#OpeningDayAtHome... now what?
The day after Opening Day is always a weird day for me. From
the euphoria of Opening Day and coming down from that high of just a day filed
with optimism and hope to just nothing. The same crushing reality is painfully apparent
today. However, today feels more forever than in years past.
Watching old games from 8:30 AM and sipping on coffee (which
is awesome I know understand why my
dad wants to retire in San Diego), to re-watching the 8th inning of
Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS, to wanting to finish the 12-pack of beers I was
sipping on while the Kershaw no-hitter was finishing up because today’s brutal
reality was starting to hit me. Even though I watched most of the games being
shown yesterday I still got a similar euphoric feeling that I would usually get
on a regular Opening Day. I felt the same feeling to just shout out the window “Happy
New Year” to anyone would listen because it was Opening Day again. But as the
bottom of the 8th was wrapping up in that Dodgers-Rockies game
around midnight-ish Eastern Time I can say truly for the first time that I felt
the unexplainable weirdness and sadness of this COVID-19 pandemic. I felt it
because there was no tomorrow for baseball. That might seem silly since there
are people reading this who know someone affected by this disease and have a
more real attachment to this pandemic,
but for me that was the moment, sitting at my girlfriend’s kitchen table
sometime past midnight sipping on a beer. It was a moment of realization that
tomorrow was just going back to this isolated reality that I and millions of
people around the country have put themselves in since early March.
Since sports have gone away I have engulfed myself in
everything Star Wars, but since the announcement that Major League Baseball was
doing #OpeningDayAtHome, all I’ve wanted is to get back to reality and watch
baseball again. The one interesting question that has become more of a burner
in my head is this: when is the world going to get back to normal?
Now that Opening Day 2020 or whatever yesterday was for
baseball in 2020, I understand how amazing a luxury being able to be a spectator
in the wonderful world of sports. The candy shop is even better when you can’t
walk in and enjoy it. Whenever it reopens I will be first in line. Until then,
I will have the same anticipation that I had when I was riding the school bus
home just wanting to sit in front of the TV and watch the Yankees Opening Day
on tape, hushing anyone who even uttered anything
related to baseball. So baseball take your time getting back, I’ll be ready
to play ball and to the fans who feel just like me—stay safe until baseball
returns so we can all come back and enjoy the greatest game and feel reality
again.
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