Opening Day: For Love Of The Game

Baseball’s crazy COVID Season of cardboard cutout fans and recorded crowd noise is over. The Los Angeles Dodgers finally figured out how to get out of their own way and to win a World Championship in 2020.

The long winter of our COVID-19 discontent is over. The “boys of summer” are back playing in front of real fans this year, albeit with COVID-19 safety precautions in place, so get your vaccination and wear your damn mask!

Today is Opening Day, otherwise known as the most beautiful phrase in the English language, with a full slate of games scheduled.

My Minnesota Twins, the “Bomba Squad,” returned to form last year, winning the AL Central again. Unfortunately for Twins fans, we can now understand all too well what it was like for Boston Red Sox fans all of those years losing to the hated New York Yankees before the “curse of the Bambino” was finally broken in 2004.

The Twins now own the longest postseason losing streak in the history of North American pro sports at 18 games. In 2020, the Minnesota Twins were swept out the best-of-three Wild Card Series by the Houston Astros. Thirteen of these 18 consecutive postseason losses have come against the Yankees (2004 ALDS, 2009 ALDS, 2010 ALDS, 2017 Wild Card Game, 2019 ALDS), three have come against the Athletics (2006 ALDS), and now two against the Astros.

I’m not aware of any “curse” story between the Twins and the Yankees, so how do they end this nightmare?

CBS Sports reports:

The new season starts Thursday, April 1, and the league is returning to a full, 162-game schedule in 2021. All 30 MLB teams will be in action April 1, and there are some intriguing matchups on the Opening Day schedule.

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And yes, there will be fans. MLB had no in-person attendance during the 2020 regular season as the league played a 60-game campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic. All 15 ballparks hosting Opening Day games on April 1 will allow at least limited attendance. You can find every team’s early season attendance plan here.

Some preseason predictions:

Sports Illustrated’s predictions:

AL
East: NY Yankees
Central: Chicago White Sox
West: Los Angeles Angels

NL
East: Atlanta Braves
Central: St. Louis Cardinals
West: Los Angeles Dodgers

Baseball America’s predictions:

AL
East: NY Yankees
Central: Chicago White Sox
West: Houston Astros

NL
East: Atlanta Braves
Central: St. Louis Cardinals
West: Los Angels Dodgers

You know what they say about preseason predictions: “that’s why we play the game.” 162 games is a long season. Anything can happen, and usually does. COVID-19 is not done with us. We’ll see what happens.

Opening Day remains to this day an almost religious experience for me. It is the one day of the year when every team is tied for first place and everything is possible. The failures of the past season are forgotten and forgiven, and the hopes and dreams of every fan are that “maybe this year our team will win the pennant and go to the World Series.” There is a sense of possibility and hopeful optimism, a sense of renewal and rebirth with the coming of Opening Day.

Anticipation of Opening Day begins in late winter and grows stronger with each passing day. To this day, the four sweetest words in the English language are for me “pitchers and catchers report” to Spring Training. Childhood memories of playing Little League baseball and sandlot baseball can be triggered by the faintest scent of fresh cut grass on a warm spring day, the smell of a sun-warmed leather baseball glove, and the smell of popcorn and hot dogs wafting from a nearby vendor’s cart.

Despite the many failings of the asterisk* era of baseball, it has not diminished my love for the game. Nor can anyone ever take from me my memories of some of baseball’s greatest legends who I had the distinct privilege to see play, or my memories of some of the greatest games ever played which I can replay over again in my mind as if it were only yesterday.

James Earl Jones (as Terrence Mann) in the movie Field of Dreams said it best:

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America is ruled by it like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Let’s play ball!