend? He decides not to let anybody see the first game of the season, when the majority of baseball fans are the most excited about the sport and will watch any game no matter who it features.

The New York Yankees, newly equipped with some guy named Alex Rodriguez, traveled overseas and took a few shots before and after they boarded the plane. The shots they took on the field may actually have been a little more painful than those they took in the arm to make sure they stayed healthy in Japan.

Oh, that reminds me that Rodriguez, Jeter, Mussina and company actually lost to the Devil Rays. How anticlimactic is that?

That had to have been the most boring game of all time. Because as much as I hate the Yankees, if I’m tuning in at 5 a.m. I actually want to see what is supposed to be the most talented team actually play well, especially if the game is against Tampa Bay.

I guess it’s best I fell asleep at 3 a.m. instead of staying up until six or seven in the morning to watch the Devil Rays beat the Yankees. Rodriguez struck out twice, Mussina’s ERA is now 9.00 and the game couldn’t have been worth staying up to watch.

Sounds like if A-Rod went 1-4, Major League Baseball actually went 0-3.