What March Madness? Baseball just started!

At 3 a.m. PST Wednesday morning, 23-year-old Ryan Wolfley woke up and turned on his television to watch baseball.

A game between the Oakland A’s and the Seattle Mariners, played across the world in Japan’s Tokyo Dome, kicked off the Major League Baseball season.

For Wolfley, a self-proclaimed “hardcore fan”, the season’s beginning couldn’t come soon enough.

“I started counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training about 15 days before they reported,” said Wolfley. “So needless to say, opening day did not sneak up on me.”

But Sam Dorfman, a 20-year-old freshman from Western New England University, thought “there were a couple more weeks left before the season began.”

“I like that today is opening day, but just not the fact that the games are so early or are in another country,” he said. “I understand the concept of trying to expand the MLB, but these games almost seem meaningless compared to the rest of the season openers.”

And Adam Spinella realized the season was right around the corner when he hurried to organize a fantasy draft last weekend.

“I was trying to cut it as close to the season as I could, so we had our draft on Sunday night,” said the 20-year-old Dickinson College student. “It really hit me that it was this week when the season started ... spring training was gone in a flash.”

Spinella is a “lifelong fan of the game.” He provides radio color commentary of Dickinson baseball games and Peter Gammons’ 2006 Baseball Encyclopedia rests next to his bed at home.

“I love the uniqueness and intrigue of the game,” he said. “Baseball is the only game where the defense always has the ball – that in itself is such an interesting concept. But the way the defense shifts based on who’s hitting or pitching, what runners are on base, how many strikes are in the count … that is what intrigues me the most.”

Craig Davis, 20, called baseball the “most relaxing sport to watch.”

“The baseball season has a distinct personality compared to that of other sports: the feeling of spring, of the early days in April, the dog days of summer, and then October,” said the Northwestern sophomore. “I love watching the season progress and watching the story lines unfold.”

On April 4, a majority of teams will have their opening day games, the first of 162-game season.

Another wrinkle to the 2012 season will see an expanded playoff format, with two extra wild-card teams featured in a one-game playoff.

But while October baseball may be a long way away, some fans have already begun making predictions.

“The A.L. East will be very competitive again, but the Red Sox will have a tough time getting past the Rays and Yankees,” said Dorfman.

Spinella doesn’t see it playing out that way.

“The Red Sox have better hitters on the whole, and a better top of their pitching staff, but the Yankees have more pitching depth, a much stronger bullpen,” he said. “I think the Yankees are just more well-rounded, and will win the division.”

Chris Shores is a Spring 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about him here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.