I have a friend who takes Opening Day off every year. Just sits at home, drinking beer and watching baseball all day. I’ve always been jealous of him, to the point where I keep asking my work to give me Opening Day off, and they keep saying no. What a ripoff!
The only thing better than Opening Day is today
Welcome to the best annual tradition in baseball: the four-postseason-game day
But the idea is pure. Take the day, free of distraction, and marinate in liquid baseball. It’s something that I’ve heartily recommended to everyone within earshot for the last couple decades. There are games on from morning to night, and you can stream several of them on the glass rectangles There is nothing better than Opening Day.
Except for today. Today is about a million times better than Opening Day, and you should always, always, always, call in sick today. For today is the day with four postseason games. It’s absurd and necessary, and it’s the best baseball day of the year.
Opening Day is watching a Lord of the Rings movie in the theaters. It’s accessible and easy and fun. You can get a buddy to do it, even if he or she isn’t that interested in it.
The Day of Four Postseason Games is painting your own pewter Clansmen of Lamedon figurine. It’s obsessive and tense and probably too much. Your buddy is now texting another buddy with their concerns. And you don’t care. You absolutely embrace the hell out of it.
So what makes the DOFPG so much better than Opening Day? Let us count the ways.
Opening Day is meaningless
Start with the obvious. Joe Panik homered on Opening Day. Heck, he homered three times in the first week of the season, which led to an article with a headline of “Joe Panik explains his early season home run binge.” He finished with four home runs.
Kole Calhoun homered on Opening Day. He went on to have one of the worst slumps in major league history.
Albert Pujols homered on Opening Day. He was still pretty bad this year.
Nick Markakis homered on Opening Day. He had one of his better seasons in an already impressive career.
It all means something! It all means nothing! It all seems so clear in retrospect and so murky while it’s going on. Dylan Bundy dominated on Opening Day and the Orioles won. Hell yeah.
On the Day of Four Postseason Games, everything is meaningful, by definition. If Anibal Sanchez throws a ball into center field to cost his team a win on Opening Day, nobody cares within the week. If he does it in a postseason game, it’s The Game When Anibal Sanchez Screwed Up a Double Play for decades, and it’s referenced by nerds indefinitely.
I don’t remember a lot about this year’s Opening Day, but I sure remember things from DOFPGs from years ago.
You can’t actually watch all of Opening Day
Thirty teams! Fifteen games! Some of them are on a Sunday or some crap, but still, it’s a smorgasbord of baseball, right when you’re at your absolute neediest. It’s great.
It’s impossible to follow them all.
You try, of course. You pick out the Eastern Time Zone games and make a plan, possibly based on the strengths of the teams or the pitching matchups. Then one game gets boring, and another one is a blowout ... and, cripes, the Central games are starting, so you set up your iPad and maybe your phone to keep tabs, but it’s a mess, and you’re just screwing around with a crossword puzzle before you know it, you dork.
On the Day of Four Postseason Games, there will be overlap between a couple of the games, most likely. One of them will be in the late innings, so if it’s intense, you can focus on it. If that game is already decided, you can focus on the fresh game about to start.
There’s a rhythm to the DOFPG. This isn’t Coachella, where you buy tickets to see Radiohead and Outkast, then realize that they’re playing at the same time 60 hectares away. This is one long concert, all on the same stage, and one act follows the other.
You also know all of these teams, too. You’re familiar with them. It’s a self-selecting bias, where you pay attention to the good teams throughout the long, long baseball season. Now they’re here and banging against each other like Godzilla and Mothra.
October is always on your mind the entire time during Opening Day, but the reverse isn’t true
When you’re watching a team on Opening Day, you’re thinking, “Maybe, if a few things break right for them, this team could possibly, conceivably, make the postseason, but, ha ha, it’s still early.”
When you’re watching a team on the DOFPG, you’re thinking, “Ah, this might be their only chance for the next decade. Look at the Nationals.”
Opening Day is when starters come out after 90 pitches; The four-postseason-game day is when relievers throw six innings because that’s just what the situation calls for, man
It’s another obvious one, but the first game of the season isn’t when managers push their players. Why would they? There are 161 games after that. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
On the DOFPG, the marathon-not-a-sprint cliché doesn’t fit. It’s not a marathon it’s a RUN, THERE ARE WOLVES RIGHT BEHIND YOU. Lookie here, it’s Andrew Miller in the fourth inning. Here’s a starter getting pulled in the second because he walked two batters. Here’s a closer in a tie game, and here’s an ace pitcher in an extra-innings game.
It’s almost like ... postseason games have more on the line than early regular-season games?
Spring is sneezy as hell. Fall is perfect
At least in California. Spring is dumb and sneezy. Fall is perfect and warm. I’m wearing flip-flops with socks as we speak.
The Day of Four Postseason Games is intense, don’t get me wrong. It’s not for the baseball-curious. It’s for the baseball mainliners. It’s about 10 to 12 hours of hyper-intense baseball, where every decision, play, and facial expression is analyzed beyond its logical conclusion.
But if you’re going to take a day off for baseball reasons, make it this one. Opening Day wins if you’re close to a major league team and have the means to attend, so I get that. There’s an egalitarian spirit that comes with watching one team out of 30, and it’s a day for everybody to enjoy.
The Day of Four Postseason Games is a day to be bloodthirsty and gluttonous. All of this baseball means something. All of it. And all of these teams are good. And it’s all mine, mine, mine.
I’m not saying that it’s not too late to call in sick, but I’m not not saying it’s not too late to call in sick.
Go with food poisoning. It’s not contagious, so it won’t freak anyone out, but it’s serious enough for them to want you to get the hell out of there. And when you’re home, with a cocktail, watching one of four taut, tense, meaningful baseball games, remember that Opening Day is for weenies.
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