Opening Day of MLB baseball is such a fun day. It is filled with hope and anticipation a to how your favorite team will begin the marathon of a season. It is time to examine some opening days across history. Many involve the opening of a new park or stadium.
Nothing had a greater impact on baseball and American society than Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier when he started at first base for Brooklyn on April 15, 1947. The Dodgers beat the Braves, 5-3.
San Francisco Giants- April 10, 1962 Opening Day Willie Mays hit the first pitch he saw from Warren Spahn for a home run. Juan Marichal got a shutout win. That season the Giants edged the Dodgers for the pennant in a best of three playoffs.
Miami Marlins: April 5, 1993
Franchise history starts with a W – Knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough started the game with a strike and all went well from there. South Florida had baseball and defeated the Dodgers, 6-3, in front of 42,334 fans.
Mets: April 9, 1985- In his first at-bat as a Mets player, catcher Gary Carter smacked a 10th inning walk-off home run to defeat the Cardinals as the Mets won their first of 98 games for the season.
Nationals:March 30,2 008– A new stadium had been built. Nationals Park was hosting opening day and President George H. Bush threw out the first pitch. But it was a walk-off ninth inning home run by Ryan Zimmerman that sent everyone home happy in D. C. as the National defeated the Braves 3-2.
Reds: April 4, 1974
Pete Rose made it a magical day as he raced home from second base on a wild pitch to score the winning run. He also went 3-for-5 in the opening day win.
Rockies: April 26, 1995- It was the first game at Coors Field and the Rockies trailed in the 14th inning until Dante Bichette hit a two run home run for walk-off win. His fist pump for the home run has created a bobblehead to immortalize the event.
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Opening Day baseball 2021 is almost here. Let’s preview the match-ups for this historic day which should become a national holiday.
Opening Day Thursday, April 1
Toronto vs New York 12:05 PM ESPN Hyun-Jin Ryu vs Gerrit Cole
Cleveland vs Detroit 12:10 PM Shane Bieber vs Matthew Boyd
Baltimore vs Boston 1:10 PM John Means vs Nathan Eovaldi
Minnesota vs Milwaukee 1:10 PM Kenta Maeda vs Brandon Woodruff
Pittsburgh vs Chicago 1:20 PM Undecided vs Kyle Hendricks
Atlanta vs Philadelphia 2:05 PM ESPN+ Max Fried vs Aaron Nola
Arizona vs San Diego 3:10 PM Undecided vs Yu Darvish
Los Angeles vs Colorado 3:10 PM ESPN Clayton Kershaw vs Undecided
St. Louis vs Cincinnati 3:10 PM Jack Flaherty vs Luis Castillo
Tampa Bay vs Miami 3:10 PM Tyler Glasnow vs Sandy Alcantara
Texas vs Kansas City 3:10 PM Kyle Gibson vs Brad Keller
New York vs Washington 6:09 PM ESPN Jacob deGrom vs Max Scherzer
Chicago (AL) vs LAA 9:05 PM Lucas Giolito vs Dylan Bundy
Houston vs Oakland 9:07 PM ESPN Zack Greinke vs Chris Bassitt
San Francisco vs Seattle 9:10 PM Kevin Gausman vs Marco Gonzales
About the author– Tom Knuppel has been writing about baseball and sports for a few decades. As an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan he began with the blog CardinalsGM. Tom is a member of the United Cardinals Bloggers and the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. He also maintains the History of Cardinals website. More recently he has been busy at KnupSolutions and the primary writer of many sports at KnupSports and adds content at Sports 2.0. Tom is a retired High School English and Speech teacher and has completed over one hundred sportsbook reviews. He also can be followed on Twitter at tknup.
Feel free to contact Tom at tknuppel@gmail.com
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