I love Opening Day. Time begins on it, dontcha know? We get to start reading the latest chapter of our favorite story, thrilled we'll have reading material until October (and hopefully through it) and eager to know how it'll all come out. Our lives go on during the winter, but today they once again are lived to the fullest, with our biological clocks resetting to 1:10 and 7:10 and other times that mean everything now and are significant only in their tragic lack of significance in the winter. (That thought swiped from Greg's marvelous “Happy New Year,” which you should go read right now [1]. Only the details have changed.)
Are Emily and I excited? Do you have to ask? Joshua is away in California with his grandmother and his cousins, and we've got a whole week of eating, drinking, socializing and spring-cleaning our overstuffed apartment planned out. (Along with missing our boy. We're not monsters.) But even as we planned the festivities for the Week of Temporary Childlessness, tonight was sacrosanct — set aside for three hours in front of the TV, for the ritual of welcoming back our sport and our team and the right and proper rhythm of our evenings.
That said, there's a little worm in this apple. And it's that I know come 11:10 or 11:45 or whenever the opening act of the 2007 season ends, I will be bitter.
Why? It's not the Cardinals' celebration, though it certainly sounds like a Roman-level orgy of self-congratulation, what with the multiple first pitches and the players' motorcade and REO Speedwagon (yes really) and Keith being asked to play turncoat. I'm a bit surprised to hear the Clydesdales will not, in fact, draw and quarter manacled slaves wearing Mets colors just to make things clearer. I can live with this Midwestern take on Triumph of the Will. As discussed before [2] — and most recently by David Wright [3] — it's useful motivation. They won and we didn't, and if our positions were reversed, I'm sure our celebration plans would be equally low-key and dignified.
Nor is it the fact that ESPN will show Adam Wainwright striking out Carlos Beltran approximately 35,000 times before the night is over. It happened. I wish it hadn't, but it did, and I'm over it. (OK, mostly.) Same goes for Yadier Fucking Molina taking Heilman deep — I know it's coming, I'm not happy about it, but I'll survive it.
Nor is it the fact that, well, we might lose. I've seen Opening Days ruined by Joe Randa [4] and a billion Chicago Cubs [5] and Dante Bichette [6] and a really fucking horrible sixth inning [7]. Gut-punch losses all, but I endured.
It's that today, of all days, we have to play the team that ended our season before what we regarded as its just and due course. Oh, let's not be fancy: the team that beat us. We've been beaten in the postseason before. Much as I don't like to think about it, we'll be beaten in the postseason again. But on Opening Day of 1974 we didn't play the Oakland A's. (Lost to the Phillies, if you're curious [8].) Opening Day 1989 didn't pit us against the Dodgers. (We beat these same Cardinals. Or rather, we beat an entirely different set of Cardinals [9].) In 2000 we didn't begin by having to confront the Braves. (We lost to the Cubs [10] on the other side of the world in a game that started in the middle of the night.) In 2001 we did not, thank Christ, start off against the Yankees. (We beat the Braves [11].)
If the Cardinals win, their fans will be ecstatic. If the Cardinals lose, their fans will still be pretty happy. Having just won the World Series, Cardinals fans aren't entitled to be unhappy about anything until at least the All-Star break. It's the reverse for us. If we lose (preferably not with another called strike on Beltran), we'll be miserable and if we win, it'll be bittersweet. A game too late. Where was that last year? You can already imagine the back-page headlines, can't you?
Opening Day is a symbolic turning of the page. It's the new chapter talked about at the beginning. But starting off against the Cardinals won't make it feel that way. It'll feel like a postscript to the previous story. And that's what I'm bitter about.
And while we're on the subject of bitterness, if we get beaten by Braden Looper Wednesday night, I'm going to leave Varsity Letters [12], and lie down in the middle of the Bowery.