Happy Playing Billyball

Oakland's A's are the smash hits of a season that has started with a bang

In the beginning, there was no baseball. But ever since, there have been few beginnings as good as the start of a new baseball season. It is the most splendid time in sport, in part because baseball is about the only sport left—now that football players report to training camp before the Fourth of July, and hockey players start skating in Indian summer—that still has a time and is true to it. The national pastime arrives with spring and...