Rojas and Rojas

Anyone watching the Caribbean World Series? It's not good, exactly, but it is an occasion for happy reflection.

MASN has proven itself completely useless when it's not showing a baseball game, but it's showing baseball games in early February, and that's easily worth the two bucks a month my cable system pretended it had to charge me for it. It's even worth sitting through Anita Marks commercials -- you know, the ones where she awkwardly fields ground balls while some guy tells us how talented she is.

It's going to be a long year for Nationals fans, owing in large part to the general lousiness of the team on the field and of the field under the team. The Nats don't have any pitchers, and RFK is the ballpark equivalent of the Nats starting rotation. But look at the Dominican team: they're going to win the tournament, and they've got 40-something Luis Polonia at DH. The Expos gave up on Tony Batista years ago, but in the Caribbean World Series he's a force to be reckoned with, what with his home run power and old man gut and little skinny arms.

And as far as facilities, nothing makes you feel more grateful to be a Major League Baseball fan than realizing that the worst big league field puts to shame Roberto Clemente Walker Stadium's stained putt-putt green.

As I said, it's not good, but I'm still watching it every night. The Mexican team in their cartoon jerseys throwing the ball everywhere but where it's supposed to go is like a marionette parody of the real stuff, and that reminds us of both the quality of major league play and that the big leaguers are only about two months away from getting down to business. There are worse things to watch in February and nothing better to think about.