The Climate

Baseball Opening Day

Today (Monday) is the first full day of regular season baseball in 2009. A new season means new breakthrough hitters, untouchable aces and surprise teams making unexpected late-season runs. As an added bonus, this is definitely the Cubs' year. For sure.

The Masters

The most important golf tournament of the year is this week, and yet their commercials that aired during the NCAA Tournament failed to mention that it's a "tradition unlike any other," making their tradition equal to the tradition of other tournaments. That is, unless, their tradition is now SO unlike the tradition of other tournaments that they don't even need to discuss it anymore. Or something. My head hurts.

The Basketball Hall of Fame

Among this year's expected Hall of Fame inductees are David Robinson, John Stockton and Michael Jordan. Soon enough, I think we can all assume that each of their respective running partners will also be joining them in Springfield's hallowed halls, which will bring an end to the long national fear that Luc Longley won't get his due.

Jeff Gordon

After 47 straight races without a win, Gordon had his own slumpbuster of a race with his win Sunday in Texas. Also of note, this item must be the first time the term "slumpbuster" has ever been associated with Jeff Gordon (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2008_swimsuit/athleteswives/ingrid-vandebosch/08_ingrid-vandebosch_1.html)

Patrick Chewing

I'm not even sure which part of the column this commercial should be under, but I'm going with "Good," just because I have no idea how to react to Patrick Ewing, who looks like he's been on a five-year bender of Snickers, Snickers Ice Cream, and cortisone shots. Glorious.

The New Yankee Stadium

Next week, the Bronx Bombers' new home is set to host its first Yankee regular season game, giving the team's fans another reason to be excited about the new season.

Update: I just got a new e-mail and it looks like I'm being charged a special, one-time "Mentioning Fee" of $37,562.00 for my reference to the new stadium at the top of this item. Fair enough.

John Calipari

You can't begrudge a guy for taking what could be the biggest job in the land, but of all places for Calipari to go, he lands at Kentucky, the school that ended his run with UMass in the Final Four in 1996. In this workaday world, sometimes we forget about the people that a move like this affects, but my goodness, will somebody please stop and think about Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla?!?!

Chad Johnson

I can definitely see why it's not worth the $250k to exercise and stay in shape with an NFL team for a few weeks. Sometimes it just takes the wisdom of a guy who changes his name to the incorrect Spanish translation of an arbitrary jersey number to really blaze the intelligence trail.

Roger Federer's Racquet

Upon seeing Federer completely smash and mangle his racquet in frustration during a match, Rafael Nadal went and one-upped the Swiss star by smashing his own racquet into an impressive cloud of strings, frame, and tasty gazpacho.

The Arizona Wildcats Coaching Job

With all of the extended mutual interest inevitably ending before too long, it's pretty safe to say that the Wildcats head coaching seat is now officially the Jennifer Aniston of college basketball openings. I'm still unsure, though, if it's Tim Floyd or Mark Few that fills the Vince Vaughn role.

Dan Rubenstein hosts and produces the SI Tour Guy video series for SI.com and co-hosts The Solid Verbal college football podcast with SI.com's Ty Hildenbrandt.