The 2010 Mets season is finally here. We can now completely forget about 2009, wash out the bad aftertaste of that putrid season and start fretting over this year. I took the day off work just to watch the game, so I’ll do one of those running diary things. I believe George Washington was the first person to do one of these, during the Revolutionary War (“10:36: Here come those stupid Redcoats again, and I’m having trouble getting on my horse today. I’ve got to cut back on the mutton and drop a few pounds. And why do my wooden teeth keep falling out. Aren’t these supposed to be state-of-the-art?”). I’d do a live diary, but I don’t have a computer in the same room as our TV, so I’ll just scribbled it all down on an envelope, and besides, I have no idea how to do it anyway. I barely know how to use a fork. With opening day upon us, my daily mood for the next six months will now be predicated on …

“They just play like they don’t care. Then you get those great quotes from their captain: ‘There’s always tomorrow.’ [The franchise’s legendary captain] would never have said something so stupid. They need to get some guys that play with a sense of urgency and heart.”

That quote sure sounds like it’s about the 2009-’10 New York Rangers – at least it describes the team’s first 72 games or so. But in fact that was said about the Flyers by my Philly-fan brother. Hey, what do you know? Other teams have similar issues to the Rangers, too. (My other brother is a Bruins fan – every time we get together a bench-clearing brawl breaks out at dinner.)

The Rangers are on a roll. The Rangers began the season on a roll, but since those first few weeks, they’ve been very un-roll-like. In fact, there have been no rolls at all, until now. They’d sprinkle in a few quality-to-great games here and there – you know, when they’d forecheck, defend, hit, swarm to the net, play a fundamentally sound …