The MLB season is upon us once again.
Baseball season is upon us. Sunburns, sunflower seeds and Cardinals Devil Magic will once again take center stage as the boys of summer will give us 180 wonderful days full of diving catches and jaw-dropping home runs.
Although Opening Day was technically Sunday, I’ll offer a retort: No it wasn’t.
Opening Day is Monday, with 24 teams playing their first game of the season from early afternoon to ten at night.
My blind homerism has pegged the Baltimore Orioles as World Series Champs since the Kansas City Royals lifted the trophy last fall, and that’s just all part of the magic. I know I’m likely wrong, but I couldn’t care less.
Baseball is back.
Here are the top five moments about Opening Day:
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5: Every team has a chance
With the exception of the Philadelphia Phillies whose talent level is somewhere between the beginning part of Major League and The Bad News Bears, every team has a chance to do something great every season.
Every year, no matter how loaded a team looks on paper, they have to go and prove it 162 times.
You can believe that truly “This is our year!”
And no one can blame you.
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4: New look teams
Opening Day offers a chance to look at how new acquisitions will pan out for teams across the league.
The Chicago Cubs added Ben Zobrist and Jason Heyward. Zack Greinke signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and for some reason, they won’t go back to the uniforms of Craig Counsell’s days. They decided that apparently cape-looking things on the shoulder are in. The new jerseys are terrible.
But that’s the point, we get to see it all unfold. On the field.
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3: The pageantry
Every team puts out their best everything: Ushers, anthem singer, starting pitcher, relievers AND THE BEST HOT DOG VENDORS.
Side note: Nationals Park has wonderful pretzel dogs in the left field corner. I may or may not have eaten five in one sitting.
Teams roll out the red carpet, and fans get to break out their caps from the back of their closet for the first time since they threw it to the back in frustration because the Orioles can’t pitch their way out of a paper bag.
So when you see someone with a baseball jersey on throughout campus, give them a hug.
Unless it’s a New York Yankees jersey, at which point you’re encouraged to boo them.
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2: Avoiding responsibilities
Every single person has a story about how they ditched actual life to watch ball players play catch for two-and-a-half hours.
It’s so glorious.
Some skip work and some skip school, but we all find a way to watch our favorite teams, somehow, someway.
My roommate and I may, or may not, have plans to skip an afternoon class in order to watch the Orioles play on Monday.
And mom and dad, if you’re reading this, I’m most certainly going to class tomorrow.
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1: How can you not be romantic about baseball?
In one of the most criminally underrated movies ever, The Rookie, Jimmy Morris walks up to his teammate Brooks with a huge smile on his face. In a cramped Triple-A locker room, Morris can’t shake his grin.
He says, “Brooks, you know what we get to do today? We get to play baseball.”
So let’s play baseball.
@AGill072
ag079513@ohio.edu
