photo credit: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi)

The Month: Historians have no real answer for why we call the fourth month of the year “April.” Most believe it somehow derived from the Latin term “aperire”, which means “to open”, and if that’s true it would be fitting. After all, April is when many of nature’s rarest beauties bloom, “opening” themselves for the world to see. No, I am not talking about Spring Break in San Antonio. You have a sick mind. Who goes to San Antonio for Spring Break anyways?

I wish I could make a joke about a girl named “April” here, but I don’t know any. 

The Men: Hopefully, none of the Nats spent much time with co-eds going all “Girls Gone Wild” near the Alamo. No, we need our boys to be well rested and ready to get down to business. That means all of Bob “Skeletor” Bradley’s boys (both biological and otherwise) need to be snug in their beds in their respective bedrooms in different nations around the world. We didn’t have a game this month, but we did see many guys continue to succeed with their club squads.

The Musings: We also watched as more guys got gnawed by that damned injury bug. Brian Ching was the latest to be sniped, but he will be healthy prior to the start of the Cup. Many so-called Nats fans lament that Ching is the apple of Skeletor’s eye, but – by the power of Grayskull – I have the power to tell them they are idiots. He is a strong player, an incessant hustler, a decent finisher, a better passer and the only real holding forward we have. We need Chingy.

And, since it’s April, I encourage you all “to open” your heart to Ching.

I don’t know if he will be ready for the Cup, but I hope so. The Nats had a quiet April. Well, I am writing this on April 7th (hey, don’t look at me like that, I like to get ahead, OK?), so it has been quiet so far, and there really isn’t much on the schedule for the rest of the month. The Nats plan to ramp up their preparations for the World Cup in May though with some camps and games. Despite the injuries, I am quite optimistic about our chances right now. Yes, it’s early…

But US Soccer fans, it’s not too early to start pumping up our players before the biggest tournament of their lives. In fact, I think it’s time “to open” our voices in support of our sublime side. And I also think it’s time”to open” our minds to the idea that the US could just win it all. After all, it’s April. Hold on, wait, yeah! I do know one April, that chick who always hung out with the TMNT! I hope she never partied with them Spring Break style. I never trusted that Splinter.

Whenever he was around, I smelled a rat.