A life lesson from the majors

Smile, you'll live longer

The sport of baseball is said to convey many values for a life well lived -- patience, daring, sacrifice, grace under pressure, the list goes on and on. Now researchers at Detroit’s Wayne State University would like to add another entry: the importance of being happy.

Their method was disarmingly straightforward. Examine pictures of baseball players. Classify the players' smiles, from none to light-up-the-locker-room. Then see how long the players lived. Lo and behold, the players with the fullest smiles lived, on average, a full seven years longer.

It is admittedly hard to draw firm lessons. Were the players who smiled for their portraits truly happier? Does that moment, when the camera clicked, really say anything about the lives they led? Yet something is going on; seven years is a long time. A few modest conclusions seem beyond dispute. Spring is here. It’s warm. The Red Sox home opener finds them playing the Yankees. And, whatever happens, it couldn’t hurt to smile.