So baseball season's here, which should be fun if I don't get fired.

UNC just won a fairly lackluster national championship game. Tyler Hansbrough still looks like a lemur and Roy Williams like a sun-crisped Huckleberry Hound. And I still can't name a single player on Michigan State other than that one guy Summers who jammed so hard on that UConn guy in the Final Four two days ago. The rout was easily foreseen: No athlete from the state of Michigan will ever succeed in the same place the Lions play.

One of those keen foreseers was none other than Me, and for that, I will show up at work tomorrow and collect like $12 for finishing third in the office pool. Which is about as exciting as getting a free upgrade to the supersized oatmeal when the waitress screws up your order. At the very least, though, the CEO now knows who I am, or at least knows my last name. In theory, this should prove helpful when the inevitable next round of layoffs descends upon the company like Elijah on the Egyptian goyim's firstborn.

On a happier note, baseball season is officially upon us. We took four trains to see the Mets play the Red Sox at New Shea on Saturday only to be stymied by the most anal-retentive ticket policy known to man: The game was sold out, which is fine, but we quickly realized there was nary a single scalper to be had. In the Bronx, plainclothes cops try to bust scalpers, but the street there is usually such a mob scene that it's more of an inconvenience than an impediment. In Queens, on the other hand, it's desolate -- LaGuardia, auto repair shops, and parking lots that stretch all the way to Arthur Ashe offer little shelter to would-be secondhand ticketeers. Scads of cops provide further discouragement. What's more, there's no re-entry at New Shea (Old Shea lies in mounds of concrete rubble in the middle of the New Parking Lot, as it were), so you can't bum used tickets off people leaving and talk your way in.

In other words, the old methods of getting into sold-out sporting events ain't happening at New Shea, which sucks a fat one, because now we have to either plan stuff out like whole days in advance or risk getting fakies off of Craigslist. Also, the cheapest seat is officially bullshit expensive -- i.e., $23 plus fees. I hope the Mets start the season 0-47.