COLUMN: It will be a good six months of baseball
Each year in late March or early April, cities across North America buzz with anticipation for a new baseball season.
Coming after a long and brutal winter, fans across the continent no longer will have to wait to see their favorite teams hit the field for the first time. Major League Baseball can reclaim its rightful spot in the minds and hearts of America.
It is not simply just the first game of the year, but rather the beginning for the fans of each professional team. For many cities, opening day is unlike any other day during the season.
It is an event and a spectacle. It is a time for old friends and fans alike to come back together for a few hours and enjoy the start of a brand new season.
Each city has its own take on how to celebrate the occasion. Whether it is Cincinnati, Detroit or New York, opening day means different things to different fan bases. It can mean city-closing parades and festivals or it can mean taking a day off from work or school to head to the ballpark and enjoy the atmosphere of a new chapter yet to be written in the season's history.
In St. Louis, former Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith has even gone as far as compiling a petition which would call for opening day in the United States to become a national holiday. With a lot of ardent supporters, something that may seem farfetched in other corners of the world, can become reality. Why is this so with only the game of baseball?
It is because baseball, often nicknamed, "A kid's game" is exactly that.
A game with the appeal of a child in mind, baseball has the ability to always remind us of where we were and how old we were the very first time we discovered this great game.
Baseball has an appeal that other sports, though widely successful and popular, cannot accomplish in North America.
Opening day in baseball is unlike any other sport in the world.
With a 162-game season on the horizon, it signifies the only time in the course of a season where every team is truly on the same level. It is a very optimistic and happy day regardless of what team a person happens to be rooting for.
Hope is at an all-time high whether you're a Blue Jays fan from Mississauga, Ontario or a Tigers fan from Brighton, Michigan, and that is what brings us together.
This is a day that, like all other holidays, comes just once a year.
Maybe in the future, the assumptions made by Smith will prove to be true but even if opening day in Major League Baseball is not turned into a national holiday, it will always be treated like one.
