I am so pissed that I have to go to a friends Passover dinner tonight. It isn’t even Passover for real yet. Ha Shem would not put Passover on WrestleMania weekend. That is a stone cold fact. This is the best sports weekend of the year and I will probably have to watch most of it on tape. We have WrestleMania on both Saturday and Sunday night, the Final Four on Saturday night, and yes, the women’s basketball title game on Sunday afternoon. Caitlin Clark and Iowa getting 11 points against the South Carolina juggernaut was the easiest bet I made in my life, and now Clark goes against LSU for all the marbles. This is the most excited I’ve ever been to watch girls play basketball.

And all of it will serve as a distraction from the Mets starting their 2023 campaign, which so far has been torture as usual. It has only been two games and they are just getting the April slate underway, but the Mets have already broken my heart with a 2-1 defeat on Friday night. David Peterson, who has no business starting the second game of anyone’s season, somehow pitched around trouble and only allowed one run in five innings. This despite him giving up eight hits and the Mets playing awful defense behind him.

Still, the Mets could not do much on offense against Miami starter Jesus Luzardo, but in the sixth inning they chased him from the game and loaded the bases for Pete Alonso. The Polar Bear hit a line drive to center field that looked like it was ticketed for the gap, but it landed in the glove of Jazz Chisholm. Two innings later, Starling Marte smoked a line drive to right field that would have tied the game with Tim Locastro running from second base, but Jorge Soler made a great diving catch to end the inning.

Of course, by the time the Mets finally got on the board with an Alonso home run in the ninth, the Marlins had already increased their lead thanks to a Jazz Chisolm solo shot off of John Curtiss. The entire game was a tease, and now the Mets are already looking up at the Braves, who open in Washington against the hapless Nationals and will for sure start the year 3-0.

The Mets finally gave up on last year’s trade “dudline” acquisition Darin Ruf, but there is still no one to put at designated hitter against left-handed pitching. On Friday against the southpaw Luzardo, Mark Canha started at DH with Tommy Pham in left field and the pair combined to go 0-for-5. Buck Showalter might as well put Daniel Vogelbach out there against same-handed pitching and see if he can draw a walk or something. It’s amazing how much fuss was made about Steve Cohen spending money this offseason and there are still massive holes in New York’s lineup.

As for my Final Four picks, I think San Diego State puts an end to Florida Atlantic’s Cinderella run with its suffocating defense. The Aztecs have had a tougher gauntlet to run through on their way to the Final Four, and it’s slightly easier to imagine them in the title game than the FAU Owls. On the other side, I am sticking with Miami even though I picked them to lose to Gonzaga in this spot. UConn has had one of the most dominating runs through the bracket that we have ever seen, but Miami’s back-to-back wins over Houston and Texas have been just as impressive.

For WrestleMania, I am thinking that The Bloodline collapses and loses both its matches, but I don’t think I will be able to stop myself from rooting for them to flip the script and keep dominating the business. It will be hard for Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns to live up to the hype, but Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens vs. The Usos has a legitimate chance to be one of the best tag team matches of all time.

Two other matches that I am very interested in are Austin Theory vs. John Cena and Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul. Theory should go over in order to give him a big win and legitimize himself as a superstar. If Cena wins, it will probably mean a months-long feud with him and Theory, but I can’t imagine Cena committing to WWE for that long. Rollins vs. Paul is interesting because Paul eventually needs to win one of these big matches he is in, but Rollins is well set up for revenge. I would be pretty shocked if Rollins doesn’t go over, but I love being surprised by pro wrestling.