Opening Day in baseball is a tradition so deeply ingrained into our culture that even those who have no interest in baseball will observe it. No other sport has such an emphasis placed on the first game and in no other sport is the result really so non-essential to the outcome of the coming season. It’s a beautiful day, though, and is the one day out of a grueling, marathon season when everyone is on the same level. Everyone starts at 0 and everyone has the opportunity and the right to dream, even if only for that one day.
As a Tigers fan Opening Day has had an almost magical quality for me over the past several years. The boys may have went on to have a terrible season but on that one day I could allow myself to dream about baseball in October and what it would be like to hear my beloved Tigers announced as the champions of anything, even if it wasn’t the World Series.
Last year I got pumped up for Opening Day the same way that I always do – listening to Eye of the Tiger and allowing myself to dream. I was confident that day. There was a new leader in town and I was certain that the boys were going to finish above .500 for the first time in more years than I care to mention. I day dreamed for a few minutes about being in the World Series as I always do and then I shook off the fantasy and went to making bets with people that the Tigers would finally have a winning season. Most people laughed at me.
As the months passed and the Tigers continued to excel I had to listen to the unfaithful drone on and on about how it wouldn’t last, how it was a fluke. Someone said that to me at the end of June and I looked at them like they were crazy. I don’t think half of a season can constitute a fluke.
We all know the outcome of this story – the Tigers Cinderella season seemed to be swept aside as they failed to clinch the division title and limped into the playoffs with the wildcard spot. After losing the first game to the Yankees many so called “fans” wrote them off completely. And that’s when the magic came back to Motown. Winning the next 7 games in a row to be catapulted into the World Series was the best string of baseball that I’ve ever seen. Being there as they defeated the Yankees and then the A’s was an indescribable feeling and I count those two days amongst the best of my life.
The World Series did not turn out as planned and it was painful to get that far and to be denied. It was also better than the fans of 28 other teams got and for that I’m thankful. I went to the World Series and watched the team that I love more than most things and people in my life etch out a spot in history. How many people can say that? It no longer matters that they lost because they won so much – the won respect, they won national attention and they won back the formerly broken hearts of Detroiters.
Opening Day is in 8 days. This is a time to dream once again. It doesn’t matter if your team lost more games than anyone else last year or if your team won the World Series – everyone is equal again until that first pitch is thrown. Go ahead and dream. It’s part of what makes baseball so special.
This post is also hosted at Grasshopper Ramblings.
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