I have been awake since 4 a.m.
It is Opening Day.
For this one brief moment, I can see summer spread out before me like outfield grass. Outfield grass that’s been so meticulously tended, sculpted, fed … loved … that it makes you squint hard for a second as you adjust to its blinding greenness.
Summer is a mile long, a mile wide. It reaches as far as the eye can see.
There is only baseball.
It is all I can see.
I have been awake since 4 a.m.
Thinking of twirlers with arms of smoked steel.
Bats overflowing with bingles, loopers, and skitterers, and lusty home run wallops.
And, bunts. Don’t forget the bunts.
Thinking of stolen bases. And, the 4-6-3.
And, late-in-the-game outfielders floating at the wall and stretching and lifting higher and higher – and gravity is beyond my understanding and I guess beyond theirs too, because they float much higher than any other human possibly can – and with one final reach, one last elastic, impossible stretch, their glove barely, just barely, just just just …
… barely corrals that demon ball that saves the run that gives your team one more chance.
I have been awake since 4 a.m.
It is Opening Day.
The day when you don’t think of the World Series, because the World Series signals the end … when baseball disappears again. It is a million-million miles away.
It doesn’t matter. Summer lasts forever.
I have been awake since 4 a.m.
It is Opening Day.
To prove just how over-the-top giddy I am right now and because all teams are wonderful on Opening Day … tell me who your team is in the comments below and I will tell you why your team is wonderful. And, I will mean it.
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9 a.m. Update — It is Opening Day, except when it’s not. Rain has postponed the Orioles/Red Sox game. But, summer lasts forever … and there’s always tomorrow.