The winter of my discontent may finally be coming to a close.

Despite the persistence of snow and freezing rain in southern Ohio in what is now nearly March (who knew such a thing was possible), several clues have sprung up foretelling the coming of spring.

The bitterest of the cold weather has generally subsided, and as the sun climbs higher in the sky, days get longer and easier to bear.

But all of these meteorological clues would make little sense to me if not viewed through the prism of baseball. Finally baseball season is upon us, giving me reason to delight in the milder weather and increased sunshine.

While Major League teams have only started their pre-season practices, Miami University's baseball team has already taken the field in Arizona and started playing games that count.

The early schedule has not been kind to the RedHawks, as they have dropped the first three games; but the high level of competition complemented by a few outstanding individual RedHawk performances has been encouraging early on.

Miami's three losses came to teams ranked ninth, seventh and third in the nation.

In the loss to No. 3 Vanderbilt, the RedHawks held a 3-1 lead going into the ninth inning. They came out as 4-3 losers.

As my father used to say on a seemingly daily basis of watching the Cubs in years past, "That's baseball."

The challenge to Miami is now not to get discouraged and frustrated, but to rebound and build on the good things that happened to the club in these first three games.

Chris Nadeau went 5-9 on the weekend and won MAC East Player of the Week honors. By capturing the momentum from one of their junior star's performances, Miami should be able to get back on track.

Part of the beauty of this sport is that one day or even three days of losing should not faze a team. Due to the length of the season, it can sometimes seem if there is always a tomorrow Major League teams play 162 games each year, and yet going into the final weekend of the season last September, not a single National League team had separated itself from the pack and guaranteed itself a spot in the playoffs.

While a football game may be a marathon within itself, each baseball game is a short sprint to the finish line; baseball is only a distance race when the season is taken as a whole.

It is for this reason that I have always felt that "any given Sunday," is really a better description of a baseball game than a football game-and following the Cubs for so many years has taught me the need to believe that my team could win on any day, no matter how the season as a whole had progressed.

So, hope still springs eternal for the Miami baseball team. A rough start should in no way dampen the spirits of the RedHawk faithful this early on in the season.

Unfortunately for me, along with anyone else who is starving for America's pastime, the games in Oxford only begin in earnest after spring break, with the exception of a brief stopover on March 11 when the 'Hawks play host to Wright State University.

Until then, as long as the mercury continues its climb in the thermometer, I think that I will survive.