Sports aficionados, particularly those in thrall with the NBA,
hardly pay heed to May Major League Baseball. It’s just too early in
the season for the stats
and standings to mean a whole bunch. No one believes Chipper Jones will
be hitting .400 in August. Or that Tampa Bay will remain in sniffing
distance of first place beyond the All-Star break. Our general lethargy
for the pastime formerly known as National holds even more true in a season depleted of homers and strikeouts by the big drug crackdown.

Yet, watching the Cleveland Cavaliers struggle to break the 30-point mark
late in the first half of its eventual loss to the Boston Celtics in
Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Semis was enough to make me
re-think my early season disdain. Believe it or not, there can actually
be such a thing as too much basketball. (Tim Donaghy might disagree
with you, but that dude’s got a problem.)
Although, I gotta observe  that it's remarkable watching Ray Allen fade
from existence right before our eyes, a la Marty McFly.

Just a few dozen more hours before the Finals get started. Wheat y chaff separated, finally. All prelims aside. But still...

My time is mad valuable. So, I grabbed my remote and switched to the regular season Freeway Series — intending to go in for just a hot minute of gander — just in time to watch Mike Napoli park
a three-run homer in the left-field seats of Anaheim Stadium. Nothing
pays off like a dinger in a rivalry game. Instantly I was against the
grain and in the mood for a hit of baseball.

Good thing, too. Sunday capped the pro game's first weekend with inter-league
play.
Three local rivalries in particular caught my eye. While not a lot of
baseball’s components are crackling with compelling matter,
inter-league play has turned out to be a, um, hit. Getting two local
teams to face off is inherently interesting, even when the games aren’t
close. A brutal beatdown foments hard-feelings and smack-talking and strengthens interest in the game.

Take one of the other marquee match-ups, Cleveland versus Cincinnati, which had top hurlers Cliff Lee and Edison Volquez
in opposition. Volquez not only handed Lee his first loss, he helped
push two teams that formerly never played into the National spotlight.
The last of the inter-league play’s first batch had in the Subway
Series. The Mets hammered the Yankees so badly that it’s virtually
guaranteed that Jason Giambi’s communal gold lame' thong will not catch on. Praise Jah.