Something occurred to me yesterday. It didn’t happen until after about the fifteenth call I received from an idiot Brewers fan telling me that — after beating my Cards in the season opener — the Crew was well on its way to the first undefeated season in major league history.

Initially, after the first five calls or so, I was just pretty pissed off. Watching St. Louis lose to a team like Milwaukee is bad enough, but Brewers fans don’t often have anything to rub in the face of a Pirates fan, much less a Cardinals fan, so they can get pretty out of control about it when they get the opportunity.

After about five more calls, that feeling of anger started to subside, gradually replaced by a feeling of sheer pity. I mean, when you think about it, it’s just sort of sad. The Cardinals have the second-most World Series championships of all time, behind only the Yankees. And these poor, bitter kids from Wisconsin really, genuinely felt as though one victory (occurring 161 games away from the playoffs) was in some way meaningful. This is what Brewers fans consider an accomplishment — one day of the season over .500. You’ve got to feel a little bit sorry for them for that.

Then, finally, after the fifteenth time hanging up on a stupid “eh”-saying Canadian-wannabe, I started to realize that — even if their tauntings were a bit premature, not to mention unreasonable — they were somewhat reassuring. It’s early spring, girls are starting to become visible again as they shed the layers of North Face gear, the lake is a lake again and it’s early baseball season. It’s a great time of year. When else can everyone, even Brewers fans, have this much to hope for?

Peter Gammons, probably the most in-the-loop baseball reporter around, just predicted that the Cubs would beat the Red Sox in the World Series. The f-cking Cubs and the Red Sox … playing in the World Series …

If a guy like Gammons can believe two cursed clubs like those will make runs at a championship, anyone can believe that anything can happen.

Cubs fans can feel it. They can spout out their predictions that Kerry Wood will finally break that elusive 15-win barrier and that Mark Prior doesn’t need Tommy John surgery. They can pretend that Sammy Sosa won’t be affected by MLB’s little ‘roid crackdown and that Aramis Ramirez won’t make an error every third time the ball is hit his way. They can even pretend that their team’s fate will be decided by its players and not a billygoat. And for now, who can tell them that they’re wrong?

Sox fans can feel it. They can ignore the fact that Pedro Martinez obviously is about a tenth of the pitcher right now that he was when they got him, and that power-pitchers like Curt Schilling simply aren’t the same once they get this close to the big 4-0. For now, they can realistically believe that their entire lineup will repeat last season’s career-best numbers and that Nomar and Manny wouldn’t give their left arms to get out of Beantown. They can even believe that Babe Ruth isn’t watching over them, making sure they are disappointed in the most painful manner possible again this season.

Even Tigers fans can feel it. They can enter a little world of make-believe where Fernando Vina and Pudge Rodriguez, two decent hitters (.281 average, 108 RBIs and 20 dongs last season combined) and formerly great defensive players will help them claw out of the cellar and below the 100-loss mark.

That’s what’s great about the beginning of the baseball season. Every team, technically, still has a shot at some glory.

This is the time of year when anything is possible. So go ahead and believe in your team — be it the Yankees or the Brewers. Ignore all the deficiencies and problematic areas. I know I’ve chosen not to admit that the Cards’ only decent starter getting knocked around by the Brew Crew is more than a little bit foreboding (he just had an off-game — it happens) — because this may be the one time of the year that every team actually has a chance.