It’s that wonderful time of the year again!

Well, today was the day…the first day of the 2009 Major League Baseball season! And for all of you rabid fans, you now have come to know what that means…the return of our friend the StatTracker!

Lest you have forgotten, please see this post from July 2007 or this one from April 2008 to know of my fondness for Fantasy Baseball.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of real baseball too, but Fantasy Baseball keeps me more occupied and stimulates my mind. It’s partly why I drive a stick shift instead of an automatic. Driving an automatic bores me to sleep, while a stick shift gives me something to think about and do. Plus it’s fun. And the same goes for my Fantasy Baseball. This is the 5th year of this same league, with some friends from Orlando and their friends, and my 7th year overall. You can check out my sweet “player card” on Yahoo and look at how well (or not so well) I have done in my various Fantasy Sports.

Last year was a down year for me, the previous 2 seasons I finished 2nd to the same player. And then 2nd time, if Trevor Hoffman didn’t blow the game for me (thereby forcing the Padres into a 1-game playoff) I would’ve won the league. Side note: I have never had Trevor Hoffman on my team since. This year, we decided to mix things up a little bit and make it a “keeper league.” What that means is you get to keep a certain number of players each year, instead of having to pick them all from scratch again. I worked out the details of how we should implement it (since I like figuring out that kind of stuff), so we’ll see how it goes.

And if you read Emily’s post about baseball season approaching, you also know that Emily has decided to take the plunge and fill out our league as the 14th manager. It will be fun, for me at least, to get to talk to her about yet another thing that interests me and have her involved in it somewhat. Before when I’d talk about it, she’d try her hardest to understand, but didn’t really follow it the way that I did. Now she’ll keep up to date a little more managing her team, and of course I will be helping her. It’s just another thing we can do together.

So will 2009 be my year to finally win it? Well, hopefully. I like my team, Albert Pujols practically fell into my lap with the 3rd pick (thank you Danny and some Yankee lemming who auto-drafted A-Rod with pick #2), and I have a fairly strong team with some very promising rookies. Really now it’s all about seeing how things unfold the first few weeks of the season and filling in any gaps. I almost “retired” after last season since we knew that Emily was pregnant, I didn’t think I’d have the time. But Emily convinced me I should play again (I think she knew it would make me happy since I do enjoy it so much) AND she’s now playing too, so it makes it that much better.

Here’s to a good season. What team do I want to win? Well…Mark Grace played for the Cubs (he’s my favorite player ever), but then won his World Series with the Diamondbacks. And we lived near and went to plenty of Angels games, but I have been big fans of the Rays for a few years since I always love the underdog. And I have Cubs, Angels and Rays hats. And Cubs and Angels jerseys. So I’ll go with the Rays, they are young and throw caution to the wind. They don’t let the establishment tell them it can’t be done, and I like that. Plus, it means they did better than the Red Sox AND Yankees who are both in their division, and that’s never a bad thing. Never.

So if you ever come across me, and I’m at a computer, and there’s a baseball game on…my StatTracker will probably be up and running. And now, so will Emily’s. Since we’re in this together. I gotta help her do well and beat all these other boys (and one other girl). Except for me. She can finish in 2nd.