March Happiness: Opening Day
When I woke up this morning, I suddenly felt confused about the world around me. The sun was a little brighter, the birds chirping a bit louder, but I could not figure out what had changed. Everything just felt… better. Then, I thought about the dream I had just woken up from and I found clarity.
It was October, 2015, and I’m sitting in my dorm room with new friends I had just met after moving into college. Sitting in my bed, I was watching Daniel Murphy hit yet another home run against the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series which was a memory worth a smile. Then I remembered what made today, of all days, so much better.
A day better than Christmas, my birthday, or any other day, is on the horizon. Opening Day for the MLB is in four days. Four!
As much as baseball makes me miserable, and, more often than not, it does, the feeling of butterflies before that first real day of baseball to kick off the spring will never go away.
There are very few exceptions to the rule that the MLB has the best Opening Day in all professional sports. Week one of the NFL season is a time for celebration, but the end of the summer looms over the day. It has produced special moments like the Jets win over the Cowboys on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2011 terrorist attacks, but for the most part, nothing can come close to matching the aura of Opening Day or the magic that takes over the sport from late March to early November.
This year is different too. Instead of starting the season with a one-off game in Japan or something like that, every single team will be in action on March 29. It is going to be like the first day of the NCAA tournament, but with baseball. Even better.
It sounds cliche when you say it, but there is no more magical sport than baseball. For every day from March to November there is always a baseball game on to take your mind off things and escape for a while. If you are invested in it, it can make you the happiest person on the planet or miserable. And I love every minute of it. Starting at 1:10 p.m. on March 29, the world is going to get a little bit better for the next few months. I can’t wait.
