In that same vein, here's a great lead written by Tom Verducci from Sports Illustrated's baseball preview issue:
Hope, Aristotle divined, is the dream of the waking man. America, at midwinter in a post 9/11 world, challenged that notion last week.
Hundreds of bits of a spacecraft still lay strewn along miles of the Bible Belt. Duct tape, the classic punch line of handyman humor, suddenly became a serious staple of civilian defense against dirty bombs that might come from unknown agents of war. And the words weapons of mass distruction rolled too easily off the tongue, included in the foreboding drumbeat of news from the Middle and Far East. While much of the country listened for diversionary sounds of encouragement, the too-familiar scrape of a snow shovel upon the driveway or the chattering of teeth against February's chill only mired them in a deeper state of blue.
And just then, last Friday, on Valentine's Day morning as it happened, hope, as Aristotle knew it, made its presence felt in Mesa, Ariz. The Chicago Cubs' pitchers, whose degree of wakefulness in recent years could be questioned by philosophers of absolutely no repute, began their first workout of spring training. Hey, with hope - as with love, charity and a good full-bodied red wine - no helping is too modest or too insignificant to nourish the spirit.
In groups of a half-dozen or so, the Cubs climbed a conjoined strand of mounds and, before tossing baseballs, began snapping hand towels. The pitchers held the towels in their throwing hands, wound up as if delivering a pitch and, without letting go of the cotton cloth, snapped it on the mitt of a kneeling catcher at the foot of the mound. The towel snapped only when the pitcher properly extended his arm motion. It was one of those crazy sights you see only in spring training.
What a fitting start: the Cubs actually working on throwing in the towel.