In the midst of March Madness and high-drama puckery, the baseball fan knows that the real season begins tomorrow (yeah, they’ve played some games in Japan and there is one tonight) during daylight hours in the country where the game evolved from its inferior English cousin (rounders).

In light of the new season, MCB has requested our West Tennessee sports correspondent - The Squirrel Queen - to make her predictions re the oncoming season. I’m sticking my opinionated nose in on the prediction game as well.

SQ Predictions and notes:

AL East - Boston by a mile. Yanks will struggle on the mound.
AL Central - Cleveland edges Detroit thanks to a more settled pen. Both teams will score a ton. Tiger pitchers are always getting injured.
AL West - Angels of whatever city they’ve added to their ridiculously long name. Mariners have the pitching, theoretically, but I don’t know if they’ll score enough.
AL Wildcard - Tigers

NL East - Three team race. Mets, Braves, Phillies. I think Santana tips it in favor of the Mets, but this one will be tight.
NL Central - I still think the Brewers may sneak in past the Cubs. BrewCrew has a ton of pitching and will score lots of runs. Need to be more consistent on the road. Who knows how long Kerry Woods’ arm will stay attached to his body. Soriano will have a better year, but I just don’t know

NL West - Another toss-up (she’s picking the Dodgers). Maybe Joe Torre is the difference here if the young Dodgers respond to him. Remember, Jeter and those guys were youngsters when he started in NY. Don’t know if the Rockies will get the same effort on the mound this season. Padres and D-Backs are still in the mix.
NL Wildcard - Phillies

World Series - Indians over Dodgers

JH predictions:

As much as it pains me, a life-long Yankee’s fan, to agree, I don’t think the Yanks make the play-offs this year either. Too many pitching question marks.

AL East: God, I hate saying this, but the Red Sox are the team to beat. Great starting pitching and bullpen, along with young superstars in the making: CF Ellsbury and 2B Pedroia

AL Central: Detroit Tigers. They picked up one of the best hitters in baseball from the Marlins (Miquel Cabrera) to supplement an already strong batting lineup. Great starting pitching and a more-than-decent bullpen wins the day.

AL West: Angels. Mariners do have better pitching, but Tori Hunter added to this ball-team, along with Guerrero and a future breakout star Brandon Wood AND one of the better hitting young second sackers in the game (Howie Kendrick) wins the day.

AL Wild Card: Indians. C.C. Sabathia rides off with the Cy Young award.

NL East: Mets, Mets, Mets. Adding Johan Santana to this staff, along with the best left-side of the infield in modern society (Wright and Reyes) bring the title to Queens.

NL Central: I agree with SQ. Brewers are loaded. Watch for a break-0ut year from Richie Weeks (2B) and great follow-up seasons from Fielder, Braun and Hart.

NL West: Rockies. Tulowitzki is for real and Holliday is going to just keep getting better. Now that they keep the baseballs, pre-game, in a humidor, the balls don’t fly out of the park with nearly the same frequency as in the old days (much to the delight of the improving Rockies pitching staff).

Wild Card: Atlanta Braves. The return of Glavine and Mike Hampton to the rotation complements Tim Hudson well. Look for shortstop Yunel Escobar to have a big season.

World Series: Tigers over Brewers (it’s a midwestern joint this year)

Best player not many people have heard about: Hanley Ramirez of the Florida Marlins. Put him in NY or LA or Chicago and they’d be writing plays, books and poetry about this guy.

Team with a load of future superstars that just doesn’t have enough pitching: Tampa Bay. B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford already are well-known. Watch for mid-season call-up Evan Longoria (not the Desperate Housewife!)

Best 1-2 punch starting pitchers: Arizona with Webb and Haren (not enough runs scored behind them to win..last season was statistically flukish).

Player most likely to be involved in serious off-field incident: Elijah Dukes (Washington Nationals)

*No, this is NOT a story about steroids!