Monday, Apr. 02, 2007

Opening Day fever

By Jody Moore, Hydro.commentator

Opening Day.

To baseball fans, it's like a trip to Mecca. Mardi Gras. Seeing an old friend. An annual pilgrimage all rolled into one.

After enduring the cold between the World Series and the first Cactus League pitch (a gap known to some as football season), Opening Day heralds a time to shake off the winter doldrums and rejoin the happily sun-heated. There is no more absolute signal that spring has sprung.

Baseball games will come and go, but few carry the meaning of Opening Day. That first crack of the bat; the cheers of the fans clearing their voices after a long winters' rest, and the distinctive sound that only a stadium organ can make.

It's a game marked by pomp and reverie, from fireworks to balloons to low-level flybys by screaming fighter jets. Yes, baseball games will come and go, but there can be only one Opening Day.

So I found myself today at Coors Field in Denver, Colo., to take part in the festivities for the first time in my life.

Admittedly, I'm not much of a baseball fan, and if I had to pledge my allegiance, I'd probably stick with my "hometown" Seattle Mariners. So today's matchup between the Rockies and the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks carried little, if any, significance for me.

But there was some. At the ripe age of 36, I'd never been to a major league game before. Never felt the energy of a full stadium. Never partaken in America's pastime. So when my co-workers invited me to their annual shindig, I decided it was time.

I've heard the arguments, probably voiced them myself a time or two. Why bother going to a crowded ballpark to watch a game from the nosebleed seats for a premium when you can stay at home and watch it on TV for free, with expert commentary, and better seats to boot? And you'll never have to worry about noisy folks in the seats next to you. Ah, but therein lies the problem.

I cover unlimited hydroplane racing, and I have for so long I can hardly remember a time when I didn't. I am a student of the sport, a lover of its nuances, and all too mechanical when it comes to watching a race. I feel the electricity at a race, don't get me wrong. But all of that is simply an undercurrent to the detailed attention I must pay to the event itself. And though I love it so, something gets lost in the translation.

If my first trip to a NASCAR Nextel Cup race a few years ago taught me anything, it was that the race, the game, the spectacle, is only part of what you pay for. We all make our ballpark pilgrimages because we are looking for something more than you can find on the television or radio. Something tucked in between the first pitch and the seventh inning stretch, something that is impossible to photograph or transmit over the airwaves. And when you find that something, it's intoxicating.

When you go to a big league game, life's rules change. Even in your own home, on your comfy couch, with the remote in one hand, there are certain constraints that you rarely break out of. But out at the park, all bets are off.

Where else can an average hot dog taste so good just because you paid six bucks for it and ate it with 50,000 of your closest friends? Serving half a bag of peanuts to a 5-year-old for lunch could border on child abuse any other time, even if that's the lunch he picked and you did share your nachos. But at the ballpark, anything goes, and that's more than enough lunch to earn a stick of cotton candy and a bowl of ice cream when it gets hotter.

The game was everything it should have been -- a see-saw battle between two well-matched teams, ever mindful of Yogi Berra's old mantra that it ain't over 'til it's over. Or something like that. And like Berra, half the lies they tell about me aren't true either.

But I really didn't spend as much time focused on the game as you'd think. Yes, I was in my seat (and out of it) for Jeff Baker's solo homer to lead off the sixth inning put the Rockies back out front, taking center fielder Chris Young's glove with it over the wall. But I was helping the 5-year-old explore the fortress of a ballpark while LaTroy Hawkins was giving up a three-run eighth to let the Diamondbacks out front ahead for good.

By the end of the carnage, I'd made my way to a cotton candy booth behind the home dugout and got to watch Ramon Ramirez come out of the dugout to put Hawkins out of his misery. In the end, the home team would lose an 8-6 heartbreaker, and -- like the popular baseball song goes -- it was a shame.

But for four hours on an otherwise unremarkable Monday afternoon, time stood still. The office phone stopped ringing, the deadlines were put on hold, and the only thing that mattered was the showdown between two groups of nine on a carefully groomed checkerboard grass and clay battlefield, and the festival that surrounded it. At the park, there were friends to be seen, food to be eaten, laughter and merriment.

Oh yeah, and a game. And like that song said, I didn't care if I ever got back.

Tomorrow, the pace of life will return to normal, but the truth of the game will still be there. When we talk shop around the water cooler, I might have the answer when someone asks what Byrnes was thinking with that swing in the fifth. (Maybe he thought it was golf -- the Masters is later this week ...)

Next year, when the snow once again has us dreaming of grass and the feel of warm sun on our faces, I'll be able to say I was there, the last time Opening Day rolled around. I'll be able to share the stories with my co-workers and friends, but they won't just be about baseball. They'll be about sticky fingers and long walks, and how far you can see across the city from the upper deck.

And I'll remember the feeling of the wind in my hair, the smell of fresh popcorn, the sound of a bat, the electric way that a crowd can cheer, sigh and boo in unison.

You see, I did more today than watch a ballgame. I watched winter turn into spring. I watched a 5-year-old learn how to crack open peanuts with his hands. I talked to total strangers, laughed, and had a good time. I ate food I wouldn't have eaten, relaxed rules that I would normally follow, and came away knowing that you can always shake peanut shells out of your coat, and nacho cheese will wash out, so why worry?

I didn't just watch the game. I lived it. For the first time, I was there. I came to the ballpark as a man who had never been to the game. But I'll never be able to say that again. And I shared it with a wide-eyed child who has been saved from having to say it, too.

I did more than watch a game today. I experienced it, in the personal way that you can only do in a large group.

And just like hundreds of thousands of snow-weary fans all over the continent, that's exactly what I was looking for.

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