All aboard the bandwagon

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, April 1, 2007

Ah, opening day. The excitement. The optimism. The seventh-inning stretch for another beer.

It’s a brand-new baseball season, and the Mariners started off in style with a 4-0 victory over the A’s, who appeared to need a refresher course on the basics from their local Little League.(http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/03/100spo_c1msmain001.cfm?refresh=yes)

The win means the Mariner bandwagon is filling up fast. Of course, it tends to empty out pretty fast, too. Just remember: We may not have a 116-win season, but we’ll always have garlic fries.

For some of you, though, even the fries are no longer enough. If you’ve given up on the M’s for good, there’s an alternative: the director’s cut of “The Natural,” which comes out on DVD today.

In case you’ve forgotten (how could you?), the 1984 film stars Robert Redford as a gifted baseball player whose career is sidetracked after he gets shot. He returns to the game years later, triumphantly reviving a downtrodden team.

And no, that team wasn’t the ’78 Mariners.

The face of Maytag is changing. After a nationwide search, a Virginia man has been selected as Maytag’s new lonely repairman (http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/03/100wir_a2maytag001.cfm). The contract for the previous repairman was not renewed. No explanation was given, but the rumor is that he was spotted making a friend.

— Katie Mayer, Herald staff