Opening Day Special

It all begins here. This marks the beginning of the international lobbying effort to get Opening Day declared a holiday. Maybe this is the one thing in the universe that we can get Democrats and Republicans to agree upon. When it is Opening Day in your Major League city there is no school and anyone can skip work without penalty in order to attend the game live or stay home and watch it on TV.

Contact your Congressman. Get it going. Make it a red, white and blue day. Do it up right like Cincinnati, which harkens back to the days of yesteryear and throws a parade every April.

Some will call this effort frivolous, but that’s exactly the point. We can use a holiday that celebrates something simple and pure like baseball instead of a holiday that commemorates the end of war, or some famous dude’s birthday, or a day of national give-thanks. Nothing wrong with those. But let’s just have one holiday that celebrates play.

I haven’t always been lucky enough to be living in, or even visiting a city on the day its Major League season began. One year I was in Texas to write about the NCAA Final Four in San Antonio, but had the foresight to purchase a ticket to the Texas Rangers’ opener in Arlington. I was up very late at night on the Monday of the college hoops championship, jumped in the car early the next morning and drove a few hours directly to The Ballpark at Arlington in time for the afternoon first pitch.

The problem was I was so sleepy that I had trouble keeping my eyes open during the game. I’m sure I dozed through a couple of outs here and there. But it was great being there.

The Final Four and Opening Day often collide. A few years ago I was attending a breakfast on the Monday morning of the NCAA championship game in Detroit with my eye on the clock. The plan was to dash from the equivalent of dessert to U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago in time for the first pitch of the White Sox season opener. I was thinking I might miss an inning.

But I was rescued by the weather. It snowed in Chicago, postponing the opener a day. If you will notice many teams schedule an open day after Opening Day, just in case Opening Day gets weathered out and becomes a closed day. That’s what happened this time. Figuring we would be freezing in the stands that next day, my friend and I bundled up in snowmachine suits, knit hats and gloves. Only the sun came out, all the snow melted, and we were too warm.

Last year I hit Opening Day in Cincinnati at the Great American Ballpark. Cincinnati prides itself on being the birthplace of professional baseball, dating back to the 1870s with the Red Stockings. They like to do Opening Day up right and remind people how special it is. They did have a parade and I am sure a youngster or two had an excused absence from school to see the game between the Reds and the Milwaukee Brewers.

By the way, the Reds won that game on a walk-off, three-run homer by catcher Ramon Hernandez. Where I come from they call that icing on the cake. Sounds like a holiday in the making to me.

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