Sports fans at Harvard, I have a confession:

I'm going to spring training.

Really, I am. I swear.

Granted, they'll all be a bunch of scabs, retreads, or career minor-leaguers.

Bottom line is, though, they're playing baseball, and it's been so long since someone did that.

It won't be pretty, but it will be baseball.

Spring training is such a nice time of year. The temperature is getting warmer, the sunshine is returning, the ballfields are green and freshly mowed.

Put me in, coach, I'm ready to play.

Workouts for replacement players have started, and it appears that the season will move forward without the stars.

Incidentally, it will also go forward without major-league umpires. They've been locked out since the first of the year.

Minor-league umps, minor league players. I'm glad that they are at least playing in warm, sunny Florida.

Still, I'm going to make a prediction (which probably means it won't come true):

There will be a settlement to this silliest of strikes, and it will come soon, perhaps within the first couple of months of the regular season.

There are signs that the players are already beginning to crack.

Lenny Dykstra, facing the loss of $31,000 a day if the strike carries into the season, recently suggested that the offer made by government mediator William Usery was acceptable and that the players' union should consider it.