Opening Day and Why I love Baseball

Is it human interest or just me who wants to go into a store or restaurant every time I see a sign that reads Grand Opening. Is it the excitement of something new or just the curiosity of seeing what store A has that store B doesn’t have. I think it’s more the excitement; we’re trained to like new things from the day we are born and its part of our DNA. It’s why they are creating a PlayStation 4 or a Wii 2, we get tired of the same thing. It’s also why there are some 14 Land of the Lost movies, we all enjoyed the first one as kids but that got old after the 20th viewing and now they keep making new ones, sure we don’t watch it anymore for entertainment, but many of us have kids who watch it and we want them to have the same experiences we had as kids, at least I assume so because I don’t have kids.

This is also why Opening Day is so exciting as a Baseball fan. The newness, not just for the baseball season, but it’s also the beginning of spring and warm weather, it’s an exciting time of the year and baseball takes full advantage of it. It doesn’t matter if you root for the Evil Empire known as the New York Yankees or the lowly Nationals, you go into the season with hope and visions of the leader of your team hoisting the World Series Trophy over his head in the fall. Even Cubs fans find a way to pick themselves up off the mat and give themselves hope again, which is amazing for two reasons, 1) they haven’t won a Championship in over 100 years and 2) its still bitterly cold this time of the year in Chicago.

Now some people may say how can you get so excited about baseball? They have cheaters and are only concerned with individual statistics and the games are too long and too slow. I’m not denying these accusations, but baseball offers something that football, basketball, and hockey cant, it has memories. The other three sports price the average fan out. Baseball was cheap enough that families could go to the game together, or even groups that you belong to could afford to take everyone. I remember every summer going to Wrigley Field with my Grandparents and my cousin Jeff, we seemed to always go to Phillies v. Cubs games, my cousin and my grandparents were Cubs fans and I was the lone Phillies fan. We saw Cubs greats like Shawn Dunston, Andre Johnson, Mark Grace, and Ryne Sandberg. When we started going to the games in the 80’s it was before Wrigley had lights so we always went to day games, which is something I think teams need to go back to. I remember one game my favorite player Mike Schmidt was not playing for the Phillies, but I swear to this day he was sitting behind me. But it was always fun, the last year we went to Wrigley we say the 1990 All-Star workout, which included the Home Run Derby. That was one of the coolest experiences of my life, we had real baseball cards made for ourselves by Donruss. I also spent a lot of time at The Vet in Philadelphia, watching my Phillies lose, except in 1993 when they made it to the World Series for the first time in my life. In college my fraternity did a mixer where we took the girls to Camden Yards to see a Red Sox v. Orioles game, that’s still one of the best mixers we did while I was in the fraternity.

Just like every other kid, I grew up collecting baseball cards, I have boxes upon boxes of them and even today I still pick up a pack and it takes me back to when I was a kid. Although I don’t know how I used to eat that piece of gum. The other great memory of baseball for me was playing Little League ball. I love this game because for some reason it takes me back to those simple days as a kid. One of my favorite memories form little league was the first time I got to pitch in a game. My Dad was my coach and he didn’t want to show favoritism, which I thought was why parents coach their kids. My dad took me out in the back yard and drew a square box on the fence, he paced out where the mound would be, and put a bucket of balls next to me. He told me if I could put 30 balls into the square consecutively he would let me pitch. I sat out there and over the next 15-20 minutes I smoked 30 balls into that fence. The next game our team was holding a 1-run lead in the last inning, my dad walked out to the mound to make a switch and called me in from the outfield. Now sure we were playing on a field with no lights and the sun was going down so it was a strategy move, hoping it would take me enough time to warm up that they would call the game. I was too excited, I got up there and threw a couple warm up pitches and was ready. I don’t remember exactly how it played out but I know we needed two outs and I got them, Game Over. My career pitching stats are still to this day 0.00 ERA 2/3rds innings pitched. It was also fun just getting friends together and playing homerun derby and who doesn’t remember throwing the ball with their old man.

But back to the topic, Opening Day, every year at the beginning of the MLB regular season I am reminded of these memories along with the memories of past seasons, like the year Sosa and McGuire went after Roger Maris’ single season home run record, or when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak, or any season your team makes a September run for the playoffs and walks off with the World Series Trophy a month later. The anticipation for this day is too much sometimes. I live in Washington now and the Nationals are terrible, but I still want to go to Opening Day. The fanfare of the day is too much sometimes. We get to the park early and set up a little tailgate and throw a few beers back, then we go into the park and everything is clean, the grass is freshly cut and the ball park dogs are cooking. I like to get there and go to the outfield during batting practice and try to shag some homers, but then you get to your seat and the Ceremony begins. Someone walks out to sing the National Anthem and 40k plus stand and listen, while a giant American flag sprawls out over the outfield. Then the ceremonial first pitch is thrown, going to a Nationals game means it could be the President, but there’s always the Mayor when he isn’t available. Then the PA announcer introduces the starting lineup and the home team takes the field. Over the next couple of hours you get to take in the boys of summer playing a game that takes most of us back to our childhood and all the memories that go along with that come flooding back. Winter’s over and Summer is almost here, Let’s Play Ball.

Season predictions:

NL Division Champs : Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, Wild Card: Braves
AL Division Champs: Yankees, Twins, Rangers, Wild Card: Rays
World Series: Phillies over Yankees