Published Tuesday, April 08, 2008 7:54 AM
Updated Tuesday, April 08, 2008 7:55 AM
Mayor Pro-Tem David Kizer throws out the first pitch during Saturday's Opening Day festivities at the Moncks Corner Youth Fields.
Opening Day, when young men’s fancies turn
In spring, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.
With apologies to Lord Tennyson’s oft-quoted tome, while a young man’s fancy may turn to thoughts of love, it is a love for the base knock, the tweener, the frozen rope, the gapper, and going yard over that a young woman’s heart.
Nowhere and at no time is this more evident than on Opening Day.
Wait ‘til next year becomes this year on Opening Day.
Opening Day, when dreams are born, where fantasies become for a fleeting moment, reality, and everbody’s favorite team is tied for first. Even the Cubs.
Opening Day is when Christmas comes in April.
Opening Day, where hope springs eternal and it never rains, at least not until after the game, where the grass is green and cut, the infield dirt dragged smooth like silk, and the white chalk baselines painted straight and true.
There is no greater experience than slipping on a baseball uniform for the first time. The pants creased and ironed, the cleats polished a spit-shined black, the game-socks white and the stirrups a fiery red, and the ball cap’s bill pulled tight and straight.
Standing on the mound, foot toeing the rubber and looking in at your catcher’s signs. The hitter waggles the bat and looks out at you, a glare of determination in his eye. There is nothing like the smoothness of a brand new baseball in your fingertips, the roughness of fresh, raised seams and the knowledge that there’s no way he can hit what you throw.
No sound is sweeter than the smack of bleached cowhide on cured horsehide, the inside corner fastball painting the black, and “Strike three!”
Opening Day is history.
On April 4, 1974, watching Hank Aaron at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati tie Babe Ruth’s unbreakable record of 714 home runs with a shot to left off the Reds’ Jack Billingham. The Hammer would break the record four days later.
In 1910, President William Howard Taft threw out the first ceremonial Opening Day first pitch, the first of 48 such Presidential first pitches chucked toward home plate. Franklin Roosevelt holds the honor of most first pitches thrown with eight. Following that first pitch, President Taft sat back and watched Senators’ Walter Johnson throw a one-hit shutout. The Big Train would throw seven Opening Day shutouts over the course of his career.
In 1923, Babe Ruth properly christened the house that he built with a home run in his first at-bat in the first game at Yankee Stadium.
In 1940 Cleveland’s Bob Feller became the first and only man to throw a no-hitter on Opening Day.
Jackie Robinson crossed baseball’s color line in 1947 and started the civil rights movement in America when Martin Luther King was still a teen.
In 1975, Frank Robinson became baseball’s first black manager with Cleveland and promptly hit a home run in his first at-bat.
In 1994, little known Tuffy Rhodes became the second man to hit three home runs on Opening Day for the Chicago Cubs – Toronto’s George Bell was the first – and in fitting Opening Day fashion, the Cubs still lost.
Opening Day, when a boy gets his first-ever hit and can’t contain the smile of pride, when it’s okay to slide.
Even into first.