Opening Day
April 4, 2004

For more years than most can remember it started in mid-April on a Tuesday in Cincinnati. Because they were the first organized, professional baseball team, the Reds drew opening day honors, with the rest of the National and American League following the next day. It was as much a part of the rites of spring as the budding of the leaves or the birds returning from their southern vacation.

Like so many other traditions of the game, opening day in southern Ohio has been cast aside by the demands of television and perhaps a little international diplomacy. In 2004 the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays opened the season half a world from the Yankee Stadium in Tokyo, Japan.

Another tradition that fell by the way was the barnstorming tour up from the spring training camps in Florida. Teams would travel, often in pairs, playing in small towns and larger cities where major league baseball was only something to be read about in the sports pages each morning. In the late 1940s or early ’50s my dad and grandfather closed up the law office and the lumberyard for the afternoon and went to Greenville to watch Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees take on a team of local all-stars. It was an opportunity not to be missed.

The first big league game I ever saw was between the New York Giants (Yes, Virginia, the Giants were in the Polo Grounds on Coogan’s Bluff in those days) and the Cleveland Indians. The game, played on a sunny April afternoon at Burnett Field in Dallas, was a replay of the previous fall’s World Series. The next year I saw the Red Sox and Pirates in the same location and got autographs from Vic Wertz and Pete Runnels.

And now, nine things you didn’t know about opening day from “The Baseball Page.com.”

1. Ted Williams’ first hit, a double came on April 18, opening day, 1939. The game against the Yankees was Williams’ first. It was Lou Gehrig’s last opening day. The Iron Horse would play only seven more games before stepping down. It was the only time the two played in the same game.

2. April 19, 1960 was Roger Maris’ first opening day in pinstripes. He went 4 for 5 with two home runs and four RBIs in a 8-4 Yankee win over the Red Sox in Fenway Park.

3. Bob Feller pitched the only opening day no hitter on April 16, 1940, in Chicago’s Comisky Park against the White Sox. Herb Pennock had come within one out of accomplishing the feat 30 years earlier. A ninth inning single by Boston’s Harry Hooper spoiled the Philadelphia Athletics pitcher’s shot at immortality.

4. The first opening day game played under the lights was in St. Louis in 1950. The Cardinals beat the Pirates 4-2.

5. Robin Roberts started 12 straight opening games for the Phillies, and that’s the record for service with one team. Pitching for three different clubs, Detroit, Minnesota and Toronto, Jack Morris made 13 opening day starts in a row, and that’s a record, too. Overall, Tom Seaver holds the record. He had seven wins, two losses and seven no decisions in 16 first day outings with the Mets, Reds and White Sox.

6. Eight home runs—that’s how many Frank Robinson hit on opening day. He wore the colors of Cincinnati, Baltimore, California, and Cleveland while gathering in the record.

7. The record for consecutive opening day wins is nine. It is held jointly by the 1937-1945 St. Louis Browns and the 1975-1983 New York Mets.

8. The first president to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on opening day was William Howard Taft. It on April 14, 1910, and Walter Johnson of the Senators went on to shut out the A’s on one hit.

9. Mike “The Texas Tornado” Southerland opened the Bonham Little League season in 1956 by going 3 for 3 for the Southwest Pump Cardinals. The slugging outfielder had a single, a double and a triple. OK, it was two singles and a double, but one of them would have been a triple if I hadn’t missed second base by about three feet. I made up that part about the tornado too.

Play ball!