I know the Major League Baseball season officially began when the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A's duked it out in Japan, but for me opening day really starts when the Texas Rangers play their first game at home in Arlington. Finally the time has come Tuesday when they square off against the Baltimore Orioles.
When I was younger I never really paid attention to opening day. Heck, I never really paid an extreme amount of attention to baseball. I just knew how the Rangers were doing. I still remember the day Opening Day officially mattered to me.
My family was living in Lubbock in 1999 and for some unknown reason my brother and I had that Monday off from school so we kicked it at home. That's when we looked at the paper and realized Kevin Brown (then newly-signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers fresh off his Padre World Series run) was facing Randy Johnson (then newly-traded signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks from his half-season stint with the Houston Astros).
My brother and I were so hyped up we were literally jumping up and down in anticipation of the baseball season. The game started and after a couple of innings we quickly lost interest as any kids would do. That is until a commercial aired for Triple Play 2000.
We stopped jumping around and our jaws dropped to the floor. See when we first got the Playstation (later dubbed PS1) our first game was Triple Play 1998 and we loved that game to death. To think, two years later we were to salivate over the possibility of playing baseball with updated rosters and much improved graphics.
We wasted no time.
"MOM!"
We both ran up to her and pleaded for her to take us to the mall and buy us Triple Play 2000. Normally my mom was one of those mothers who hated buying video games for her kids, probably because she saw what Super Mario Bros. and the original NES did to us.
That's when something strange happened - she said yes.
I remember that as being the first time, as a teenager, that I thought my mom was simply awesome. No fighting. No arguing. No pleading. No doing chores to get it. She just said yes. A simple answer that sent her two sons into a screaming frenzy to get ready for a trip to the mall.
I'll never forget coming home with the open game (I opened it to read the instructions on the way home) in hand as we raced to my room to play it. I still remember taking out the disc and reading "Nobody remembers who has the most bunts in a season" on the inside of the CD cover. Now for some weird reason, neither one of us picked our favorite team. As the Rangers icon kept scrolling by, we kept trying to determine which two teams would represent our Opening Day.
Matt settled on the Cubs. Dodgers for me.
For the next hour or so we gasped at how truly awesome the game was. There were arcade-like "booms" whenever the hitter would catch the ball on the sweet spot. All of the players looked awesome for the graphics at the time and the gameplay was as easy to figure out as any other game.
After an hour or so, we ended nine innings in a tie 1-1 game. I kept wiping my hands on my pants to keep the controller from slipping through my fingers and Matt lurched closer to the TV clutching the remote anticipating every pitch. He's always intense when he plays anything competitively.
He came up in the top of the tenth inning and I shut him down. I came up to bat with my 8, 9 and leadoff hitters. I honestly don't remember who 8 and 9 were because Matt quickly disposed of them. But I'll always remember Devon White. It helps that he used to play for the Midland Angels back when he was in the minor leagues and my uncle used to drink with him sometimes. But that day he was my hero.
Matt threw a pitch and I used "X" to swing since I wanted a basehit to keep the inning going. It went dead center but it really didn't have enough distance. If I'd have used the square button for power it definitely would've cleared. Nevertheless, the ball continued toward the wall until Matt used his centerfielder to scale the wall.
The ball fell just to the side of the fielder's glove but it had just enough distance for a game-winning homerun.
I pumped my fist and grinned. I wanted to jump up and scream and wag my finger in my brother's face but I knew better. He didn't take losing well.
After a slam of the controller, he concluded our Opening Day 1999.
Ever since then Opening Day actually meant something to me.
Then in 2006 my dad asked if I wanted to go to the Rangers home opener. I jumped at the chance since it was my first Opening Day to attend. Matt couldn't go for some reason, I think his baseball committments kept him from going.
That year I learned a very valuable lesson: don't let anyone else handle obtaining Opening Day tickets.
My dad told me he'd wake up and order the tickets online before he went to work. So at 6 a.m. I expected him to have gotten tickets.
I called him around lunchtime.
Did you get the tickets? I asked.
No. He was going to wait until he got home from work to order them.
I called later on that night after giving him time to get off work and get home.
Did you get the tickets? I asked.
No. He had to eat dinner first.
I was so furious I was screaming at the top of my lungs. If you know me, you know it takes a lot to get me upset. This was one of those hot buttons.
