Nice weather – check.

Spring fever – check.

Baseball on the brain – check.

Having grown up a Chicago Cubs fan, opening day was always something of a rush. There was hope in the air, the chance that this could, indeed, be “our year”. After a lifetime of thinking so, and with poor results year after year, the first day of the season still holds that fresh, hopeful feeling of another chance to do well. The Mariners have their chance today. Several people I know have tickets tonight to enjoy the season opener, and they could not have chosen a finer day. Enjoy it out there, folks!

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.”

Did you know that this 1907 Tin Pan Alley song, 1908 by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer had never even attended a single baseball game when they wrote the lyrics? (They eventually did, but many years later!)

Happy Opening Day, Mariners! And, for my Cubbies fans…could this finally be our year?

Cheers!