Opening Day

"in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee"

-E.E. Cummings

There’s something special about Opening Day, a sensation that can only compare to the cool autumn Saturdays in Ann Arbor, watching winged helmets fly around a field. Yet, I’m not going there today, because it is spring that’s in the air, not fall, and I’ll be longing for football soon enough. Besides, the feelings are comparable, but they’re not the same. There is an undeniable magic about them both that leaves my mind soaring and my heart pounding in my chest, but it isn’t the same, not at all.

I love watching hockey, college basketball and the NFL, and sure there is excitement for the start of those seasons, but it honestly isn’t in the same galaxy as the beginning of baseball season. It’s not even that I like baseball more, but there is just something different about Opening Day. It is the major leagues at its purest, the closest they ever get to what baseball truly means. It is something inexplicable that is tied up in all those baseball clichés spouted off by so many, but which have never quite rung true for me. But, I’m not going to discuss them, or analyze them, or even repeat them. Do with them what you wish, today I want no part. I’m not going to make the claim that I will truly express the feelings that baseball conjures in the hearts of so many, or that it will be closer to the truth than those old adages, but simply that this will come from my soul.

Baseball is youth, and spring, and that feeling you get sitting on your front porch, a warm breeze blowing through your hair while the crickets perform a symphony around you. It is a warm night surrounding you, and making you feel so small, and yet so important and content in the very same instant. It is just basking in spring and closing your eyes to savor that sicky-sweet aroma wafting through your bedroom window as you lie in the dark, thinking about the end of school and the promise of an eternal summer.

In Michigan those first few warm days are an event, a celebration of finally feeling at peace with nature again, of the warmth of the world permeating your entire being. You know how fleeting they are, and you embrace them for fear that next week, or even tomorrow sleet will be raining down upon you. So you sit beneath the inky blackness, watching the moon, the stars and the soft glow of the street lamp, sacrificing yourself to the mosquitoes, because a few dozen bites are a welcome nuisance when compared to the ice, snow and cold that had gripped the land for months. Winter is wonderful in its own way, but it is harsh, and it’s the struggle against nature that makes it so thrilling.

Spring is that counterpoint, that relief from the icy grip that embraced your world. It is relief, relaxation, and wiggling your toes in the cool grass as the sun beats down on you and warms your very soul. It is running around until you can feel the tangy sweat on your body, stopping for a moment just to relish where you are and all the possibilities that this fresh start has brought, and going full tilt again. It’s digging your hands into the earth, squeezing it between your fingers and remembering what it feels like to build dirt mounds, sand castles, and to dig to your heart’s content. It’s shoving your arms into mud up to the elbows, just to feel like a kid again for one instant and to not care that it’s caking your hands, that your feet are grass stained and your knees scraped. To remember a time before careers and essays and loans, to feel at one with the world and to feel that easy happiness that only childhood can bring is what baseball truly means.

It’s spring, it’s baseball, it’s Opening Day, and it’s something deeper than a game, than a sport, than a stick and a ball. It’s life at its purest, because it’s childhood and nature and happiness. It’s little league, and kick the can, and the joy that the ice cream truck brought. It’s hot summers, and cold sprinklers, shorts and a baseball card in the spokes of your bike tire. It’s living everyday not as it’s your last, but as if that moment is all that matters. It’s running and yelling all day long because one little body cannot hope to contain so much excitement. It’s the reckless abandon of youth, and the joy of being free.

That’s baseball. That gritty dirt between your fingers as your grip your bat, the gravel in your cleats, and the tan stains on your once white pants. Because what’s the fun when you don’t slide? The joy that came to hear the crack of the bat, the smack of the ball in the glove and the umpire calling the game from behind the plate, to be crouched in the infield, eyes never leaving the batter, yearning for that little white ball to fly your way. It’s leaping forward with every hack the batter takes in hopes that that ball will come whizzing across the gravel towards you, the disappointment when it doesn’t, and the fluttery excitement when it does. It’s scooping a grounder up in your mitt and throwing it to first with all your might. It is the endless energy and enthusiasm of youth, and all the good things about growing up.

That’s Opening Day, because there is nothing purer and more hopeful than a beginning, when winning doesn’t matter because you’re just glad that baseball’s back and everything is right with the world. Because soon enough there will be disappointment with every loss, and anxiety over every close game, you’ll get annoyed with players, and managers and those broadcasters who you wish would just shut up. Throughout one hundred and sixty-two games there will be excitement, fear, unease, disappointment, annoyance, elation, and a thousand more emotions wallowing up inside you, and countless expressions of those feelings spewing from your mouth, but not today. In the end, all the controversy, contract negotiations and advertising mean nothing, because you’re watching baseball again. None of that stuff is of any importance when it’s Opening Day and nine men (who might just as well be boys) are out on that emerald green field with Old English Ds on their caps and mitts upon their hands. It’s baseball, and it is spring, and nothing else matters.

Opening Day is all about the pure joy of the game, the happiness to just exist, and to remember what baseball means to you and to so many others. To be content to watch a game, to sit back and let the worry wash away, to be a kid again, if only for one day, because, it’s baseball, and it’s spring, and nothing else matters.