The Hope of Opening Day

“Did the Nationals win?” I asked my coworker David.

“Yes they did. Now they can try to win 161 more games,” he replied.

Of course they won’t win 161 more games, no team will do that, but it is nice to cast the impossible vision.

The Orioles won with an extra-innings “walk-off” home run by Mr. Trumbo, nice. I like that name Trumbo – that’s the name of a power hitter, which he is. Players named Trumbo need to hit home runs or play the tuba or the kettle drums or maybe even sumo wrestle.

This Thursday night we’re going to the Richmond Flying Squirrels Opening Day. It’s an exercise in hope. Last year the Squirrels hibernated and didn’t do too well (yes, I know squirrels aren’t supposed to hibernate, and who hibernates in the spring and summer anyway?). There is something about the ritual.

Opening Day is like Christmas and Easter, the pews will be packed but then diminish at the next game and the next game, and so forth.

Up until this year fans of the Chicago Cubs attended Opening Day in the hope that that year would be the year in which the Curse of the Goat would be lifted – last year it finally happened. This year they attended in the hope that last year was not fluke. Fans of the Boston Red Sox went decades in the hope that the Curse of the Bambino would be lifted; when it happened it was like the Children of Israel coming out of Egypt – with the important difference that Red Sox fans have never expressed a desire to return to bondage. Egyptians and Yankees? Yankees and Egyptians? Can’t see any difference between the two.

When I was a kid in the D.C. area I used to take the day off from school to watch Opening Day on TV. I think once I attended. If you were a fan of the Senators you knew Opening Day was a forlorn hope – but hey, Harry Truman did beat Dewey so anything was possible. One year a teacher asked those of us absent on Opening Day why we were absent. When I said that I’d stayed home to watch the game she said, “At least you are honest.” I don’t know that that helped my grades, and I know it didn’t help the Senators, but how could I not identity with the forlorn hope of Washington baseball fans?

Opening Day lasts exactly one day; actually it lasts until the last out is called. It’s fleeting. But hope is a nice thing to experience, even if it is only for nine innings.