Nolan Arenado knows the perfect way to combat offseason baseball withdrawals

Opening Day is 71 days away. There are 24 days until Feb. 19, the first day that pitchers and catchers begin reporting to Spring Training. In other words: We're getting closer to real, honest-to-goodness baseball, but it's still the offseason.

Players cope with baseball withdrawals in different ways -- some tour the country in a van, some hang out on the set of Emmy-winning sitcoms. Others keep it low-key and go finishing for barracudas. Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado has a genius way to emulate the real thing.

At RockiesFest, Arenado was asked, "How do you survive in the offseason, when you're not playing baseball?"

His answer: "Well, I play Wiffle Ball."

Why didn't we think of that? A bit of plastic bat on plastic ball action is exactly what we need. Do you think he has the Rockies' franchise-record hit streak in Wiffle Ball too?

Other items on Arenado's offseason survival list:

• Golfing
• Spending time at the beach
• Avoiding snow
• Practicing his two-time Gold Glove Award winning defense:

• Counting down the days until Opening Day by carving notches into the walls of his home.

OK, maybe that last one is us. But Arenado is certainly ready for Spring Training: "I'm getting antsy and I'm getting really excited to come back. … I've always questioned going to play Winter League, because I love to play," he said.  

Us too, Nolan. Us too.