Opening Day!!!

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The Yankees and the Red Sox were scheduled to play at 1:05 this afternoon.

It’s cancelled.

Isn’t that perfect for this messed up year?

It’s actually a good thing for me because I have a work thing scheduled for today and tomorrow is Friday - will be a little more leeway.

Yet, opening week has always seemed magical to me. It would be better if the Yankees were going today, but there’s baseball and a day with baseball is way better than a day without it.

I have some buddies who appear content to bust my chops about the pace of baseball.

“It’s sooooo boring,” is the classic response, and it does get under my skin because what I love the most about the sport is it’s leisurely pace.

I tried to remind them that football has about 10 minutes of action and that all their games take 4 hours…

…but they see the replay of the play 5 times before the next play so it seems like more is happening.

I can watch a full baseball game.

I’ll watch about a hundred this year, and I know that the Yankees will compete.

“They haven’t won the World Series since 2009,” my friend who is a Mets fan says.

(Mets haven’t won since 1986 but why worry about facts?)

Still, the most vivid memory I have of an opening week was in 1992.

I was out of town for work and I was supervising a few guys who were working to move machinery from a plant.

I just logged the part numbers while seated at a desk.

A small radio brought me the action.

There’s not much better than baseball on the radio.

A game of wild anticipation.

Yankees against the Tigers in the 3rd game of the season. The Yankees had won the first two games of the season and were battling in that 3rd game.

That team, 30 years ago, could really hit. Mattingly was the best player, and he homered that day.

Yankees 7 Tigers 3.

They were 3 and 0…

…on their way to 6 and 0 before they finally lost a game.

They finished the season 76 and 86.

It was the last time that they had a losing season.

Thirty years…

…and for some reason I recall that game.

Just a young man, dreaming of a championship that never came to be.

But all things were possible.

And that’s what opening week means to me.

Believing that all things are possible.

And that we’re just around the corner from the light of day.

Go Yankees!

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