Ode to April

“April is the cruellest month. . .” declares T.S. Eliot in the opening line of The Waste Land. Mr. Eliot, I presume, was neither a gardener nor a sports fan. April is the best time for both gardening and sports, because there is always hope. Hope that your team plays better than last year. Hope that your team can survive for another game. Hope that the come-from-behind victory can and will happen. Hope that the rabbits don't eat your hostas...again.

So, April, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. Baseball. After a long winter, regular-season baseball arrives in at the start of April. Sure, spring training started earlier, but now the rosters are set, the fields are well-groomed, and the games count. And games that count make me happy. It’s a long season, after all. You can never start winning too early.

2. Stanley Cup Playoffs. Despite being a winter sport, the NHL is still going strong in April. The playoffs are, in my opinion, the most exciting part of the long hockey season. Does it get better than two overtime Game 7s on the same day? My answer is: No, especially if both your teams win.

3. NFL Draft. The draft is my absolute favorite thing about the NFL. The first-round hype! The meaningless analysis! The countless tickers on ESPN! Mel Kiper, Jr.’s hair! Also, I love the [useless] combine stats, the unpredicted picks, and the overly-invasive ‘sideline’ reporters. Really, though, the draft appeals to my primal need to organize, categorize, and plan.

4. Soccer. April is always a crazy soccer month. Teams in the English Premier League are either fighting for the top spots or struggling to avoid relegation, which means every match counts for something. All the major European leagues are underway, and the most of South American leagues are in mid-season. Not only that, the quarter-finals of Champions League and the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup take up the mid-week slots. MLS has started, too, but with all the other soccer options...who cares?

5. NBA Playoffs. I’m not usually a basketball fan. The game doesn’t appeal to me, for a variety of reasons, and I don’t pay much attention during the rest of the year. However, April brings the NBA playoffs, and the increased intensity makes the game more exciting somehow. I’m suddenly interested in Steve Nash and Carmelo Anthony, and I can’t seem to tear myself away. I have no explanation.

6. The Masters. The Masters is a Spring rite of passage, and during that week, Augusta is where I want to be [not that they’d let me play—but let’s table that discussion for another time]. The rolling fairways, the trimmed greens, the precarious pin placements in the final round—The Masters is the epitome of golf. And, really, any time Tiger is playing, you might just see magic.

7. Racing. [FYI, I’m not a NASCAR fan. And NASCAR started way back in February, so it totally doesn’t count.] Open-wheel racing begins in late March, making April an exciting time for motorsports. This year, April is a month that matters, with the merger of IndyCar and CART [it’s about time], Danica Patrick’s IndyCar win, and the fact that Formula 1 finally made it to a reasonable time zone. [I know Australia and Malaysia have great tracks, but I need to sleep some time, and F1 doesn’t hit my favorite track until late May, anyway.] Still, race day gives me a thrill. You never know what can happen when you combine very fast machinery and large amounts of testosterone [Ms. Patrick excluded, of course].

Now April is coming to end; three more days and May will be upon us. Seasons will end, teams will lose, and some sports will lose their spring luster. And as sad as I'll be when all that happens, I do need some time to catch up on my gardening.