I ended up talking to my dad about 10 p.m. that night and he said he got tickets in the upper-deck. They were in the second-to-last row.
Now for all the time I spent pissed off about the tickets I actually had an amazing time. It's really something to witness an Opening Day. I remember walking up to our seats and I could hear the introductions of former Rangers who were in attendance. Guys I grew up idolizing.
Jeff Russell. Rusty Greer. Bobby Witt. And Steve "BOOOOOOOOCHELLLLE!"
The Rangers happened to get their rear ends handed to them by the Red Sox, but I didn't care. I saw an Opening Day game and I saw a David Ortiz homerun to the Homerun Porch.
Dad said it would be our tradition every year to go to a game. He got it half right.
The next year we made plans to go to Opening Day again but for some reason dad couldn't go. I was devastated. This was supposed to be a tradition. It was supposed to be our thing. That's when I realized I was an adult. No one was stopping me from going myself.
I talked with my brother and we decided to make it a little family trip. Mom was in. Then we started adding more and more people. My aunt and her friend were in. My mom's friend was in. My friend was in. So I readied myself for buying tickets for six people for Opening Day.
At this point I was working for the OA and I'd been saving up so I was all set to go. The day tickets went on sale I skipped class at UTPB and went to the most reliable computer I could access - the work computer.
As I ran into the OA newsroom my co-workers looked at me in puzzlement. Maybe it was because I showed up when I wasn't scheduled to work or maybe it was because I was fully decked out in my Rangers jersey, hat and "Live Strong" rip-off bracelet that MLB had made for each team the year before. I remember them laughing when I told them why I was there, but I didn't care. I was on a mission.
I was in the newsroom a full half hour before tickets officially went on sale so that I could prep myself for where I wanted to sit and to make sure the system would bring up the website. Then with a few minutes to go I went to www.time.gov to make sure the computer time was to the second of the official time.
With less than a minute to go I opened up the system clock and watched as each second ticked away. By this time I'd already gotten to the Rangers website and all I had to do was click to order tickets.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
I hurridly clicked on order tickets, clicked "best available," clicked six tickets and typed in the encryption password.
I had tickets on the lower third base side!
But there were only four. (I found out later for some weird reason you can only order up to four tickets online for a big game).
I thought to myself, "I can get better seats than this."
I clicked back and repeated the process.
This time the servers were busy and I was on the outside of the process looking in. I tried calling the box office but only got a busy signal. I had given up four great tickets because I thought I could do better. There is a reason there is a "best available" option button and I was too dumb to think about why exactly I had clicked it.
I kept trying and trying for 30 minutes. I clicked order tickets. Server busy. Order tickets. Server busy. For a straight half hour I did nothing but click the mouse. Somewhere near the end of my misery Nax walked by and I told him what happened and he just chuckled his Nax chuckle and walked off.
After a while I figured I'd just try the next game to see what would happen.
I was in.
I was able to order six tickets.
They were good second deck seats.
I bought them without hesitation. I wasn't about to let the trip slip through my fingers again.
Although we didn't make the official Opening Day last year, we had a great time at the game. There was only one problem - it was the coldest recorded game at the Ballpark in Arlington. For nine innings we sat in 40-degree weather cheering on our team.
Due to some weird circumstances Matt, my friend and I sat about two sections over from my mom, her friend and my aunt. I videotaped my mom dancing the YMCA like a fool underneath the Starbucks sign as she tried in vain to get on the Jumbotron. It was weird sitting at a baseball game with heavy blankets draped over our laps, but it was completely worth it.
On the field the Rangers played the Red Sox again and I think we even came out on top that time. I just remember Sammy Sosa hitting his first homerun back with the Rangers as we all leapt to our feet and screamed as fireworks lit up the cloudy sky.
My friend Laura and I ended up walking through the halls of the stadium at one point to get some food and I knew she could see why I loved going so much. That's when I think I figured out something about myself as I told her about why I love going.
For me the games are a trip back in time.
I sit in those seats and I remember going to Opening Day with my dad and having that bond form as you watch your favorite team play your favorite sport.
I remember my mom posing with former Rangers players at the old ballpark. The one picture she absolutely adores is the one with her and her "man" Rafael Palmeiro. No matter how many times we told her he was married to a Cuban woman and had kids and was a Viagra spokesman - he was still her man.
