Bernie Lincicome: Opening Day is a baseball holiday when hope springs eternal
Baseball never gets better than Opening Day. It is baseball at its most positive and most appealing. Opening Day is all appetite and aroma.
The most American of rituals might not have happened this year, but after 99 days of posturing, all sides agreed to suspect one another of horrible motives and play on, figuring that if one designated hitter could not ruin the game, two might just do it.
Several decades ago, indulging fancy and needing a column, I observed how much baseball was changing and foresaw an alarming future ahead.
I imagined receiving the following news release: With a long tradition of outfield advertising, scoreboard commercials, naming baseball parks in return for corporate payoffs, obvious logos on shoes, brand name batting gloves and individually endorsed baseball bats, Major League Baseball expressed surprise that anyone would be against the sewing of tiny advertising patches onto baseball uniforms.
"It's not like we were proposing that our players dress like ketchup bottles or wear disposable diapers to the plate," a spokesman said, "though, of course if they do, each club is entitled to one-third of the fee."
No comment was offered on rumors of a name change to I Can't Believe It's the World Series.
Not that clever, I admit, but the worst thing about it was how woefully shortsighted I was. I did not foresee baseball's embrace of gambling (I think Pete Rose was not yet punished), nor did I envision the age of steroids, or recognize it as it was happening. Romantic me.
The proliferation of baseball statistics is still as confounding as unnecessary, yet evaluations are worthless without WAR and VORP and WHIP and OOPS and all the other acronyms (127 by my count) used to over evaluate what you can see with your own eyes.
To quote Mark Twain, sort of, "There are lies, damned lies and sabermetrics."
And fantasy baseball? A friend of mine was one of the originators of it. He asked me to write a column about it, to spread the word. Friend or not, I declined, thinking the notion silly and doomed. Ah, again, romantic me.
I have always disliked the designated hitter, and we just put one into the Hall of Fame. Extra innings are just fine with me, deadlines or no, because baseball is the game without a clock, and now that, too, is coming. Tick. Tock.
Here's what I think about gimmick ghost runners and contrived game-shortening. If you do not want to sit through 16 or 17 innings, go home or turn the channel. Starting an inning with a runner already on second base to "create instant action," is worse than penalty kicks, and I apologize for bringing soccer into a discussion of baseball.
Where was I? Oh, yes. I sigh that Opening Day does not mean what it did, what it should, what it must. When the Cubs open Thursday and the White Sox the next day, maybe we should call it Onset Day or First Step Day, like some kind of recovery program, something with less romance and delight than Opening Day should be.
Opening Day has always meant renewal. Baseball has coincidence with the calendar, from seeds to harvest, making the metaphor so obvious it has become neglected or ignored.
None of the games that follow, though all as important as the first, carry the same fresh hope and shared anticipation.
Lives are measured by Opening Days, a common anniversary for all ages and incomes, a community holiday full of anticipation and faith.
The first pitch is not just the first pitch, it is the first stitch in the tapestry of a summer, the initial step on an uncertain adventure, the first word of a long and tempting tale.
Opening Day is the first bite of a happy feast, and all the sweeter because it is not yet seasoned by failure or despair or the defensive infield shift.
And, by the way, here come those tiny advertisements on uniforms I meant to make fun of. Perceptive me.