The scene is as familiar as a Norman Rockwell cover of a Saturday Evening Post.
A young child sits with his elbows pressed on the window sill. The image of his hands mindlessly resting at his cheeks as he sits at the window pane is indelibly etched in the memories of many. Who can't recall waiting for the snow to clear off the ground and the final nip of winter to leave the cloudy air so as to allow every boy and girl a chance to grab their mitts and begin anew?
Opening day is more than the first of 162 identical days -- it is a rite of passage. Whether you are playing in the Pee Wee League or at the opening of Enron Field, it is always a day of opportunity, a chance for a fresh start and a time to forget the cold, wet socks of winter and look ahead to the dog days of summer.
Only this hasn't been the same. Six years after the strike season, the 2000 baseball campaign started off with a sputter and not a bang. How much of that was due to fate and how much could Major League Baseball control? A trip back to the first days of spring during your childhood can probably answer that question.
What time do you remember starting Opening Day during your youth? Maybe you warmed up in the backyard at around 8:30 a.m. before piling in the station wagon filled with cleats, juice packs and gloves for the two-minute ride.
The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs flew across the globe to start the first of two games in Japan while it was still 4 a.m. in the United States. Meanwhile, the Windy City's youngsters could flip on the television while donning their bleached-white baseball pants that same morning only to see the score and not the game flash up on their screen.
They should be able to come home from their own opening day to watch the game, or gasp, head to Wrigley Field. Spreading the American product to a worldwide audience is not a bad idea, just don't treat baseball-starved fans of all ages to a serving of sushi before they can taste their first ballpark frank.
Maybe it was baseball's start away from the United States that forced the baseball gods to frown upon the real Opening Day on Monday.
Future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn gets plunked on the elbow and will miss the first few weeks of the season and Toronto reliever Graeme Lloyd's wife dies in what is truly tragic beyond the scope of baseball.
But, perhaps in the most ironic of twists, the much-anticipated return of Ken Griffey Jr. to his boyhood home was washed out by the rain in Cincinnati, as if Norman Rockwell himself were controlling the clouds in the sky.
Yes, there are 160 games remaining in the season, and Junior has plenty of home runs to hit in Ohio -- but you can almost see his child-like eyes, just twenty years ago, searching skyward and wondering if the rain would ever cease.
Call whoever's dad is the commissioner of this league and tell him to bring back Opening Day to its rightful place on an April afternoon close to each team's home and it will shine again.
