Hope or heartbreak – Major League Baseball is here

Attention: As of this writing, Major League Baseball’s spring training is under way.

It’s that time of year again when hope springs eternal for us baseball fans, if only for a brief few weeks until the reality of the regular season sets in when we realize – sometimes before the end of April – that our team is either A) A contender, B) A pretender or C) Neither of the above. For Seattle Mariner fans like myself, all too much lately we’ve been forced to pick B.

I realize Seattle’s franchise, in entering its 36th season, is still a relative newcomer in baseball’s grand scale, and we shouldn’t be...