Rant #1,413: It's a Long Season

Major League Baseball had a full slate of games on tap yesterday.

Even though it actually began the 2015 season on Sunday, with a clash between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs, yesterday was the real opening day for baseball, with numerous games on the schedule.

My beloved New York Yankees lost to the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1, and as a long-time Yankees fan, I think that this may be a long season for the one-time Bronx Bombers, who did absolutely nothing in the off season to make themselves better.

They haven't made the playoffs in two seasons, and a third is on the horizon, I am sorry to say.

The baseball season is basically 162 games in 180 days.

It is a frenetic season, fast paced, and if you are rooting for a good team, it is as satisfying as eating a good piece of seven-layer cake.

It is sweet as can be.

If you are rooting for a bad team, it is torture.

You count the days so the season can end, and you can move on to something else.

I honestly don't know what the Yankees have this year, but at least on paper, I am not impressed.

Heck, my prime rooting years were those seasons from 1965-1975, when the Yankees had really nothing to root for.

The team was old, the team was bad, but I was ages eight through 18, and I lived and died with the Yankees.

Mostly died, but it gave me an appreciation for the game that was indelible and has never left me.

I still remember the first game I went to. My friend and I played hooky from school in a meaningless game at old Yankee Stadium in late June 1965.

My friend's father got tickets--maybe they were given to him, I don't know--and we went to the Stadium to see the Yankees play the Kansas City Athletics.

I was so taken by the immenseness of the Stadium, it mesmerized me.

I pretty much get that same feeling when I go to a game as an adult.

There really is nothing like seeing a game in person. You get that feeling, that "smell," if you will, of a ballpark.

I had it as an eight year old, and nearly 50 years later, I still have it.

So whatever happens this season, to me, there is simply nothing like baseball.

It brings you back to your childhood, it grounds you, it makes you whole.

I love it, I simply do, and this year, after a few years away, my family and I are going to a game later in the season, on my son's birthday.

It should be a lot of fun. I know I can't wait.

"Take Me Out to the Ballgame," yes, that will be my cry until the day comes.

In the interim, I hope the Yankees prove me wrong, very wrong, and they make this a season to remember, in a very positive way.