Every year there seems to be a day in February that is a sign from the heavens.

Temperatures neared 60 degrees on Tuesday. Walking out the front door at 8 a.m. to take the kids to school, I took the biggest inhale I possibly could and found a deep sense of anticipation on the exhale.

As my daughter Kayla got into the car, I turned to her and said, “It smells like baseball.”

After the laughter from the passenger seat died down, I explained to my teenager the olfactory concept that has guided diehard baseball fans in the Midwest for more than a century.

Yes, pitchers and catchers begin reporting to Spring Training this week. The Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers get started on Friday in Arizona with the Chicago White Sox taking root at their new home in Glendale, Ariz., on Sunday. For the first time ever, all three I-94 squads come off concurrent playoff appearances.

Despite the recent (and not-so-recent) history of disappointment, Cubs fans will once again throw themselves into a team expected to compete for the pennant. Despite the free-agent exit of C.C. Sabathia, Brewers fans have raised expectations. After the unexpected A.L. Central crown in 2008, White Sox fans are hoping the team’s young players are ready for the show.

While there is a general stink emanating from A-Rod’s admission of steroid use, the game of baseball is bigger than its individual players and internal problems.

Always has been. Always will be.

The nose doesn’t lie.

* Favre’s folly: On Wednesday, New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre announced he would be retiring from the NFL. As you read this column, fans are lined up and down Broadway to buy special publications devoted to his career. Oh wait, they’re not.

In New York, Favre was another aging QB just waiting to be whipped by media and fans alike. In Wisconsin, Favre was revered. The key word being “was.”

It’s going to take some time before many Packers fans forgive No. 4 for last season’s emotional roller coaster ride that never should have taken place.

* Bears fans feel the “Payne:” When the Arizona Cardinals made the Super Bowl, the first team I thought of was Chicago.

The Bears were arguably better than the Cardinals during the regular season. They managed to pull defeat from the jaws of victory against Carolina, Tampa Bay and Atlanta and were still one win from making the playoffs.

As we saw in the NFC this year, after you get in ... anything can happen.

“We were just as good as a lot of teams that made the playoffs,” Bears safety Kevin Payne said at Sports Night on Sunday. “That just goes to show how close we were away. Just a few things here or there could have put us right up there at the top with the rest of them.

“There were a lot of games we had ‘won,’ but we didn’t finish at the end. That’s easily three more wins to our schedule.”

For the fans’ sake, here’s hoping they find a way to put those games in the left-hand column next season.

* Book it (3-4): The short-handed Bucks weren’t able to get it done in overtime against the Detroit Pistons on Saturday.

I’m doubling up on the UW-Parkside women’s basketball team this week. The Rangers (15-7 overall) will stay atop the Great Lakes Valley Conference East Division with home victories over Saint Joseph’s (tonight) and Bellarmine (Saturday).

Mike Larsen is a sportswriter for the Kenosha News. E-mail him at mlarsen@kenoshanews.com