Slater Slant on Baseball
July 4 is traditionally regarded as the nation's major national holiday.
Baseball fans consider opening day of the major league season a close second.
There's something magic about opening day. Much like everyone thinks Irish on St. Patrick's day, opening day is special even to those who couldn't name the Most Valuable players in American and National leagues a season ago., or tell the difference between George Brett and Bret Favre.
It's more than just the re-birth of real baseball after a five-month slumber. It's the start of spring and the explosion of optimism.
Fans of the 100-game losers of a year ago are confident their team will challenge for a post-season game in 2023. And fans of those who lost in the first round of post-season are confident their team in late October will be hoisting a world's champion banner.
There is no room for pessimism, no time to worry about inflation, the stock market, or our nation's southern border when Kansas City opens it season at home March 30 against the Minnesota Twins. This is a day of excitement for young and old. Pessimism has no home on this day.
It's the day the office boy calls in sick, only to run into the office manager in the concessions line. The manager only smiles. He once was young himself, and all is good on this glorious day.
Last season's .215 hitter is sure to reach .300 this year. And the pitcher who went 4-15 will be 16-3. There is no room for doubters, only dreamers today.
For some, it may be their 50th or even 60th opening day. For others, it may be their first. For some, it may be their last. But there is no talk of mortality on this day -- only of optimism and victory.
As Yankee legend Yogi Berra once said (or his press agent later delivered), "A home opener is always exciting, no matter if it's at home or on the road."
Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio remarked a home opener is something a player looks forward to "like a birthday party when you were a kid. You always think something wonderful is going to happen."
And as you learn of many interesting legends and myths in Bob Ford's "History, Mystery and Lore," countless articles detail how opening day baseball has its own legendary happenings. President William Howard Taft was the first of 10 chief executives to throw out a first pitch on opening day, April 14, 1910.
One president took time to throw out two first pitches. That was Harry S Truman in 1950 -- and he threw one left-handed, one right-handed. Truman was one who found humor in his limited athletic abilities. "My eyesight was so bad I couldn't play baseball," he would tell friends, "so they made me the umpire."
One season opener was forfeited -- due to a deluge of snowballs. It happened (where else?) in New York when the Giants were forced to forfeit to the Phillies in 1909 because of snowballs being fired on the Polo Grounds by fans.
Van Meter, Iowa, schoolboy pitching sensation Bob Feller is the only major leaguer to throw an opening day no-hitter, against the White Sox in 1940. He was 21.
Legendary Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators pitched shutouts in nine of his 14 opening day starts. One was a 1-0 win in 15 innings against the Philadelphia A's. (No one apparently bothered with a pitch count.)
Yes, another opening day has arrived -- spring and optimism share the air. As Thomas Boswell has explained, "Why Time Begins on Opening Day."
Play ball!
