Sorry for the delay in blogs. A coupe of weeks ago, my reason was laziness. Last week my excuse is that I was on vacation. But starting today, I’m all about baseball, sweet baseball.

While driving to and fro about Washington state these last few days, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get too obsessed about the upcoming pro hardball season.  Sure I picked up a few things here and there — king Felix is rightfully the opening day pitcher for the M’s, Ichiro starts out the season hurt for the first time, Seattle’s bullpen is a mess, everyone’s picking the Angels to win the west, blah blah blah — but I’ve been pretty much ignoring much of the buzz.

This was on purpose. Frankly I need a little respite before a 162-game season plus playoffs. It’s exhausting keeping up with it all, seriously! Plus there’s plenty of sports going on locally to keep me über-busy, so I figure it’s ok to take a breath before the storm of MLB hits.

For those reasons I’m not penning too many forecasts for the 2009 season other than this: the Angels, Yanks, Twins and BoSox, completely predictable winners each and every season since it seems the dawn of time, are the cream of the crop in the AL. In the National League, I like the Mets, the Phillies (again!), the Dodgers and the Brew Crew.

I’m reading a pretty interesting book right now – it’s “Fantasyland” by Sam Walker, and it details Walker’s attempts at winning one of the most exclusive Rotisserie baseball leagues in the nation.

By all demographics, I should be a Rotisserie guy. I’m a white male in the 30-50 year age bracket, I’m not rich but not terribly poor, I’m a sports nut and I usually got picked last or next-to-last for neighborhood pickup games in just about any and every sport. Oh, and I’m at times a video game nerd. So I’m pretty much primed for Rotisserie geekdom.

Thing is, I haven’t made the plunge. I can’t see studying the AA rosters of the Cleveland Indians for some under-the-radar prospect who could break open my league and make me the envy of literally dozens of other baseball stat geeks. I do scan the box scores but I’m willing to live and die on Mike Lowell’s RBI total. Can’t go there.

Walker’s story is intriguing and well told (well, 70 pages of it is well told – I’m a slow reader). I like how he digs deeper into the origins of Rotisserie baseball. Example: Author Daniel Okrent and buddies set up one of the first formal Rotisserie leagues in a place called La Rotisserie Française, hence the name. Super-cool/nerdy factoid.

Anywho, pick up a copy of “Fantasyland” if you can. It’s worth it. But don’t plunk down any money for a Rotisserie league. Just watch the real thing and let the stat geeks go wild over Ronny Cedeno’s batting average.