Opening Day!
Baseball is back in town!
Yes, our Buccos have already played six games and wear a 2-4 record, yet, there remains something electric and fresh about your home team's opening game!
This afternoon, PNC Park will have the red-white-and blue bunting; "Opening Series 2015" will be painted on the field; they'll announce the line-ups and players will trot out and stand along the baselines; the hot dog buns will still be fresh (try one in late August...); and all will be well.
Baseball is a glorious game. Perhaps it's because of the symmetric structure of the game, the fact that there is no clock and games can go on for hours upon hours. The pace of the game is easy lending itself to conversation on the history and the stories that mark an individual fan's journey with the game. Perhaps it's because for many of us this was the game we played and watched; these were the cards we collected and traded and saved; these heroes we mimicked --- how many of us did the Willie Stargell bat windmill in the games we played in backyards and Little Leagues? The game stretches over the wonderful times of spring and summer and into autumn. Timeless is the ache from a painful loss (Franciso Cabrera, 1992, anyone?) and the exhiliration of a huge victory (October 1, 2013, Wild Card Playoff win, anyone?).
Another season of baseball along the Allegheny River begins! Glorious!
Is there anything better than day baseball played on a grass field with the sun shining?
I'll be there today and I'll think back to Opening Days when I got out of school to attend the game.
I'll refect on my first game when I was a kid and was amazed at how big everything was and how I was a bit anxious to stand up because of how high it seemed we were sitting.
I'll remember collecting "Town Talk" bread wrappers to receive a free ticket to the game.
I'll mist a little bit when the jumbo-tron shows the greats of Pirates past --- Wagner, Law, Face, Kiner, Maz, Clemente, Stargell.
I'll stand, as I do every game, when my Buccos take the field and I'll keep score --- my one and only venture into anything resembling mathematics.
It will be glorious, win or lose because it's baseball in the home park with the home team with a new season jolted with a hope-filled buzz and a bloom of possibility ready to bloom.
Play ball!
sj;