Sports: Opening Day, The Best Day Of The Year

That’s all you have to say is opening day, and everybody knows that means the first day of the regular season in baseball. This opening day, is even more significant, as baseball tries to have the first normal regular season in sports, since the pandemic began. It all begins on Thursday, and for me, this is the best day of the year. I know that pro football has supplanted baseball, as the most popular sport, in America, but there is only one sport, that is called our National Past Time. There is still nothing like it. It should be declared a national holiday, and kids should be off school, to either see the games in person or watch them on TV. This year many kids are off, thanks to the Easter break. This year baseball is doing it right, with all 30 teams starting on the same day. Even though around here, it will be far from a spring day, you know the good weather is about to begin. The days will be getting longer, and the wonderful days of summer are just around the corner. There will be that nice secure feeling, that you are about to settle in, to that long, and beautiful 162 game season, that was so missed last year. Yes, the 60 game season was better than nothing, but just barely. Sixty games of regular season baseball, well, it’s just not right. It seemed it was over in an instant, and baseball was very fortunate, that the best two teams made it through the expanded playoffs. This year with the exception of the 7 inning doubleheader, we are totally back to the way things use to be in baseball. The playoffs are the same this year, as they were before Covid, with 5 teams getting in, from each league. As of now, there will be no DH in the National League. Hopefully baseball will be able to maneuver through this long regular season, with no major Covid problems.

I have been following baseball, and the Pittsburgh Pirates since 1958. I will write about the 2021 version of the Pirates on Wednesday. With all those statistics, baseball helped hone my math skills, which in turn, helped me to get into veterinary school. I played the game right through the 60’s until I became obsessed with golf. Baseball to me, is still the best sport to watch, and follow, and by far the most interesting. The most unique thing about the game, is that there is no clock. In order to win a baseball game, a team has to accomplish getting the last out of the game. There have been many times, where teams have never been able to do that. There is no running the clock out in baseball. Baseball is by far the most historic game we have, beginning organized play in 1876, with the birth of the National League. The game has had its ups and downs, through out history, just as America has. It was the No. 1 game in America for almost 100 years, until football took over in the late 1960’s. It is the sport that has it all. Even though there is the team concept, you have that mano a mano confrontation between the batter and the pitcher. Baseball has more strategy in one game than football does in an entire season. Baseball is the only sport whose head man is called a manager. The game and the team needs to be managed, not coached. This week, we will feel as close to normal as we have been in over a year, when opening day arrives. Let’s hope that America’s Pastime, is just the beginning of those normal feelings, as we push past this pandemic.