I’ve finally come to the realization that I am a so-called baseball apologist. I am absolutely willing to ignore the bad in baseball (Joe Morgan’s annoying crusades, honoring anti-Americans at “Civil Rights Weekend,” the overplayed yet somewhat true “big market dominance” in October, alleged steroid usage from a decade ago that bores fans and has no effect on this season, etc) and instead find the good that far outweighs the bad — especially when there is just so much bad in the other major sports, particularly the NFL.

I do have some recommendations for the Major League Baseball, however (move the Astros to the AL West or simply abolish divisional play, lengthen round one of the postseason to best of seven, return to a balanced schedule…), but overall, I think the game is as good as ever. Attendance and pure human interest back that up, as 2010 itself has seen an unprecedented amount of excitement and history in just five short weeks:

We had a no hitter, a perfect game, a 20 inning classic, and last Friday, a 47 year old threw a two hit shutout the same night a 20 year-old had six RBI in his big league debut. Not bad.

Let’s look at the top “storylines” of the first one-fifth of the season:

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