Today is the best day of the year.

Not because it’s Monday, and the start of another work week. Not because it’s the last day of that cruelest of months, March, which constantly teases us with glimpses of spring, while buffeting us with cold, dreary weather.

No, today marks a rebirth of another kind. Summers starts today. More accurately the boys of summer start today.

The Phils are Back!

Today is opening day of the Phillies season. No some made-for-TV junket to Japan, not baseball played under a gleaming sun and palm trees in Florida, and not even an exhibition in Allentown to celebrate the arrival of something called the Iron Pigs.

Today baseball returns to Citizens Bank Park. And so do the fans. Actually, they’ve already showed up. Some hearty Phillies Phanatics spent most of the night waiting in line for standing room only tickets to go on sale at Citizens Bank Park.

Brett Myers will be on the mound when the first pitch is thrown sometime arouned 3:05.

Of course, Mother Nature is refusing to cooperate. Nobody bothered to tell her that today marks the first day of summer. Instead she will, as usual, provide late-winter weather, with a chance of showers and cold, raw temperatures.

Lovely.

Baseball is back. Summer cannot be far behind.