What better time to get back going than on Opening Day.

This year, the Opening Day spectacle is better than ever: Johan Santana and his first win in a Mets uniform, Joe Torre doing the same in Dodger Blue, international play, no Roger Clemens, no guy by the name of Mitchell, no Bryan McNamee.

This day is about hope. This day is about waking up and dreaming, even if you’re a Royals fan. This day is about possibility.

Yet, as great as this Day is, how am I supposed to be engrossed in it, put my all into it, look up how Vladimir Guerrero has historically fared against Pet Neshek, just in case they’d happen to face each other in the bottom of the eighth of the first of 162 games. There are 161 games after this one.

And how am I supposed to transition from the climatic, exciting, dramatic NCAA tournament to a game with Gus “I Need A Sedative Even In a Blowout” Johnson calling a game (”and the slipper stillllllll fitsssss!!!”) to Bert Blyleven, who could feed a Third World country if he was given $1 for every time he said “at the Major League level” or “innings of work.” It just doesn’t compare. And couldn’t they allow some sort of recovery period? I’m just coming off of Davidson-Kansas here.

We like different sports for different reasons. I like college basketball for its excitement and variety. There are enough games where it is possible to recall fantastic finishes, incredible highlights — but adding those to our always-evolving Sports Fan Timeline. When I watch a college basketball game, especially one in March, I won’t be on the couch, I’ll be off it, clapping, cheering, leaping.

Baseball is different. Unless you live in a place like Minnesota before the year 2009, your games are in the outdoors, many after dark. The ballpark is illuminated, that little glowing ball has eyes, and people sit around for two-hours-plus. For fifteen minutes, you might stand, if your team happens to be winning in the top half of the ninth. Baseball is routine, day in, night out for 162 games. There’s some comfort in this.

I could care less. Honestly.

According to ESPN, Senator George Mitchell tried to contact Clemens twice before his infamous report. Guilty, innocent, kind of guilty and not really innocent – again, what does it matter?

Sure, if you’re Clemens you get a little ticked. No problems there. But why, why, do we, as fans and supporters of this beautiful game, insist on following such a pointless case. Why do we care about Clemens’ potential involvement? You can’t use the “I feel cheated as a fan” argument any longer; you have to be brain dead if you believe that steroid use hasn’t been rampant over the course of the last century. Personal trainers were allowed, and continue to be allowed to, enter the clubhouse at their own will. That’s part of the problem.

As a society, we have a very hard time looking to the future and forgetting about the past. Mitchell’s report did nothing else but verify what we already knew – that yes, Major League players have (while some haven’t) used performance-enhancing drugs. We have the information; now let’s figure out a plan. Keep the trainers out of the clubhouse. Promote an anti-doping regulatory agency to monitor baseball, while developing an even-stricter punishment. We must escape the past by using Mitchell’s information as encouragement to do.

I was reading the paper form of USA Today’s Spring Training Guide today. Finally, I thought, something promising, something to look forward to, something to imagine as I walked into sub-zero Minnesota weather. And then I turned the page, and I saw Clemens’ uncomfortable smirk, seated by his lawyer. He wasn’t wearing a Yankees uniform, but rather a blue button-down shirt. For a brief moment, until I saw that image, I was satisfied.

Spring Training is a time of renewal. It is a time for newfound stars to make a dazzling play across the could-not-be-greener grass, and then make a roster. That moment will be a special time because those players, that next generation have the task of restoring our game to what made it our game in the first place.

“Testify” is not etched beside the graves of Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson or Ted Williams, and no way did they manufacture baseball to be dueled out in a courtroom.