For those who celebrate...

Whelp, today's the day. I almost couldn't wake up for it I was so excited. When you become the person you want to be, boy can it be exhausting.

You might think I'm making too much of things but I've been wanting season tickets to major league baseball since I was 8 years old. And now... opening day.

Today my son and I wandered into Target Field and ran into some people I've known most of my life. It seemed fitting. TC was taking pictures and they had piles of hot dogs (not the best spread for a new vegetarian).

Of course, the Twins were in Kansas City, but the stadium was gleaming in the cold sunlight. It was opening day...

My uncle is retiring this year. He is a professor at Augsburg University. When I was a very little kid he also owned a movie theater. He and I recently shared a conversation with my son about baseball when I announced to him I had purchased season tickets and wanted to invite him once or twice. I saw the gleam in his eye that I know is planted in my own. The same glimmer that people try to harness in 'Field of Dreams' or 'The Natural'. My son quoted him as we walked into Target Field's newly renamed Thrivent Club: "Uncle Bob is right," my son started, "Baseball is a past time. It needs to be slow and quiet, to draw you in."

It's interesting that opening day always falls somewhere inside the NCAA tournament. I love basketball as well, but they are thoroughly different games. People don't methodically watch every dribble of a game trying to calculate what the coach might do in a basketball game if the matchup goes awry. Nor do fans allow themselves to be sucked in when the game seems to fall apart.

Baseball is heroically different.

My new favorite player, Royce Lewis, hit the third pitch he saw over the left field fence in Kaufmann Field. Two innings later, he looped a single that started a new rally. Inside of three minutes later, he was off the field, limping as he rounded second base. The questions that arise are significant, but not nearly the same as, say, Kirk Cousins recent achilles. The Twins got their 'insurance runs' in the top of the ninth after going 6 innings in a 2-1 pitchers duel by a passed ball. They call football a 'game of inches' but, I'm telling you, millimeters can change the course of a baseball career.

I used to listen to every pitch on WCCO. I'd go out to the garage and throw grounders off of our garage door until my mother would start yelling at me. "If you're going to do that, then you need to be the one to repaint it!" I'd shout back "I WILL!". Our driveway was on a small hill. Not exactly ideal for fielding grounders but I'd take any chance I could get. I'd hit the tennis ball hanging from the garage ceiling also until I whacked it into my dad's pile of 'storage'. "Rebeccah, those were for us to measure the cars..." I put a coffee can in our back yard and would try to throw at it like darts. Our wonderful neighbors, who I have known my entire life, never minded when baseballs would fly into their flower garden. I nearly broke one of their gigantic pictures windows once with my brother. Those neighbors had far more grace than I could expect from my dad. ;)

I got nostalgic wandering around today with my son. The decidedly uncommon was becoming common. The dream was becoming reality.

Opening day is a sense of a fresh start and in Minnesota it meant a green grassy field where half of the seats were covered in snow. As I peered out over the infield, the sound of baseball announced all around me, my son staring at the game, I couldn't help but feel... happy.

I won't speak for you, but I find that I spend most of my moments striving for something else. I'm not proud of that. Like many out there, I often let perfect get in the way of good. But with baseball and the slow lull of every pitch, with only the most hard core of fans, I felt pretty, pretty good. Here's to a great season. Take me out to the ballgame.

Stats of note: Royce Lewis 2-2 with a home run. Pablo Lopez got the win and 7 strikeouts. Carlos Correa 3-4 with 2 RBI

Next Game: Saturday in Kansas City