It’s Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season! Time for my annual reminder to you Loyal Daily Dawg Readers of how baseball, of all of our games and sports, is the most like life.

First, they play every day. It’s not like our most popular sport, football, where they practice all week but play only once. Big league teams play 162 baseball games from late March to the end of October. That’s almost every day. In a typical week they will have one, maybe two, days off, but otherwise the players have to be ready to play every day. Life is like that. It keeps coming at you. You don’t get to practice much. You have to suit up, show up, and play. Every. Single. Day.

Second, baseball is the only game in which the ball is controlled by the defense. Consider how odd that is in the games we play, and yet, how much like life. As you navigate your life, your job, your family, your finances, all your other relationships and interests, I’m sure you have noticed how much is out of your control. You don’t have the ball. Life does. You just have to be sure that you are ready. I like to watch the infielders in between pitches. They look around the ballpark. Spit. Scratch. Pat the glove. Move the dirt around with the shoe. Spit again. But then, just before the next pitch is thrown they assume the ready position. Most of them actually jump a bit, in anticipation of the ball coming their way. Ready to respond. That’s how we have to show up at our work every day. Ready for what comes our way.

Tonight will be special in Houston, as the Astros celebrate another World Series Championship, and begin the long slog toward what we hope will be another. Mrs. Dawg and I will be, as usual, in attendance. Justin Verlander is gone and Jose Altuve is injured, but the team persists, playing this wonderful game with grit and joy. Happy Baseball Season, Friends.

DAWG BONE: DID I MENTION THAT THE HOUSTON ASTROS ARE THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS?

Got a question or comment for the Dawg? Let me hear from you at jwalsh@wabsa.com.

Tomorrow: can Texas make an end run around Plyler v. Doe?