Call now before they're gone!!! Only 161 Games Left.

While scrolling through various social media outlets this morning, I’ve noticed a lot of my friends and acquaintances taking delight in Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. For a sport that has a grueling and arduous 162 game season, I’ve never understood the pure joy people take in opening day. Suggestions of making it a national holiday seem unfounded to me; I can think of three days concerning sports that should be a holiday above baseball’s opening day: the day after the Super Bowl, and the first two days of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Perhaps it is the optimism it brings every fan base. Baseball, unlike any other sport lends itself to what seem like miraculous turnarounds (Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Rays), and every team at this point should feel like this could be their year (even you Cubs fans). This year’s weather notwithstanding, I guess you could say the start of baseball officially makes it spring, however, I could think of many other things I’d rather do on a nice spring day then sit on hard bleachers, or more recently uncomfortable plastic seats. I’m not even going to get into the fact that more than half the teams aren’t playing today, and you should thank me for not going down a George Carlin-esque route comparing football and baseball. I know by writing this I’m opening myself up to ridicule and criticism, but the excitement isn’t there for me (being a Mets fan doesn’t help). It has a contrived feeling and it seems like I’m supposed to love it because this is the way it has always been. My response to that would be, my grandparents used to walk 5 miles through the snow uphill both ways, that doesn’t mean I had to also.