the Informer

The Yankees and Red Sox kicked off the 2010 MLB season with a 6-4 Boston Victory at sold-out Fenway Park. (Courtesy of Getty Images)

Red Sox ace Josh Beckett entered his signature wind-up, twisting his 6-foot-5, 220-pound frame in anticipation of releasing his first real-game pitch in six months. The ball exploded from the big right-hander’s grip, traveling swiftly toward the waiting bat of Yankee-great Derek Jeter. The captain swung. America smiled. Baseball was officially back.

Although football is currently “America’s sport,” baseball has always been and will continue to be America’s pastime. Beckett’s first pitch, which resulted in a Jeter groundout, kicked off the 2010 baseball season in style as the reigning-champion Yankees arrived in enemy territory, Fenway Park.

Opening Day in Baseball has always been the greatest and most important season opening in sports. Sure, football and other sports have important opening games and people look forward to the date all offseason, but baseball has always been about something more than the game itself. The first pitch marks not just the beginning of a 162-game marathon, but also the activation of a way of life for so many fans.

For many spectators, baseball controls nearly every aspect of their life during the summer, a season so synonymous with baseball. You go to work. You eat dinner. You watch baseball. That’s life. It’s not that other sports don’t draw constant attention of fans and media, but the nature of baseball makes it different.

For 162 days, almost every night in a five-month season, the announcers, players, managers and analysts are almost part of the family as they invade the living room on a nightly basis. As a Mets fan, I don’t personally know play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen, but from April to September I hear his voice more than any other person on the planet. It’s like having a five-month best friend.

And then there’s the act of actually going to a summer baseball game. There’s nothing like riding the T to Fenway, scrunched into a packed train of Red Sox fans and waiting to arrive at baseball’s most famous still-standing landmark. It’s not the most exciting sport to watch in the world, but the unpredictability of baseball makes for unmatched fan intensity. One pitch can change a game. It takes less than a second, but the difference between a ball going foul or fair can determine a pennant race.

Not only do fans look forward to that opening pitch, but players and teams also can’t wait to stop talking about expectations, offseason acquisitions and last season’s failures. Once that first pitch hits a glove or gets smashed over the wall for a leadoff home run, everything is simply about baseball. Summer in America is all about fun, and there’s nothing more fun an experiencing America’s pastime.