Paul Sullivan: Baseball returns after a long, hard winter, and we’re grateful to welcome it home

Any ...

CHICAGO — The 2026 baseball season begins this week, and for that we’re eternally grateful. Sure, it starts too early and ends too late, leading to cold-weather games every spring and World Series games into November. But for much of the next seven months, a three-hour game provides a temporary respite from spiking gas prices, growing airport lines, conflicts abroad and madness at home.

Any chance to ignore the real world and immerse ourselves into a fantasy world, even one with nonstop gambling ads, is most welcome. No, the game is not as good as it used to be. Just ask your parents.

Starting pitchers come out of games too early, hitters rarely move along runners and outfielders have cheat sheets on index cards to properly position themselves. Ghost runners and pitch counts and walk-up music that turns into an earworm are all modern-day aggravations that won’t soon go away. But the time-honored chess game between pitcher and batter remains as intriguing as ever, and no rules change or marketing ploy can ruin that.