The first pitchers and catchers are reporting to camp today, in far distant Arizona. A year ago I marked the event:

[T]he flash of hope I get from that phrase — Pitchers and Catchers Report — feels like jumpstarting a car. It feels like peeling back a dark curtain. It sounds like fresh cut grass smells. If, as I suspect, the only way to confront death is to take pleasure in how we decorate the days beforehand, then I am taking extreme pleasure in those words, their sonority and cadence —Pitchers and Catchers — and the hope they represent. Summer, warmth, colour. I will share these things, and revel in them, and luxuriate in memories of them.

Read the rest here: thebarnstormer.com/reviving-summer/