Today is a milestone toward the 2015 St. Louis Cardinals regular season, with the spring training portion of games set to begin this afternoon. It’s comforting to look at the Cardinals website and see the banner at the top that Carlos Martinez will start against Dan Haren for the Marlins at 12:05 p.m. Central Time, and even better is that it will be broadcast on KMOX. (See the whole broadcast schedule here.) Hello again, Mike Shannon and John Rooney!

But this is just a step toward the real thing.

A big step, sure — the last remaining hurdle through what seems like an endless off-season (though I guess they all feel that way). And if you are headed to Jupiter to watch the Cardinals and enjoy the Florida sunshine, check out Stacy’s excellent guide to spring training before you go.

Yet today, March 5, is also another milestone: the start of the final month before real baseball. Yes, just Lance Lynn number of days until April 5, when the Cardinals will take on the media-darling new look Chicago Cubs (in whatever kind of still-in-renovation-progress Wrigley Field will be on display that night) during the season debut of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.

At least we now have Grapefruit League games to get us through our 2015 countdown.