It's been exactly four months since I last saw, or heard, a live broadcast of a major league game.

And yet, March 1st still feels so far away.

With its coming each year, February brings more than the hints of spring. The days grow longer as anticipation grows larger, and by month's end the urge – to see a ballgame, to hear the sounds, to feel the sun warming your neck on a summer day at Wrigley – is almost unbearable.

I've never been to spring training. Arizona plenty of times, but never in March. Instead, I read the papers, follow the news, but it never quite quenches the thirst or quells the itch to sit down and take in a game.

Conveniently enough, nearly all of the Cubs' broadcasted spring training games are on weekends. Soon the itch will be gone.

But what I long most to see is not veterans with guaranteed roster spots, but youth. To watch a 20-year-old play the game with unbridled passion and a yearning for a chance in the majors is, for me, far more exciting than watching a 10-year vet go through the motions.