The first day of April means something different to baseball fans than to most ordinary people. To them, it’s a day to joke, laugh, and pull pranks. To us, well, we have baseball on our minds by now. So after I make my bold baseball predictions, there will be no one shouting “April Fool” — unless I turn out to be wrong in October.

Last week, the game of baseball was changed forever. All it took was a 409-page report with 86 named players.

The Mitchell Report, released Thursday, identified some of the biggest names in the game. Then again, some of the names were … not so big.

Baseball season never ends. That’s because there are four baseball seasons: spring training, the regular season, the postseason, and the offseason. Although no baseball is played in the offseason, there is a league of its own: the Hot Stove League.

On Oct. 28, 2004, a teacher at my elementary school ran from classroom to classroom parading around a framed article featuring the Boston Red Sox . The previous day the team had won the World Series for the first time since 1918.

The crack of the bat, the 17th TV timeout, the batter spitting, the pitcher spitting, the team managers screeching at each other, the scandal that the cracked bat is actually filled with cork, the obese man sitting behind you who just soaked your $6.50 hot dog in domestic ale, the same man scree