Opening Day needs to be a true morning-through-night all-day affair
The 2019 baseball season started at the crack of dawn this past week as the Mariners took two games from the A's in Tokyo. While it was a normal time for baseball in Japan, for those on the East Coast, it involved setting the alarm early and waking up at 5:30 a.m. ET to sit down and watch baseball. Waking up at that time of day may seem like torture, and I can attest that it certainly seemed that way when my alarm went off with the world still dark and silent beyond my window, but it turned out to be perfect.
As soon as I climbed out of bed, I was able to sit down for baseball -- real baseball, regular-season baseball! -- with a cup of coffee, a toasted bagel and my cozy pajamas. As I lounged long before the rest of city was up and out, it was proof: Opening Day needs to be an all-day affair starting with the most important meal of the day.
Baseball already fills almost every other part of the day during the regular season. Afternoon matinees are divine, especially if you can sneak out of the office for a few hours. Night games that go deep into extra innings and turn into mind-melting, bizarro midnight theater are oddly perfect. But none of them are there at the start of your day.
Opening Day, the day when baseball officially starts and marks the actual onset of spring -- bug off, Vernal Equinox -- usually begins at 1 p.m. ET and goes until about 1 a.m. ET. Hey, 12 hours of baseball is fun. But for a day that should be a national holiday, it should start first thing in the morning.
Just think: The first game starts at 9 a.m. ET. (While that's early, it's not impossibly early for West Coasters -- who will get to make up the time on the back end of this plan) You get out of bed and immediately settle in for the first game of the season. Because I'm a traditionalist in some regards, the season starts in Cincinnati, making for a very early morning parade.
But that's not the only change. With a full 15-game schedule, a different game will begin every hour for 14 consecutive hours. That means there are endless games starting and ending throughout the day, with the final start coming at 11 p.m. ET -- or the perfect time for some evening baseball for the Pacific Coast residents. That means that not only are baseball games beginning earlier, but the last ballgame should finish later, too.
Even better, while you'll still have multiple games to watch during the day, there will be less time when there's games that you physically are unable to watch. That means you'll actually get to witness more of the action all day, too.
Hi, Arizona baseball. See you tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/pt2kcmMcMf
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) March 7, 2019
But hold on, that's not all: How about a preseason Futures Game starting at midnight? The Minor League schedule doesn't start until a week after the Major League Opening Day, so there's plenty of time for top prospects to get together for a showcase of the future. College basketball has its midnight madness celebrations, and now baseball can get in on the action, too. Assuming this game ends at 3 a.m., then you could have a full 18 hours of baseball in your day -- leaving you just enough time to grab some sleep and/or update your fantasy lineup for the next day.
The Red Sox have a Patriots Day game that begins at 11 a.m. Minor League teams regularly host games before noon for schools and camps to hold field trips. The English Premier League has created an entire cottage industry in the United States around sports at breakfast.
It's time for Opening Day to get in on the act: Start in the morning and go all day.
