One Heck of A Week, Even Around Here

There might not be a bigger sports week in America than what we're in the midst of right now. We crowned a new national basketball champion (or the same old one, Duke, ruining the "Hoosier" dreams of Butler), opened the Major League Baseball season and there's that thing called the Tiger Woods Coronational... er, The Masters in Augusta, Ga., where Globe-News sports editor Lance Lahnert is spending the week, presumably not as Tiger's wingman.

But where Lance is really needed is on the softball field as a member of the Ink Slingers, the team consisting of most of the Globe-News sports department, a couple of members of the newsroom and some various ringers. Due to various injuries to team members who will remain nameless, I caught both ends of a Monday night doubleheader, which we ended up losing. The effort was there (and I'm feeling a bit sore today), but the question is how physically we will hold up for the next four Monday nights.

Had somebody gotten injured in our second game, the possibility of a forfeit was very real, since there would have been nobody to replace an injured player. Forget winning, just fielding enough bodies for a game is going to be a challenge for the Slingers.

But there are other challenges to deal with as well. Sports are a lot easier to deal with when all you have to do is watch. And this is a good week for that, regardless of the physical toll.