Opening Day: For Love of The Game

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The 2012 Major League Baseball season will open with the christening of one ballpark, a 20th-anniversary celebration of the ballpark that changed everything, and the hope of a World Series that will end in October. MLB unveils schedule for 2012 season:

The Cardinals and Miami Marlins will begin the season with the opening of Florida's new ballpark on Wednesday, April 4, followed by six openers the next day.

The Marlins will host the inaugural game by replacing the legacy of the Orange Bowl in Little Havana, west of downtown Miami, with a venue that will seat 37,000 fans. New Marlins Ballpark will feature a retractable roof and offer spectacular views of downtown Miami, hence the 2012 team name change.

There will be six Thursday openers for the second time in as many seasons. Those games include Phillies at Pirates, Blue Jays at Indians, Red Sox at Tigers, Braves at Mets, Nationals at Cubs, and Dodgers at Padres. Vin Scully will be back in the broadcast booth that day, returning for an amazing 63rd season with the Dodgers.

Ten games, including nine more openers, are scheduled for Friday, April 6. The Orioles will be host that day to the Twins, and it will mark the 20th anniversary of Oriole Park at Camden Yards — the HOK-designed ballpark that began the now-common trend of retro-modern parks.

The first full slate of 15 games is scheduled for Saturday.

In addition to Baltimore, there are a number of important anniversaries that will be celebrated in 2012.

The Red Sox will commemorate Fenway Park's centennial on Friday, April 20, when they face the Yankees — 100 years to the date that Boston's American League club took on the New York Highlanders for the first game in the ballpark's storied history.

The April 10 home game against Pittsburgh will mark the 50th anniversary of the Dodgers' first game at Dodger Stadium.

The Mets and Astros will each celebrate the 50th anniversary of their existence.

April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day throughout MLB — honoring the Dodgers Hall of Famer who broke baseball's color barrier on that date in 1947.

The 83rd All-Star Game will be played on July 10 in Kansas City.

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 this 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, American Rhetoric: Movie Speech from Field of Dreams – "People Will Come" (video link). Go Twins!

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.