I've had some time to think about this, and I don't think Jose Lop ... WHOOPS! Is that Jose Lopez rounding the bases after hitting a home run (after standing at the plate and admiring it?) Yup. I stand corrected. As I was about to say, I think Jose Lopez may help the Colorado Rockies this season. But not if he stands at the plate while one of his blasts hits off the fence and he runs it into a single.

Jose's home run into the leftfield stands is one of the few bright spots in today's game, a disappointment for Ubaldo Jiminez, who won 15 of his first 16 starts last year. The lowly Arizona Diamondbacks are launching them, and they aren't standing at the plate admiring their homers. My kind of baseball. As I write this, they're trailing 6-4 and it doesn't look great for all the Opening Day fans, many of whom will likely fade into memory like the ice cream they're enjoying.

It IS nice to be talking baseball again. Hockey has been a downer, college basketball has no soul and the NBA ... forget it. So baseball is the thing right now, until football comes along (if it does). I did my annual hot dog feed (for me) on March 31 and found not much has changed. The Yankees won with the long ball, the Braves got great pitching, and today, the Astro bullpen blew it again. As the announcer said: "If the Astros start 1-7 this year, it will be an improvement over last year." That's called damning with faint praise. I am looking forward to the Minnesota Twins opener this evening against Toronto, and am still hopeful the Rockies can come back against the D-Backs bullpen.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST
I brought a book home from the library the other day, actually a Led Zeppelin history for my son, who is a big fan. Of course, I started reading it and realized I, too, am a pretty big fan. Already jealous for my having lived through possibly the greatest era of rock and roll music ever (but not jealous of my age), he listens intently when I tell him about going to The Music Center in Huron to purchase the first Led Zeppelin album in January, 1969. So sold on the new sound of this "heavy metal" group was I that I ran out a few months later and bought their second album. The first album, incidentally, grossed $7 million and the boys have never had to worry about money since.

This was an interesting era in rock and roll, going from more soft rock and roll to heavier groups like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and, yes, Three Dog Night. The door then opened for hundreds of other groups, which produced some incredible music for my collection for the next 20 years or so. My co-worker here in Greeley, who is a few years older than I, has at times regaled me with his stories of having seen Led Zep, Jimi Hendrix and The Who in concert in Denver. He probably doesn't remember much of it. But the music has endured. (As I write this, fans are singing to Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby" at Coors Field.This may be one of the top five most enduring songs ever and it was performed nearly 50 years ago!! If you guessed 1962, you're right.) I think it's safe to say that many of the group members from the 60s and 70s, if they have survived, wished they had taken better care of themselves, because they could still be making money today. Big money, just playing the classics. I want to be listening.