There're just so many summers, babe. And just so many springs.

Don Henley's lyrics came to me early in the 1993 season. Too early. 1993 wasn't, sadly, the last worthless season that we'd have to spend, but damned if it didn't seem the baseball summer to which we looked forward all winter went kaput before it [...]

Let's run down what the New York Mets accomplished today.

1. They didn't commit a shocking mental or physical error.

2. Daniel Murphy gritted his way through one very good at-bat.

3. Johan Santana was terrific in a terrifying hitter's park.

But the first is damning with faint praise, the second was immediately rewarded with a double-play ball [...]