MMQB: What's Your Favorite Part of Spring?

There were a few different directions I could have taken with today's MMQB. I thought about posing a question about basketball and the Big Ten tournament in which Penn State will square off with Nebraska in the first round, but we'll already have plenty on that game. I thought about asking another question about the hockey team and their masterful sweep of Michigan this past weekend, but we just talked about them last week. And as expected, there's not much going on with the football team at the moment. So this week we're going to step away from Penn State athletics (maybe) and talk about spring!

Everyone has their own favorite season, but it's hard to not as least like spring. It signals the end of winter, it's warm while not being blistering hot and it allows us all to get outside and be more active than we were able to while being pounded by winter storms Neptune, Sparta and Thor. Flowers begin blooming, shorts and short sleeve shirts once again become normal and birds start chirping. It's an extremely relaxing time of year.

These are all great reasons to love spring, but there are so many more that we haven't even mentioned yet! There's the start of baseball season, the culmination of the NBA and NHL seasons, spring football practice, thanks to daylight savings it stays lighter out later in the day, and more!

Personally, my favorite part of spring is baseball. I have a great love for football, and the all around best sport in my opinion is hockey, but neither of them will ever touch my love for baseball. As a player, fan, coach and observer, nothing captivates me like the sport of baseball. There's a relaxing feeling that comes over me when I hear the crack of the bat and the smack of a ball hitting a glove.

Spring also means MLB spring training, which is the eternal fountain of hope in sports. Football preseason is fine, but the starters play so infrequently that you never really watch an NFL preseason game and think "Wow! JaMarcus Russell just threw a 50 yard touchdown pass over the heads of four CFL-level defenders! Championship!". The MLB preseason is different, though. True, opening day lineups are thrown out many times over the course of March, allowing these players to rack up legitimate numbers for stat lines. It's easy to look at a .465 batting average by Ryan Howard in March and think that he finally figured out how to hit the ball. In reality, it means nothing. Yet, as long as everyone stays healthy, spring training often leaves us believing that our teams can take things all the way to the World Series.

I could go on and on about baseball (and my Seattle Mariners), but I'll spare you. Instead, I'll ask you all to share your thoughts. What is your favorite part of spring? Baseball? Barbecues? Blue/White Weekend? Birds and flowers? The fact that the brutal State College winter is finally almost over?