Take me out to the ball game -- and away from the hearing rooms

A sportswriter wrote recently that millions of Americans will celebrate their one true love today. Others will celebrate Valentine's Day.

He was talking about the official beginning of baseball's annual spring ritual, as training camps open for business all over Florida and in Arizona. It's symbolic of the end of another dreary winter. The months of baseball's off-season are highlighted by football games -- if highlighted is the right word. It's a grim time for baseball fans -- made grimmer this year by the flood of stories surrounding steroids.

And football doesn't help much. As the columnist (and great baseball fan) George Will once wrote: "Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings."

But baseball? Will again: "Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal."

Play ball. And soon, please.