It's the most wonderful day of the year.

No, it isn't Christmas. Today is the first day of the baseball season, the unofficial beginning of spring.

The late Bart Giamatti, former Yale professor and commissioner of baseball, explained it from the other end.

<em>"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."</em>

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[caption id="attachment_980" align="alignright" width="300" caption="June 2010 in Houston"]<em><a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Texas-stuff-070.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-980" title="Texas stuff 070" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Texas-stuff-070-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a></em>[/caption]

</em>I was 7 years old the first time I saw a major league baseball game -- at Cincinnati's old Crosley Field -- and 60 the last time I saw one -- at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. For more than half a century, baseball has been a big part of my life.

I have attended hundreds of games and listened to hundreds -- if not thousands -- more on the radio. I spent entire summers in my teens playing ball with my friends, and in the last 20 years or so, playing fantasy baseball with different friends.

Many of my favorite movies are about baseball, and my bookcases are full of both fiction and non-fiction about the game.

Some of the happiest years of my career involved covering baseball as a reporter, from the hapless Gastonia Cardinals in 1982 to the Dodgers in 1990 and 1991.

In my Facebook profile, I describe myself by saying I love my wife, my children, my granddaughter, my family and friends -- and I love baseball.

I have two signed uniform jerseys on the walls of my office. One is football player John Elway, the best athlete I ever covered as a reporter, and the other is Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves, my favorite athlete for the last 15 years or so. I've written before about my autographed baseballs, and I have also written about my friendship with former pitcher Walter Masterson.

One of the books I have is called "Baseball, I Gave You All the Best Years of my Life," and that's something that has definitely been true for me.

For nearly 20 years now, I have enjoyed playing fantasy baseball, and I have made some wonderful friendships through the game. This is the first year I haven't really played in a keeper league, the more complex version of the game, but amazingly, I'm actually involved in 22 different leagues this spring.

Twenty of them are with an Internet company, Real Time Fantasy Sports. These are in one respect the simplest kind of leagues -- 10 teams, mixed (both American and National Leagues) and non-keeper. I don't know how well it will work out. my my forecasting software tells me I came out of the drafts with the best team in eight of the leagues and second-best in six of the others.

The toughest thing about being in so many leagues is that you can't root too much for individual players. Someone whose home run or shutout helps you in one league might hurt you in another. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it.

Right now, though, I'm listening to a game being played about 700 miles away. The Braves are leading Washington, 2-0, in the second inning. I figure with my XM Radio, I can listen to two or three games every day if I want.

And of course I'll make it up to Turner Field in Atlanta to see at least a couple of games.

Hey, it's baseball.