Baseball, baseball, baseball.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the sport, but the summer can sometimes be a baseball and softball overload.

However, with the 12-and-under Midwest Plains Regional Tournament completed, there is a feeling around town that something big is on the horizon.

Even though the leaves have yet to change, when August creeps upon us, the feeling of opening kickoff starts to consume the Marion community.

“I tell you what, I’m ready for football,” Marion business owner Roger Hannaford III told me the other day.

He couldn’t be any clearer than that.

There is an indescribable feeling that comes with the end of summer to a football fan.

That promise of the non-stop gridiron action from Friday to Monday night can make a football fan downright giddy.

Here in Marion, it’s Friday nights that really get the town rocking.

“Football season is here,” MCTV football analyst Kevin Fruechting said. “It’s amazing how you shift focus. When Aug. 1 rolls around you gear up for two things: school and football.”

Fruechting also said the hardest part about the shift to football is Marion is the weather.

Marion High School football camp began Monday, and athletes found that out the hard way.

But they still sweated it out in 100-plus degree weather, because that’s what football players do.

Maybe that’s why America loves the sport so much: athletes, from Pee Wee League up to the pros, basically give up their bodies to entertain us.

The games are only once a week, and mean so much that tons of NFL fans change their church schedule around from September until January.

But like I said, it’s Friday nights that get the adrenaline flowing in Marion.

Six of them from now (MHS opens its season on the road at Lyons) the lights will shine on Warrior Stadium, the air will be just a little more crisp, and the grass will be as green as a freshly printed dollar bill.

Are you ready for some football?