Today is opening day for Major League Baseball, which is both a religious and an American holiday.
Let’s face it, God is a baseball fan. You don’t believe me? Here’s the proof. When baseball season begins, the days get longer, the temperature get warmer, flowers bloom, and trees turn green. If that is not a message from our maker, I don’t know what is.
Remember what God himself said in a movie.
Baseball is America’s game, it is the sport that most closely reflects the American Dream that freedom gives every American the opportunity for prosperity and success, no matter where they started. We have the dream that our family and children will be better off than we were as long as they work hard. That is also the dream of baseball, especially on opening day. What the team did last year gets thrown out, and players who work hard can go from bust to boom. Teams can go from lousy one year and make the World Series the next. Heck like the 1969 NY Mets, teams can go from lousy to World Champions in the same season (but of course that took some extra-help from above).
Today, Opening Day is the most optimistic of days because before the first pitch is thrown, every team is in first place. And we believe that every untested rookie has the opportunity to be better off than the veterans who were on the team before them.
Baseball is a game most of us played growing up. Sure we played football also, but when you watch the NFL on TV most of the players seem like they are seven feet tall, four hundred pounds and could crush a car with one hand. If we found ourselves in the middle of an NFL game most of us would receive major (if not fatal) injuries. Baseball players seem like “regular guys.” While watching a MLB game many fans believe that given a few months to train they could play on that level.
This is a sport of individuality. Sure football and basketball has individual stars but those stars are more dependent on team play. A great quarterback performance can be ruined by a lousy offensive line, or a lousy defense. But a great hitter on a tear can carry a team for weeks, so could a great pitcher or two. A hot player’s effect on the rest of their team is greater than in other sports. While there are “team plays” such as shifts, hit and runs, double steals etc., when it comes right down to it, most of the time baseball is a battle between one pitcher and one hitter.
And just like any little American kid can become president, any MLB player can be the hero. Many pitching superstars have never pitched a no-hitter, but many mediocre players have. How many “non-stars” have delivered the game winning hit, or gotten hot during the playoffs or world series. That is the dream of America’s game, the every-man game.
Baseball is a game of patience and balance. Taking the first pitch, setting up a hitter, playing closer to the line, the catcher framing the pitch etc., more than on any other sport this is a thinking person’s game.
Some people believe there are four seasons; Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring, but they are misinformed. In America there are two seasons, winter and baseball season.
And we all know that God is a baseball fan. You don’t believe me? Here’s the proof. When baseball season begins, the days get longer, the temperature get warmer, flowers bloom, and trees turn green. If that is not a message from our maker, I don’t know what is.
BTW for you liberal Hillary supporters remember this, she was a loyal Chicago Cubs fan until she decided to run for the NY senate seat when she declared as a NY Yankees fan. That is a major flip flop. If you are the fan of one team your entire life, you don’t change unless the team moves. There are still people who grew up as Brooklyn Dodgers fans that will never utter the name of formerDodger owner Walter O’Malley (except in curses) because he moved the team to Los Angeles. When your team moves that bond of fandom is broken and you are free to pick another team. But only a liberal flip-flopper would do it for political reasons.
Opening day of the greatest sport ever created by man should be national religious holiday. Today is the day where all teams are created equal, where all teams are endowed by their general manager with life in the big leagues, liberty to make good plays, and the pursuit of a pennant.
Happy Opening Day and as the saying goes:
