Baseball Brief: Opening Day

I didn’t go to work.

I can’t remember having ever worked on Opening Day. I take it off every year and celebrate the holiday as it should be celebrated: with carefree liberty. The 4pm start time for the Reds was a bit weird, but I was able to watch the Nats game because of it. It was kind of dull. Strasburg was efficient with his pitches, throwing 81 over seven innings. Inefficiency was something I had complained about all of last season when he had trouble getting through six innings in so many of his starts, so it was nice to see him breeze through the game. Bryce Harper hit two homers on his first Opening Day in the majors. Other than that, it wasn’t a spectacular baseball game, largely because the Marlins are not an exciting team and they have hideous uniforms. That’s very important, you know. Ugly uniforms make for ugly games, right? Right?

But the Reds-Angels game – now that was intense! Cueto, probably the most underrated pitcher in the game, made one mistake but otherwise shut down the best lineup in baseball, and it seemed to pump up the entire team. The whole game had a level of intensity you usually find in September playoff races; it felt like we were getting a preview of what we could see in the World Series. Thirteen innings! What a game!

What was really great, too, was the fact that we have a bar to go to with fellow Reds fans. I’d say there were at least 15 of us at the Bottom Line. It was nice to see some familiar faces and to meet new Reds fans, too. I hope we can pack the place as the season wears on. Everyone was so excited to see the team that we clapped after every out for at least the first couple of innings. Heck, someone probably did it for each out in the game. But it wasn't rambunctious noise. It was polite, controlled clapping, like we had been doing it all our lives. And haven't we?

This is going to be a fun season.