This is baseball week! Opening day will be here in a matter of months and hours, not months and weeks. It’s amazingly amazing, isn’t it?
Here are five things I am most excited about for Opening Day.
More: Opening day schedule, starting time for all 30 teams
Sounds
I am ridiculously excited for the lucky people who are in the stands on Opening Day. Baseball writers and fans have woven poetry for decades about listening to the crack of the bat or the thrill of the crowd or the roar of the crowd. But without listening to the sounds of those in the summer – it’s not the same as just watching on TV or streaming on your phone – really vindicates “absent-minded fodder”.
For me, this year I will play the first game – and the first one I will have since spring training in 2020, a few days before everything stops – will be April 8. I’m working positively on the idea of a one-time listening again with the bat, gloves and fans making baseball music. Love that mask is not covering your ears, right? Here’s hoping we all get the chance later.
Familiar Faces, Familiar Locations
Buster Posey will be behind the plate for the Giants on Opening Day. Lorenzo Cain will rotate in the outfield for the Brewers. Jordan Hicks will be in the Cardinals’ bullpen, hoping for his chance to help St. Louis to their first win of the season with a dominant late-inning performance. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
All three of those players completed the 2020 season for COVID reasons. Posey and his wife adopted only twins. Hicks is a type 1 diabetic. Cain cited family reasons for going out after playing five games. Baseball is better when it is safe for players like Cain, Hicks and Posey to perform. We’re back to normal, folks. It is more exciting than real baseball about playing.
Those three are not the only players, who are definitely back. Ryan Zimmerman dropped out of the 2020 season, and he is crushing the ball this spring – he has six homers and is averaging 4 .80 in 25 AB. Some pitchers are more entertaining – or effective – than Marcus Strowman, and he is back in the Mets’ rotation. Michael Kopch would damage his triple-digit fastball for the White Sox in a big league game for the first time since 2018; He missed 2019 with Tommy John surgery and 2020 due to COVID. David Price will play the regular-season innings for the Dodgers for the first time.
It would be fantastic to see these players again on the field. Here is the complete list of players who sat out in 2020.
Familiar Faces, New Spaces
So far, Mets fans have seen plenty of spring training pictures and videos of Francisco Lindor in his new uniform. Also with Cardinal fans and Nolan Arenado, Dodgers fans, and White Sox fans with Trevor Bauer and Liam Hendrix.
Looking at these guys seems to take the field in sports, though? This is where it is real, not for fans of those teams. That’s why while it sinks for Braves fans that they have to deal with Lindor this summer, for Brewers fans that Arenado will likely have to double the line with his Gold Glove and for paddle fans, As he realizes there is no break after facing Walker Buehler and Clayton Kersch in the first two games of the three-match series. And that is when the rest of us get to see new fan bases, they fall in love with new stars.
Shohi Ohtni
He’s going to hit a home run on Opening Day, folks. Mark it down.
Look, spring training stats don’t mean a ton. I get it But I’m going to give you spring training stats anyway: 28 In spring this spring, Ohtani has five houses and is batting. .571 with 1.771 OPS. Then, spring. Sure.
But he is healthy, and he is spraying at home.
Want a Dark-Horse MVP candidate in AL? You can do worse than pick Ohtani, and I can’t wait to see him park above the fence on Opening Day. Heck, it wouldn’t shock me if he went all Tuffy Rhodes on the White Sox in Game 1.
Is wonder
Ah, Tuffy Rhodes. He had all five career home runs in 107 career games topped Opening Day 1994, and then went on to pop three in that one game – from Dwight Gooden – in his first three at-bats. Even now, a few decades later, it is shocking. Rhodes played 117 more games in his big league career, and struck out five more homers, before moving to Japan, where he became a legendary slogan.
A game of baseball that has been played since the 1800s, and it still finds a way to surprise and delight us on a daily basis. I can’t wait to see what Opening Day 2021 is in store.
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