Imagine this ...

 First day of March now, and in the softening air the coming spring suddenly seems more than the ghost of a ghost. The sun really does feel warmer on the neck these days. It really does linger longer in the evenings. Here in Indiana, the high school girls basketball season -- our winter game -- ends today; the boys begin closing the book on their winter at the top of next week.

It's a time of imagining, because the imagining is thisclose to coming true. And so today let's play Imagine This, boys and girls, because the calendar's right for it ...

Imagine a world that is all Florida and Arizona, where the pop of a glove and the crack of a bat are being heard again.

Imagine a world where a Bucknell upsets Kansas, or a Mercer whips Duke, or a Fairleigh Dickinson topples Purdue, because those days are coming again in a little over two weeks.

Imagine a world where Indiana, in a little over two weeks, playing in the NCAA Tournament for their lame-duck head coach, if you can dig that.

Imagine a world where it is spring for certain gearheads among us, because down in St. Petersburg, Fla., the IndyCar boys go racing again tomorrow, and that means the heat and light of Memorial Day weekend under an endless Indiana sky is only a handful of weeks away. 

Imagine a world where Josef Newgarden becomes, on that weekend beneath that sky, the first man in 109 runnings, to win the Indianapolis 500 three times in a row. Don't tell me it couldn't happen.

Imagine, if you can, a world where the Indianapolis Colts get their, um, stuff together, finally.  A world where the Chicago Bears do the same. A world where the Indiana Pacers win an NBA title, and a Canadian team hoists Lord Stanley again, and the Chicago White Sox become a real boy again instead of whatever the hell they are now.

Dump site. Crime scene. Double-A team. Take your pick.

And last but not least ...

Imagine a world where, instead of backing England with no strings attached, the United States of America goes behind John Bull's back to strike a deal with Hitler that will give the U.S. the rights to half Great Britain's mineral deposits. After which FDR summons Winston Churchill to the White House to lecture him, in front of the media and the public, for not being properly grateful for the shakedown.

Imagine a world where that actually happened this week. Only the names were changed.

I'd rather not, frankly. I'd rather imagine the What Sox winning the AL Central this year.

One seems as unbelievable to me as the other at this point. But that's just me, I suppose.