Mike Celizic

Let’s not make the same mistake with this baseball season we made with the recently departed Turin Olympics. Let’s not make it all about one bad apple.

The temptation and the opportunity are here, just as it was when the Games began and all anyone could talk about was Bode Miller. We could make this all about Barry Bonds and turn the next six months into a really bad soap opera, or we can let Bonds be the sideshow he is and move on to what could be one of the sport’s great seasons.

I’m moving that we adopt the second approach, and I’m not waiting for a second or a vote to make it official. There are too many great storylines out there, too many teams with too many hopes to let one lout ruin it.

The Atlanta Braves have won the NL East for 14 straight years, and I personally have written them off at least eight times during that run. With most predictions, you can’t go wrong choosing against a reigning champion, but with the Braves, picking anyone else to win has been like picking west for tomorrow’s sunrise.

But nothing, not even subsidies to tobacco farmers, is forever, and this year the Mets have the closer they lacked last year in Billy Wagner, along with a powerful line-up and good starting pitching anchored by Pedro Martinez and his sore toe. The Nats have upgraded, though how much won’t be known until we see how Alfonso Soriano takes to left field. Philly also likes to think it’s better, but they’re always saying that. The Marlins always find a way to be better than they should be.

Regardless of how it goes, the NL East could be the best in the game this year.

SPECIAL FEATURE Analysis and predictions for every team

Working from right to left on your Rand-McNally, you can’t start a baseball season without talking Yankees-Red Sox. And what can be better than New York starting on the West Coast with Randy Johnson taking the mound with his Big Unit scowl?

As usual, the Yankees are supposed to win the AL East. Also as usual — at least during the past three seasons or so — they’ve got every player any team could want except five starting pitchers with healthy arms. Can the Red Sox take advantage with Coco Crisp in center instead of new Yankee Johnny Damon? Can Toronto, which spent big in the offseason, compete in the game’s most top-heavy division?

You’ve got the Cardinals in the NL Central, but the big story there is going to be Roger Clemens, who’s sort of retired, but not really. If the Astros start well and the Rocket decides to fire up the boosters sometime in midseason, we’ve got ourselves a serious story.

Then there are those who are saying the Milwaukee Brewers are actually capable of contending. We haven’t seen that since the Brew Crew was in the American League. I don’t know if it will happen, but it would be a great story if it does.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Pain on the skating rink, flying high on the hardwood, upsets on the football field, and more. more photos

Speaking of the NL Central, wouldn’t you love it if he who must not be named were to break Babe Ruth’s total in Wrigley? First, I’m counting on the Wrigley denizens to do the right thing and throw the ball back — or blow it up, Bartman-style — and then to salute the perpetrator in the only way that can possibly be considered appropriate, with a mass mooning.

Nobody gave the White Sox a chance last year, and not a lot of people are giving them a chance to repeat this year. There’s a good reason for that.

Not since the Yankees finished their run of four straight in 2000 has any team won two World Series in a row. In fact, no team has won it more than once.

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