I remember going summers with Matt and my dad and taking a cooler full of bottled water, Sprite, sandwich fixings and a bag holding our recently purchased fully cooked chicken.
The days when we had ICI Paints backpacks and collected every program.
The days when I would keep score for an inning and then get mad because I'd be missing the game so I'd quit. But now that's become a tradition as my one-inning-filled-in souvenir programs will tell you.
The days when we'd get to the park a couple of hours early to try and get autographs or to catch a batting practice homerun.
Or almost catch one...
Once we were in left centerfield during Rangers batting practice. My brother, my dad and I all had our gloves on waiting for that one moment. Then Pudge Rodriguez, our favorite player, came to the cage to hit. It's a magical feeling sitting there as a kid with your dad and your brother waiting on a ball that will most likely never come. So you hang on the railing half-heartedly with your glove dangling from your hand. Each crack of the bat sends your head shooting up only to see it was a groundball or has been hit in the opposite direction as where you're at.
Then there's always that moment that puts butterflies in your stomach even a decade letter as you reminisce. The moment when you're favorite player hits a homerun ball in your direction. Your heart starts to race, your hands suddenly become drenched in sweat as you fight to hold your glove up in the air. Your little neck flies up and finds the ball as it magically starts to descend toward the spot you're standing in.
At that moment, my dad picked my brother up and Matt had his little pudgy arm outstretched as Pudge's homerun ball kept getting closer. Then some thoughtless moron runs from halfway down the section and juts his hands in the way of Matt's glove causing the ball to hit off of them and bounce a few rows up the bleachers where some little girl just so happens to walk by, picks up the ball and says, "Hmm," then walks away with the ball.
Then the idiot says to us, "Almost had it."
Even though we don't remember what he looks like and Pudge doesn't play for the Rangers anymore, there's still heartbreak every time we go to the game and remember that magical moment horrifically altered for the worse.
And that's what going to Ranger games is. It's relieving moments of glory and moments of heartache. The moments that made you a fan in the first place.
Like the time we sat in the upper deck for the Rangers' first ever playoff game in 1996 and played the New York Yankees. We were down 2-0 already as the Division Series came back to Arlington but there was still hope. There was hope when Juan Gonzalez smashed a homerun into the left field seats. But then hope flutters away and heartache settles in when you realize your team lost again.
Then they get swept the next game. You spend the rest of your life remembering that moment and each time you remember it, it makes you remember why exactly you hate the New York Yankees so much.
But sometimes those magical moments do happen.
One summer game we sat in seats my dad had gotten from work beneath the KRLD 1080 sign in the second deck. We were playing the Brewers and that meant one thing - getting the legendary Bob Uecker's autograph.
Of course as a kid I was always really timid to do things but Matt wasn't. He jumped at the chance to get Uecker's autograph. So my dad walked him around the concourse to just beneath the announcers booth.
I stayed in our seats and followed them with the binoculars. I still see Matt walking alongside my dad with his cap on and the little swagger in his walk that he had when he was little. Then my dad picked him up and the rest was as told to me:
"Mr. Uecker?" Matt yelled.
My dad had him raised as high as his arms would allow and Matt was still a good foot short of the window.
"Yea kid?" Uecker called from above.
"Will you sign my baseball?"
"Sure kid toss it up."
Matt heaved the ball into the booth and after a few seconds the ball dropped back into his hands with Bob Uecker's autograph signed in black Sharpie.
My dad had a look of suprise and Matt just glowed with excitement and wore the biggest smile I'd ever seen.
"I got it!" he yelled at me as they got closer.
Those times are magic. They get frozen in time. And as I told Laura last year, it's those moments I long to remember each time I set foot in the ballpark.
"You have to remember," I told her in the hallway, "I don't come to games with just anyone. If I bring you to a Rangers game you're like family to me."
And so the tradition continues on Tuesday.
There weren't any ticketing debacles this year. Mom and Matt aren't coming until the weekend opener. Dad is still in San Antonio. It'll just be my best friend Kris and I.
He's been to games with me many times but not to an opener. I know something will happen tomorrow and I am brimming with excitement. It'll be another moment in time to add to my memory because every moment there is magical if you believe.
My ticket for something spectacular. 1:05 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, 2008.
Section 338 Row 10 Seat 15.
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