Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season is a magical day. Many people believe it should be a National Holiday as thousands or maybe millions of people find a way to get out of work to watch it, either in person or on television or other smart device, and thousands, or maybe millions more, find a way to watch or hear it while supposedly working.
On Thursday afternoon, as I sat watching the New York Yankees host the Baltimore Orioles in the opening game, on American soil, of the 2019 season, in the comfort of my home on my wide screen, high definition, smart television, within fifteen feet of my refrigerator, stocked with any beverage or snack that I could want, with my feet up in my recliner, with our heat pump keeping the temperature at a perfect 68 degrees, I wondered, why would anyone go out to watch Opening Day?
Why would anyone pay exorbitant prices, pushed higher by the fact that it is Opening Day, fight the traffic, search for a parking place, pay a ridiculous price just to leave your car, spend six or seven dollars for a hot dog that had been cooked too long, seven or eight dollars for a beer that might be warm, four dollars for a bottle of water that costs 20 cents elsewhere, sit in an uncomfortable seat, perhaps surrounded by foul mouthed drunks, to watch a game that even the people that manage it think is too long and not full of enough excitement to attract you to the park, when you could have stayed at home and watched it on television? Why would you want to sit in that uncomfortable seat, in a lousy location, miles from the field because all the comfortable seats, near the field and facing in the right direction, are saved for season ticket holders?
Why would you want to sit through what soccer and football fans have the nerve to call a boring, too slow game only to have the 6’4”, 300 pound, drunken fan in front of you stand up and block your view of the winning run sliding across the plate when, if you had stayed at home, you could have seen the play in living, high definition color, replayed from every possible angle from the comfort of your recliner with all the aforementioned amenities?
Someone once said about an election issue, It’s the Economy, STUPID. Why? Because it’s BASEBALL and it’s OPENING DAY!
With all the inconvenience and uncomfortableness, the thrill of coming up that ramp to field level where the greenest grass in the world grows, on a superbly manicured field, of precise dimensions, where 50 superb athletes will line up on the base lines for the pregame ceremony, hear the cry of ‘Play Ball’ that will usher in seven months of intense competition in the greatest sport of them all, makes it more than worthwhile.
What little boy that has ever picked up a baseball and bat has not dreamed of someday taking his place on that field? What father, after realizing his dream will never come true, does not dream of his own little leaguer becoming the next Mookie Betts or Mike Trout?
I have seen Opening Day in many Major League Ballparks, recently in such far apart locations as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field and the much-maligned home of the Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field. I have seen teams coming off terrible seasons and teams that have won their Division the previous years.
No matter the home team’s performance the previous year or their fans’ expectations for the coming year, nothing can take away from the excitement and pageantry that is the start of another year. It is a magical day, not only for the fans, but for the players and coaches that perform on that day.
So, forget the critics who say the game must be changed to make it more attractive. Forget the purists, like me, who hate to see it changed in any way. Forget the changes that are being considered for the future.
Just remember that baseball season is the best time of the year and Opening Day is the best day of the year and that nothing they can do intended to make it better will ever end America’s long love affair with the National Pastime.