Baseball's Opening Day is the Best Day Of the Year!

Originally posted last April (2013) but still applicable to tomorrow's Opening Day:

Holidays aside, baseball’s opening day (tomorrow) is the best day of the year. The technical end of winter may come in March, but the unofficial first day of spring is here and baseball fans across the nation are feeling hope again.

Just as life begins anew in spring, so do the hopes of millions of baseball fans. As Dave Cameron of ESPN the Magazine aptly reminds us, “there is always next year” is the baseball lie that keeps giving, yet it is a lie that we enthusiastically accept and it is the promise that draws us to Opening Day each year.

Why? Because baseball is a game in which anything can happen. With the newly created extra wild card playoff spot, any fan, even a Cubs fan, can hold the hope of a magical summer. Don’t believe me? How many of the baseball writers who made predictions in 2012 foresaw the Baltimore Orioles or Oakland A’s battling in the playoffs or saw the San Francisco Giants opening the 2013 season as defending champs?  [Or the Red Sox winning the 2013 World Series] Answer: none.

Just as life begins again in the spring, Opening Day of a 162-game season is like reading the introduction of a great novel whose plot is loaded with twists and turns and whose ending is often unforgettable.

Even still, this alone hardly captures the magic of the game. It is something much deeper. For many of us, the game reminds of a simpler time in our lives. It stirs the ghosts of our childhoods. We see ourselves for who we were and what we hoped to be. It’s the American Dream in 9 innings, 27 outs. It is memories of pick-up games with childhood friends, playing catch with dad, and conversations with mom on car rides home from Little League and high school victories and defeats. It is the fun of emulating your favorite childhood players. For me it was Mike Stanley and Bill Mueller, unconventional favorites but I loved their professionalism and poise in clutch situations. They are memories of a glorious past that you come to cherish.

That familial connection is particularly poignant. For me, it was my first game at Fenway Park in 1991 sitting next to my grandmother, a diehard Red Sox fan in box seats on the first base side of Fenway Park watching rookie Bob Zupcic hit a game winning grand slam over the Green Monster. Age 7, she patiently explained to me how the game worked and importance of each play. She was a great teacher and would have been proud to see me attend college on a baseball scholarship.

After the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, I remember driving to the cemetery to plant a Red Sox championship flag on her grave only to find a sea of graves adorned with Red Sox flags, pennants, and bumper stickers. While the best part of baseball means something different to everyone, in so many ways it is a reminder of a common bond we share with each other.

At other times, it is simply an escape to a slower pace, simplicity, and peace. During the most turbulent times of my political troubles last spring, it was the comfort of my family, friends, and the ballpark that guided me through. The perfection of the diamond was a lifeline. I could never dream of giving the game as much as it has given me.

However, baseball also transcends each of us individually. In so many ways it represents the story of America. Just as American society has progressed and changed, so has the game, mostly for the better, sometimes not. The game has enjoyed a boon and massive expansion of its talent pool as it eliminated racial barriers, almost doubled in size as it increased playoff eligibility from 2 teams to ten, eliminated dynasties by creating free agency, and increased competitiveness through revenue-sharing and luxury taxes that squeezed payrolls towards and mean. Yet the game has also struggled with the scourge of the steroid era that has undermined its purity. So too has America struggled with racial, economic, and ethical challenges on its continuing journey to “a more perfect union.”

Many have persuasively and perhaps accurately argued that football has overtaken baseball in popularity but nothing will ever be more synonymous with summer and America than baseball. Nor will any game be quite so personal. Baseball is America’s pastime, plain and simple.

Happy Opening Day and to fans everywhere, good luck!