Opening day used to belong to the Cincinnati Reds
Today it's just another Opening Day game and that feels wrong
It’s been more than a week since the official start of the 2025 MLB season. The two games in Tokyo between the Dodgers and Cubs were thrilling to the local fans and a welcome return of baseball games that count in the standings. Spring Training games while a fun and light experience in no way compares to games that are played to win!
Last week I attended my first Spring Training game in over 10 years. In 2013 I attended with my son (and podcast partner), while he was attending school in Orlando. The game was between the Braves and Mets at Kissimmee, FL. For some reason I recall that Matt den Dekker played for the Mets in centerfield and looked good that day. I don’t remember which team won or who else played in that game. This bothers me since I often remember things I have no reason to remember, and that game would fit the bill. But I just can’t, and I believe it’s because the games don’t count. Spring Training is a long appetizer before the real season begins and by that, I mean Opening Day.
Opening Day in Cincinnati was a time-honored tradition
Being the oldest MLB franchise, the Reds have opened the MLB season at home since 1900 except for three occasions when they opened in Philadelphia (1966), Houston (1990), and Atlanta (2022).
For most of the 20th century the Reds game was the first game on MLB Opening Day. While that’s a long tradition, I noted that it bothers me that three times the Reds played their first game on the road out of 125 years. This year the Reds will open on Thursday March 27th vs. the Giants. It won’t be the first game of the season since the Dodgers and Cubs have already played two games! But it also won’t be MLB’s first game of the first full day, since the Brewers and Yankees first pitch is at 3:05PM, and the Reds at 4:10PM. I admit that I prefer the Reds playing first as an homage to baseball’s earliest days. It’s interesting that the Reds were the team that was the southernmost team in baseball during the 1870s (they were founded as the Red Stockings in 1869 and moved to the American Association in 1882), when baseball was limited to cold weather cities. The St. Louis Cardinals came into existence in 1882 and were the southernmost team until the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958. It seems strange to write that.
Great book on Opening Day
‘Baseball Opening Day 50 for 50’ author Michael Ortman, who has joined our podcast on two occasions, has averred that Opening Day in Cincinnati is something special to experience. There’s always a Findlay Market parade and the whole city gets excited for Reds baseball, as well as the start of the baseball season. But to me the tradition of the Reds being first to play is slowly slipping away and that makes me sad. What could it hurt to have MLB’s oldest team always play first? Even if that’s limited to ‘domestic’ games since I have no problem with other teams opening in foreign markets as the Dodgers have done the past two seasons.
Some of us baseball lovers have a notion that Opening Day in MLB should be a national holiday. For me it’s a least a personal holiday! The baseball season signals spring is here and a long and wonderful summer is possible. Football, by comparison, signals Autumn, leaves falling, and the ultimate end of nice weather for the year. It’s more of the signal of an end than it is a beginning. Basketball and hockey are just good ways to cope with winter while we wait for Spring – and baseball!
Even if we can’t get a national holiday for Opening Day in baseball, having the Reds play at home and first every year would be my choice!
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com. Mark can be reached on x and bluesky @almostcoop and almostcooperstown@gmail.com
Thanks for the shout out, Mark, and thank you, for appropriately expressing the words “Opening Day” as a formal noun with initial caps. When writing the book, I had two editors try to tell me it was a more standard lowercase pronoun/noun combination. I reminded them it was, in a sense, a holy day of obligation.😜
And baseball starting certainly has more meaning to those of us in the Northeast as far as the feeling of spring in the air. The beginning of nice weather is far better than the thought of cold weather once football season begins. Again, for those of you who understand what real winters are like. Good points on keeping traditions, Mark.