Hope meets reality as new season dawns

Sunday, April 5, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry

The optimism that manifests itself in every spring training will begin to seep away today at 8 p.m., just like clockwork, when Brett Myers throws the first pitch. For 30 teams, the hopeful notion of What Might Be is quickly replaced by the hard reality of What Is.

On Opening Night two years ago, the St. Louis Cardinals were the defending champions, and Chris Carpenter, their ace, pitched six innings -- through a nagging ache in his arm. He would not pitch again the entire season, and the Cardinals were left to try to grind through the next six months without their lead horse.

Some of the places where there will be an immediate reality check:  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

    Ask Buster a question: Buster's Mailbag

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