Sports

Debuts of Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward lead things to watch

interns Contributor
Font Size:

You have to start somewhere. The Gregorian new year begins in Kiribati, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean that is the inhabited landmass most near, on the west side, to the international date line. For those of us who measure time by the Doubledayan calendar, the new year begins in Washington on Monday at 1:05 p.m. with a pitch from Nationals left-hander John Lannan, shortly after the ceremonial one from another southpaw, President Barack Obama.

(Yes, there is a game Sunday night, but the Yankees-Red Sox game is more of a made-for-TV event than it is a traditional Opening Day.)

It's the start of not just a new year but also a new decade. Welcome, as the Romans might have said, to MMX, though that would also happen to be the same greeting you could expect after touching down at Malmo Airport in Sweden.

A new year brings new storylines. It’s much of the magic of Opening Day — the anticipation of what is to come, like the first page of a good book or the clackety-clack slow climb of a roller coaster up the first hill. When it comes to the baseball storylines I most eagerly await this year, here are my favorites: the top 10 for ’10:

Full story: Debuts of Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward lead things to watch – Sports Illustrated