The first sign that spring is back in New Jersey

What would you say is the first thing that signifies spring is back?

Is it the first 70-degree day? The first bee that infiltrates your home? The trees beginning to bud? Maybe it's your favorite ice cream shop dusting off the cobwebs and opening up shop for the next seven months.

Whatever it is, spring isn't going anywhere. It's here to stay for the better part of the next three months. The best season of the year is finally here.

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And what signifies spring for me, in my sports psychotic brain, is that baseball is finally back. The sad winter nights where you're holed up inside watching some TV show you keep convincing yourself is good, turns into watching a ball game with the balcony door open while the fresh air rolls in.

Baseball has signified spring for me my entire life. And I don't think any quote makes that point hit harder than this one from A. Bartlett Giamatti:

“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

There's no doubt the sport breaks your heart; it's broken mine the last four years (thanks, Phillies), but the feeling it gives me in spring almost outweighs that.

It's the hope that your team can have a great season, much like the hope that spring gives us about the upcoming year. The two go hand-in-hand with each other. And it's why baseball is the perfect indicator for spring.

January is the official start of the new year, but spring is when I think we finally accept it.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kyle Clark. Any opinions expressed are his own.

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