COVID-Opening Day Baseball

We finally witnessed it. Opening Day. It’s the day that I look forward to every year! This is the day when I was a kid that I would avoid everything baseball at all costs (except being decked out in my Yankee gear going to school) until 3:00 when I would get home—shutting out the world—and soaking in every moment of the first day of baseball. Even now, on Opening Day I don’t really pay attention to anything but baseball. Opening Day is my New Year. I don’t need half-baked resolutions, or a countdown, or crappy champagne that someone bought last minute on their way over to a party (a beer will do just fine for me), all I need is baseball.

Opening Day in 2020 isn’t normal, because life in 2020 is anything but normal, but maybe Opening Day this year will give us the normalcy we have been craving to have back for so long. Even though it doesn’t look or feel like the usual Opening Day (I say that writing this drinking a cup of coffee in my dining room with all the windows open) it is the start of the best sport on the planet. The sport that mirrors reality unlike anything other than movies. Escaping to the baseball field this year will have the constant reminder of what is going on outside the diamond. With no fans in the stands, masks and social distancing, and players and coaches kneeling in protest of the injustice of police brutality. Still it will make us forget all of it for mere moments. That’s all we will need because it’s baseball.

For the Yankees yesterday Opening Day went as well as you might think in 2020… A five inning rain shortened win that was just as much of a tease as the Summer Camp games were. Go figure, right?

Anyway, Gerrit Cole officially threw a gem in his first career game as a New York Yankee. A complete game one-hitter. Sure, it was only five innings, but it still counts because it’s 2020 and the world is completely upside down. Besides Cole, the rest of the bombers looked like they were on a mission to dominate every pitch of the game. It started from jump street with Judge starting his campaign with a laser—followed by Stanton silencing the critics to start with an absolute BOMB into the left field picnic area (officially 459 feet with a 112 MPH exit velocity) setting the table nicely for the rest of the evening to cruise along. Stanton added to his nice night by singling home the fourth run for the Yanks in the top of the 5^th with Judge hammering a double to score Wade two batters before. Even though the game was five short innings, it felt right to have baseball on my TV on a summer night. To me, last night felt exactly like the first game back post All-Star Break, am I the only one?

However, the running time of the game went by extremely quickly. If the game was completed the game would’ve finished right around the standard three hours (actual run time 1 hour and 43 minutes) but that gives me hope. The reasoning behind the speed of the game in my head might be due to the fact that it was the first game back, but I will continue to monitor the pace of the game without fans in the stands. Looking forward, James Paxton starts his 2020 season against Steven Strasburg on Saturday looking to complete the first game of the season (that’s my last joke about the rain-out), hopefully Stanton continues to lead the charge and Mission 28 continues to roll again. It is incredibly gratifying to have baseball back in our lives to live the daily soap opera that the game provides. As fans let’s dive extra deep into the glorious nature of baseball because we will never take it for granted again. I say this with the highest level of happiness: PLAY BALL!