Opening Day is Still Special

Despite the great distance, I seem to keep showing up at Petco Park on Opening Day. I love that.

I moved to West Virginia in 2008. One of the things I didn't like about that (don't get me wrong here...I have truly come to love my new home state...) was that I would have to leave behind a source of much enjoyment to me... my home team. Yes, they would still be there. Yes, the internet would make this seperation much less drastic than the one I went through from 1989 to 1992 when I was in Iowa.

My first opening day away from San Diego was an averted disappointment, averted by the best Valentines Day gift ever, a plane ticket and seats to keep my consecutive Opening Day attendance streak from ending at unlucky thirteen. (Thank you, Debi. I still love that you so unselfishly went that route. *kiss*)

The next year, I missed Opening Day for the first time in fourteen years. It felt empty.

The last two years, including yesterday, I have been there by lucky coincidence. I travel to San Diego during my kids spring break to both spend time with them and to save money on day care... and the Padres home opener has fallen within that week. Not planned, but certainly welcome.

The Padres lost yesterday to the Dodgers, and though I hate losing to the Dodgers I loved that I was there to witness it... and I loved even more that I shared the afternoon with my kids, my mom and my grandmother. Family and baseball are inextricably linked for me, the way some link their families with backyard barbecues or board games at the kitchen table.

Tonight, we will attend again, attend the game Tony Gwynn used to call the day the real fans show up. I respect him and understand what he meant, that the second game has less people there for the event and more for baseball. But I still love Opening Day. So much so that even when my address is now 2000 miles distant, I have been to seventeen of the twenty since I graduated college.