My bracket from back in the days I filled one out - this one was 2018’s.

(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 12)

Long-time readers - or anyone, really, who has known me for a while - know that this time of year has historically been very exciting for me.

That has changed the past few years.

It’s unfortunate, but I just haven’t gotten back into the men’s NCAA Tournament since it was canceled back in 2020.

I filled out brackets kind of obsessively every year since 1993…and I would go out of my way to find a New York Daily News near here so that I had a consistent bracket from year to year, such as the one pictured here.

It was the perfect way to get me through the stretch of the last few weeks before the start of baseball season.

This year, though, I have plenty else to get excited about.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll watch the men’s tournament. I just don’t have much rooting interest. I’ll hope for some fun finishes.

And I do have a rooting interest in the women’s tournament, so I’ll be seeking South Carolina’s games out. (Unfortunately, Boston University did not win last week…they did get a spot in the NIT.)

But this year March Madness isn’t limited to basketball.

The World Baseball Classic is fun, meaningful baseball, breaking up the monotony of meaningless spring training games. I haven’t been staying up until 10pm for the U.S. games, but I did throw a couple on at 6am during the week and was able to watch Friday and Saturday night’s quarterfinal games at 7pm.

So, it’s not the same as it used to be for me, but it’s still pretty good.

Take Friday, for example. It shook out like this:

12pm: Started the day with the first game of the women’s tournament - Marquette-South Florida, which went to overtime. Great game.

2pm: South Carolina kicked things off with a big win

4pm: I was alerted to the fact that BU men’s hockey was playing Providence in the Hockey East quarterfinals so I watched that

6pm: BU women’s NIT vs. Rhode Island

7pm: WBC - Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Not bad for someone who hasn’t had a whole lot of sports to watch recently.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I know last week I mentioned Pilates, and I don’t want to keep hammering the same points, but this whole post is about what I’ve been enjoying overall so when I thought, “What else have I been enjoying this week?” the answer was Pilates. I’ve just really been looking forward to it each morning. So it gets this week’s nod.

Notes

*The World Baseball Classic has done its job, as far as I’m concerned. Here we are with the championship game on Tuesday, and then there’s about a week until Opening Day. It really feels like it’s helped March move along.

*And it’s nice that the U.S. is still in it, playing again tonight.

*Of course, when Opening Day comes the Mets will be without a very important player. I don’t want to say he was injured in the World Baseball Classic, because that implies the tournament had something to do with it. I believe it was a knee injury that was going to happen to Edwin Diaz at some point no matter what, because it was so fluky, but either way, it puts a real damper on the season.

*It’s a season I’m still really excited about. I’ll get into that next week. I’ve done something for the 2023 season that I’ve never done before. Ooh…big teaser there.

*It’s nice to be able to watch all the upsets and root for the underdogs without a bracket in danger of being busted, I’ll tell you that. Fun to see another 16-seed win…and the 15 and 14 seed wins were fun as well.

*For what it’s worth - a couple of exciting overtime wins for Boston University hockey wins them the conference…the BU women fizzled at the end of a great season, losing that championship game last week (after overcoming a 20-plus point deficit and making it a 1-point exciting game late) and bowing out of the NIT Friday night in a disappointing performance.

*Social media links are below. Thanks for following along.