Working out at the Austin YMCA last week, I turned on MLB Network to hear baseball journalist Tom Verducci talking about the Chicago Cubs historic run to the 2016 World Series and the book he wrote on the subject.

I bought the book on Audible the next day, started listening and thought, “Spring is finally in the air.”

Forgive me if it took a long time to catch up to the calendar’s first day of spring: March 20. But the start of the baseball season — which starts with four games on Sunday — makes spring feel more legit.

Verducci’s book, “The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team and Breaking the Curse,” reminds me what I love about baseball: It’s as much a geek’s game as it is a jock’s.

Sure, the game takes raw talent, but there is so much more than that.

Baseball has endless series of numbers to get lost in — average, wins above replacement, on-base plus slugging — and endless intriguing stories.

It’s also perhaps the most random and difficult sport in which to build a baseball team. In football, the draft is the big ticket to future stars. A No. 1 pick is highly coveted. In baseball, first-round picks are far from a sure thing, and it’s possible to catch lightning in almost any round.

Hall of fame catcher Mike Piazza went in the 62nd round, and 11-time Gold Glove winner Keith Hernandez went in the 42nd. Future hall of famer Albert Pujols went in the 13th round.

And everyone goes nuts of NFL star Tom Brady being drafted in the sixth round.

In baseball, you just never know.

First-round talents can go bust and never make the big leagues.

Then just look at pitchers like Rick Ankiel, Daniel Bard, Ricky Romero and Dontrelle Willis who’ve come down with the fabled “Steve Blass disease” where they inexplicably lost the ability to throw strikes.

So when the season opens Sunday, we can all watch eagerly wondering for what stories will unfold this year.