Opening Day

If I were president I would declare Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season a national holiday. We all need a chance to take a day off, to relax and watch Our National Pastime, to root, root, root for the home team.

“Do NOT go to work today,” I messaged my comrades in the Yankees Club House, the online group chat my elder daughter Natalie set up last year in time for Opening Day. “Calling for a national holiday. Play ball!”

The Clubhousers liked that idea. They also were quite excited about the debut, at shortstop, of Anthony Volpe, just 21, the pride of Watchung, New Jersey. As the Yankees took the field yesterday, I mentioned to our group that Volpe was wearing number 11 on his uniform, and that he had asked retired Yankee Brett Gardner, the last Yank to wear that number, if he would be OK with it. Classy! Volpe kissed the Yankee logo on his jersey as he lifted his glove to acknowledge the Bleacher Creatures calling his name. I like this kid.

Many years ago on Opening Day I communicated with my fellow Yanksters in person, in the stands at Yankee Stadium. I was a proud member of the Cora Rizzuto Fan Club, named in honor of Phil’s wife. We convened once a year on that special day.

Cora and Phil are gone now and I’ve lost touch with the club members. Frankly, it’s too damn cold on Opening Day to sit outside, even if you’re basking in the warmth of baseball, the first game and old friends. (I also once attended Opening Day at Fenway Park — they were playing the Yankees — and nearly froze my nuts off.)

No more. Now I’m content to sit at home on my couch, with my dog at my side, and take in the big game while enjoying a beer and peanut butter sandwich.

It was 39 degrees yesterday in Yankee Stadium.

It was 38 degrees yesterday in Fenway Park.

And it was windy!

Yankee fans don’t need me to tell them what happened in the first inning when Aaron Judge came up to bat. Pow! Wow! Kaboom! 422 feet! Into Monument Park! Over the outstretched glove of Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Carl, “Yaz,” the old-time Red Sox outfielder!

How great is THAT?

Amid my whoops and hollers, echoed by my puppy Jolene, I messaged the gang: “Judge baby!” In the same minute Natalie posted a photo of herself jumping around with her arms raised at her home in Los Angeles. Of course like her dad, she was in Yankee attire, the cap and pinstriped uniform.

Everybody in the Club House was loving it.

Not so much joy was being felt up in Fenway. My buddy Van, a longtime Red Sox fan, was sending me increasingly gloomy texts from his apartment near me in New Haven: “One of the most mediocre Sox teams I have seen in years. No fun to watch.”

My reply: “I guess you’re saying they lost.”

Van: “They are losing 8-2 in the 6th.”

Me: “Ain’t over ‘til it’s over?”

Van: “The season is over.”

Me: “On Opening Day?”

Van: “I know a loser when I see one.”

Later, after the Sox managed to make things interesting in the 9th for the few fans still hanging around and shivering in Fenway, they lost, 10-9.

But we Yankee fans were enjoying a laugher. I popped open a second beer and watched Gerrit Cole strike out 11 Orioles, a Yankee record for Opening Day. Compare this to the performance of the Red Sox pitching staff: Nine walks! Fifteen hits! Five stolen bases! Plus a wild pitch.

Final score in the Bronx: Yanks 5, Giants zilch. “TH-H-H-H Yankees win!” This I texted to the Club House.

The response from club member Ben Kafoglis, who might have been teaching in his classroom and so missed the game because this is NOT yet a national holiday: “Woohoo!”

My wife then opened a dialogue noting the new pitch clock, larger bases and other changes intended to speed up the game. She asked: “How do we feel about the pace and length of the game? I definitely felt the difference and welcome it!”

Alex Pototsky replied: “It was so great, gonna be the most lively season in years.”

Time of the game: merely two hours, 33 minutes.

I used to consider myself a baseball purist (“It’s the only game without a clock!”) but I got so tired of watching pitchers standing on the mound rubbing the ball and batters stepping out of the box to adjust their batting glove and scratch the itch in their crotch that I agree it’s time for a change.

Van does not endorse the new rules. But I urged him to look at it this way: he’ll spend less time suffering!