Opening Day

By Steven Lentz II

Spring Training has come and gone and Major League Baseball is officially starting with Opening Day on Monday (April 1). So get your game faces on and let’s play ball!

Opening Day baseball goes back more than 130 years and is considered as America’s National Pastime. With countless baseball fans known to recognize this unofficial holiday as a good reason to call in sick at work or be absentee from school (as most teams typically play their home opener in the afternoon) and go out to the ballpark for the first of 162 regular season games. Teams' home openers serve as the only regular season games during the year in which the entire rosters of both teams as well as coaches and clubhouse staff are introduced to the crowd prior to the games (for the rest of the year, ballparks only introduce the starting lineups).

Raising the Championship Banner

This only happens for one team each year and showcases to the home fans and people watching on TV that they were the best team in baseball. Fortunately for San Francisco Giants fans, we raised the championship banner in 2011 and another this coming Friday they will raise another championship banner.

Skipping school/work

It's a day many will use as their one personal day a year, or call in "sick." The kids will also be home "sick" from school. I think they call it the one-day flu. But, what bosses and teachers don't understand is that it's a tradition for many families to go to their teams' opening game. I for one have been going to opening day for the past 4 years.

So sit back, grab a cold one and enjoy baseball.