MLB: Nine Very Cool Things to Look Forward to in 2017

These are nine very cool things to look forward to during the 2017 MLB season.

Well hello there, 2017 MLB season. On behalf of the millions of baseball fans across the world, it’s nice to finally meet you. We hope you’re doing well. You should know we’ve been waiting patiently for your arrival ever since your precursor, the 2016 season, left us last November. The 2016 season was a doozy, so you have big shoes to fill.

In the 150 days since the last out of the 2016 World Series, we’ve seen the culmination of a presidential race that seemed to last 10 years, and was about as much fun as watching Jonathan Papelbon stalk around the mound for a half hour between pitches. We saw an incredible College Football National Championship Game that was won by the Clemson Tigers in the final seconds and a Super Bowl in which the New England Patriots came from 25 points down in the third quarter to win in overtime. It’s been a few months of the rich getting richer in every sense of the word.

Now, finally, a new Major League Baseball season is upon us. It will be tough to beat last year, but 2017 will give it a shot. In anticipation of the first pitch in the first game of the year, I hereby present a starting lineup of nine very cool things to look forward to in the 2017 season.

Because this is baseball, the “Nine Very Cool Things to Look Forward to in 2017” will be presented in the order of a baseball lineup. Leading off is a bit of baseball history that almost all of us will be living through for the first time in our baseball-loving lives. Batting second is a look at two players with cult-like followings who were once teammates with the Seattle Mariners and who will meet again symbolically and statistically, most likely in September. Batting third is the greatest player in the known universe. You know who he is.

Then we have to cleanse the pallet a little. We can’t have too much greatness back-to-back, so “Wallowing in the Muck of Mediocrity” gets the fourth slot. Consider this the Saltine cracker between glasses of fine wine. After the pallet-cleanser, we have the greatest pitcher in the known universe, followed by a man simply known as “The Machine.”

In the seventh slot, we have something for the proverbial children of all ages, followed by an acknowledgement of two players who are fighting Father Time. It’s a losing fight because, as we all know, Father Time is undefeated. The list culminates with a happy note, like having that big slice of coconut cream pie after a flavorful dinner, with an appreciation for two pitching teammates known as Big Sexy and the Knuckleballer. Let’s start with some history.