[91/365] Opening Day!

[cosmolinguist]

I had my t-shirt and tousers and underwear and socks for this morning laid out before I went to bed last night, but I had to choose a hoodie this morning and really there could be only one choice. I grabbed my Twins one, bought by my parents a few Christmases ago. It was the only sensible choice on Opening Day, the first day of baseball's regular season.

Opening Day has always been an exciting day for someone who's been a baseball fan as long as I can remember (my team won the World Series when I was five and again when I was nine, leaving me to believe this was a pleasant but ordinary occurrence that would surely continue at regular intervals for my whole life...and has come nowhere near happening again since). It's also been a sign of spring I've been desperately ready for and which there aren't necessarily many of this time of year for a Minnesotan kid. For example, their game today was played in nearby Milwaukee where it seems like the best that could be said about the temperature was "well, it's in the high thirties..." To see something as summery as baseball was a balm for my soul.

This year is extra exciting because diffrentcolours wanted to watch too! And we could get it on the big TV! (just about, by plugging an HDMI cable into my laptop and then cursing several browsers...)

So we had drinks to celebrate Opening Day and him reaching the end of a huge stressful work project and the beginning of ten days off work. It was such a fun evening. He said it was the first live sporting event he'd watched since Euro '96, and that he hoped he wouldn't bring the Curse of Gareth Southgate onto the Twins but honestly I wonder if a busted save leading to an extra-innings loss isn't exactly that!

Despite the ending, I had a great time watching the game, fielding questions (some of which had simple answers but many of which didn't! is there a limit on how many times you can change pitchers in a game?!), probably explaining too much just because I got excited, and generally just being so excited to see baseball return. There was an abbreviated season last year, starting in the summer after people began to feel like they could wrap their heads around sensible covid precautions, but with one thing and another I didn't have the heart for watching baseball most of the time then so this really feels new and special to me now.

He may be off work but I have to get up early tomorrow so I wanted to go to bed when the game got tied up at the end of the ninth, but he persuaded me to put the game on my phone so he could come to bed with me and still watch it. I said I should get to lie in my lonely dark gloom as befits a Minnesota sports fan.

It was a fun game though, and I'd much rather see my team lose a nail-biter than win one of those dull games where a bunch of home runs in the first inning leads to a 10-2 victory but everyone has lost the will to live by about the fourth inning.

Comments

[jo]

That's a good question re: is there a limit on how many times you change pitchers in a game. With the rule changes they brought in last year, I guess the answer is -- sort of? First, they changed it so you can't change pitchers as frequently - all pitchers both starters and relievers -- now have to face at least three batters (or pitch until the inning is over) before they come out of a game. The only exception is an injury or illness that prevents the pitcher from being able to finish his three batters. Of course, before 2020, you could bring a pitcher in to face one batter, then pull him for another pitcher. Also, this season, position players can only be used as pitchers in extra-innings or if their team is winning or losing by more than six runs. During normal circumstances in a nine-inning game, only the team's 13 designated pitchers -- or two-way players -- are allowed to pitch. So I guess that's another limit on pitching changes -- a team can have only 13 designated pitchers on its roster (but if you have a designated two-way player, they don't count in that 13 pitcher total).

[po8crg]

Lucky you! My Red Sox were supposed to open at home, but they issued the first raincheck of the season instead.

Did you see the crazy non-homer that the Dodgers got? Hit out of the park, but the runner on first base thought it was caught, headed back to first, passed the batter on the bases (which puts the batter out) and then realised and trotted around to home. Result: an RBI single and an out on a baserunning mistake.

Bet you're glad you didn't have to explain that one to diffrentcolours!

[silveradept]

I was very happy for opening day, although it's been twenty plus since my team was in the World Series and nearly forty since they won it.

It did make for an interesting show, though, to see what might have been the first dinger of the season hit in a snowstorm.

[jesse_the_k]

1 2 3 Strikes you're up for the first home game!

[cosmolinguist]

It was an away game but only in Milwaukee, so close enough. :)