This was originally published in The Athletic.

Like any good Reds fan, I spent what was supposed to be Opening Day feeling miserable that it was instead just another quarantined Thursday during what would have been mostly glorious weather for a ballgame.

Like any good Cincinnatian, I spent a day that we’d been crawling toward all winter ensconced in sadness, not only crushed because of what we were missing but also devastated for the people whose livelihoods are directly connected to the baseball season.

Like any good human, I spent Thursday deeply longing for a chance sit and watch nine innings, if for no other reason than to give me something — anything — to pull my attention away from the endless onslaught of bad news we’ve all had to endure.

The excitement that usually consumes many of us leading up to Opening Day was replaced, for me, by pure dread as March 26 approached. Seemingly the only thing that kept the day the Major League Baseball season was supposed to begin from approaching faster was that the days now seem interminable. A week feels like a month. Last month feels like a lifetime ago.

Yet we still knew when Opening Day was supposed to be, and we knew that when that day arrived, without baseball, we’d try to gamely smile and make the most of it. A bunch of us would don some Reds gear before snapping off a selfie accompanied by a hashtag. Some would watch an old Opening Day game. A handful would probably still spend the day getting hammered because drinking alone beats not drinking at all.

Those things all did happen, but none of them did anything to soften the blow. Yes, it was supposed to be Opening Day in every big-league city, but nowhere was its absence taken more personally and felt more profoundly than here, and for me at least, the anguish was inescapable. None of us were supposed to be spending the day holed up alone wondering when any sense of normalcy will return. The best-laid plans did not involve you and I staring wistfully out our windows as sunshine cascaded in the early afternoon. It was supposed to involve the Reds kicking the crap out of the Cardinals, authoring the kind of victory we were all going to make too big of a deal over.

Do you know what I love most about Opening Day? When it’s over and we’ve recovered, it gives way to the rhythmic six-month soundtrack to so many of our lives. Yes, the day itself is special beyond description and more fun than anyone from any other place would ever believe, but the very best thing about Cincinnati’s very best day is that it launches the Reds, and baseball itself, into a daily part of our lives.

There are approximately four billion things I love about baseball, but the thing I like most is how its seasons unfold almost every single day from early spring until the middle of fall. It is a sport that can demand rapt and undivided attention but doesn’t require it. Baseball is often best served as background noise. Think the chatter on the living room TV as you’re getting the kids ready for bed, or the soothing sound of a ballgame on the radio as you sit with your buddies around a fire pit.

A baseball season can serve as a backdrop to everything else that life forces us to encounter. The ballpark can be an escape, a place to grow, rekindle and even ignite friendships. The games themselves can be conversation pieces, useful both for connecting strangers and strengthening existing bonds. The season itself can provide companionship and a sense of normalcy, even when life is at its most chaotic.

Has a baseball season ever been more needed than it is right now?

To read the entire piece, go to The Athletic.

(Photo: Getty Images)

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