MLB

It's taken exactly three days for the 2013 Major League Baseball season to nearly etch its place in history, as Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish came within one out of recording the 24th perfect game in league history in a 7-0 win over the Houston Astros Tuesday night.

We're all baseball fans here, so I feel safe in assuming that we all love stud rookies. They give us the warm fuzzies.

On the flip side, I also feel safe in assuming that we all fear what could happen to our favorite rookies. That dreaded phrase: "sophomore slump."

[Ominous piano keys. Thunder. Wolves howling. Floorboards creaking.]

You might've heard Bryce Harper's season got off to quite a start.

The Washington Nationals outfielder—whom many consider a Most Valuable Player candidate in only his second season and at the ripe old age of 20—smashed a pair of homers in the season opener.

The Twins can’t sell beer at Target Field anymore this season. Why? Because they lost the opener!

That joke is admittedly juvenile, but what the heck. In April you can joke a little bit about a 4-2 loss. In life you need to laugh, especially if your life is a baseball season. Baseball is a marathon of 162 games; if you can’t kick back and joke or relax, you’re going to drive yourself insane.

The New York Yankees' payroll is also going to be a topic of conversation because of how much money is spent to put a product on the field. However, this season is different due to all the money being invested for what is clearly an inferior product. 

The Boston Red Sox may have won their first game of the 2013 season, but they are always looking to improve. Keeping with that philosophy, the team signed free-agent infielder Brandon Snyder on Tuesday to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Pawtucket.

Baseball fans have it pretty good. They get to enjoy the best sport there is, and they also get to enjoy the best stadiums the sports world has to offer.

The best part about baseball stadiums is that they’re all unique. No two stadiums look alike, and no two stadiums feel alike. Major League Baseball’s 30 stadiums all offer a different experience for fans to enjoy.

Which stadiums offer the best experience, you ask?

The old adage tells us that the 162-game baseball season is a marathon not a sprint. One out into the first game of the season and Astros manager Bo Porter was sprinting out to argue about a botched call on a steal attempt by his second baseman, Jose Altuve. His complaints fell on deaf ears, but Porter showed his pregame excitement and enthusiasm wasn’t just for show.

A number of players enjoyed big games on Opening Day, but Clayton Kershaw bested them all in his first start of the new season for the Dodgers.

Hunter Pence might need some help on the proper use of sunglasses. 

The Dodgers and Giants opened play on a sun-drenched Monday afternoon in Los Angeles. It was the kind of day that mandated some sun-shielding eye wear if you were ever going to skirt any amount of pop-fly disaster. 

Well, Pence flew too close to the sun and got burned, dropping a routine fly ball in the sixth inning, producing one of the first bloopers of the season.