The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas, goes one of the songs you're likely to hear at least forty times between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, is "the most wonderful time of the year." Bosh. The most wonderful time of the year begins at a point in early April and endures for slightly more than half a calendar year.

Just ask Atlanta Braves fans. They had reason to fear the Christmas song might prove more right than wrong, come their Opening Day, at least. Then they saw a veteran pitcher, practically what they had to settle for following an offseason of more defeat than deliverance, deliver eight innings as though he were still a curse-busting Red Sox or a race-enhancing Dodger. They also saw a young man turn from prospect derailed (50-game suspension, 2008, actual or alleged performance-enhancing substance) to presence and then some. Put it this way: the defending world champion Philadelphia Phillies — opening at home, of course — couldn't pry a run out of Derek Lowe at gunpoint (Ryan Howard: "I don't know if he has a magnet in there to keep [the ball] down"), and Jordan Schafer used his first major league at-bat to find the far side of the fence.

Just ask Baltimore Orioles fans. They've had reason to fear the song would remain the same — no, silly, not the Christmas song — as it's been since, oh, the day Jeffrey Maier snagged that Derek Jeter drive that (read this carefully, folks) would have eluded even the leaping Oriole who thought he had a shot at it. Then they watched in their own heart cockle-warming home park as C.C. Sabathia threw little enough that Oriole hitters couldn't see or swat (6 runs, 8 hits, and Sabathia to the bath during the fifth inning), Jeremy Guthrie threw just enough to keep Yankee hitters — including a well-enough-collared Mark Teixiera (0-for-4 and five runners turned castaways) — from getting frisky enough, and the Orioles yanked four more runs out of Yankee pitching in their half of the eighth, after the Yankees had the audacity to close the deficit to 6-5.

Just ask Boston Red Sox fans. Not that they were particularly disenchanted over losing their shot at a mere third World Series win in five years, being the only team to take the eventual pennant-winner to a seventh League Championship Series game last fall, but wasn't it reassuring to watch Josh Beckett pitch the way Josh Beckett is expected to pitch customarily enough, and against the defending American League champion Tampa Bay Rays (how does that phrase sound, Rays fans?) in the bargain?

Just ask Chicago Cubs fans. Regardless of preseason optimisms, they have reason beyond many fans to fear a season to come in which the cleverly lugubrious Opening Day prediction of a Cub fan past (he whipped up a placard on the first pitch in Wrigley Field: WAIT 'TILL NEXT YEAR). Then Carlos Zambrano squared off against Roy Oswalt, the Houston Astros' best pitcher, recently left exhausted and prone in a World Baseball Classic eliminator, and got into the seventh with a mere run against him, outpitching Oswalt and leaving the Rabbit 2-3 on Opening Day assignments. If only Alfonso Soriano could start all his starts with second-pitch-of-the-game bombs. And if only Zambrano could learn that his mouth — which flapped approaching the season that the Cubs need a better ballpark than Wrigley to win, or some such folderol — was not constructed to fit his foot.

Just ask Florida Marlins fans. They had reason to smell things fishy enough, considering their heroes are still much composed of inexpensive commodities and the need to swim by the seat of their dorsals. But then a fresh Fish, Emilio Bonifacio, went 4-for-5 including the Show's first inside-the-park homer since Lyndon Johnson prepared to announce that he would not seek or accept the nomination of his party for another term as America's president. ("He was gassed and he couldn't breathe and he was asking people for water" — Cody Ross.) Three others including Hanley Ramirez with salami hit the more conventional sort of bombs, and the Washington Nationals finished their season debut wishing perhaps that they might get bombed. At the nearest watering hole.

(That last Opening Day inside-the-parker? Carl Yastrzemski. Coming off a Triple Crown season.)

Just ask Los Angeles Angels fans. They had reason to feel just a little less than angelic over losing John Lackey, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar for at least month number one, at least until Howie Kendrick and Vladimir Guerrero teed up RBI singles in the third and Kendrick as much as suggested to Vlad the Impaler, "You do enough — this one's on me," driving a 2-1 service from an Oakland Athletics pitcher named Dallas Braden over the left field fence in the fifth. And, at least until Joe Saunders picked up where his 17-7 record last season left off and took the shutout halfway through the seventh, Jeff Mathis arrested Mark Ellis on the front end of attempted double grand theft in the third, three more Angel cops performed feats of derring-don't-even-think-about-it against Oakland offenders, and three Angel relievers — including Brian Fuentes, the erstwhile Rockie who can't replace Francisco Rodriguez, but is a pretty capable Brian Fuentes — finished what Saunders started. Just another Halo victory...

Just ask New York Mets fans. They had reason enough to believe all was less than well, in spite of their breathless new Ebbets Field-descended playpen, considering a) the shakes over the Madoff scandal wiping enough of the Mets' owner that he couldn't even think of playing for Manny Being Manny (thank God for small favors?); and, b) the shakes accompanying most assessments of their starting pitching not named Johan Santana. They may still have the shakes by the time you read this, but it won't be Santana's fault. He flattened the Cincinnati Reds (whose pitching acquitted themselves nicely enough, in keeping the Mets to a pair of runs), handed a 2-1 lead to his remade/remodeled bullpen, and watched precisely what the Mets' management hoped they were getting when they landed one closer (J.J. Putz) to set up for another closer (Francisco Rodriguez): a win. The Mets have a mere 161 games left to prove it wasn't a fluke or it was a teaser toward a third consecutive stretch-drive strangle.

Just ask Seattle Mariners fans. The Prodigal Son sent his eighth known Opening Day launch into the seats, the Crown Prince fed the Minnesota Twins in the manner to which Mariners fans would prefer he and they become accustomed, and already the Safeco set thinks their heroes can stand up to the Angels or the Athletics. There's no known crime against first-game optimism. Yet.

Just ask Texas Rangers fans. The bad news was that the defending American League Cy Young Award winner struck out five of them and walked only one of them. But the good news was that none of that stopped the Rangers from treating Cliff Lee otherwise as though he had nothing to throw but pitches that inflated mysteriously enough between his release point and the plate.

Soo-oo-oo, Opening Days proved a little less than the most wonderful time of the year for Philadelphia, Bronx, Tampa Bay, Houston, Washington, Oakland, Cincinnati, Minnesota, and Cleveland fans. But those fans know the wisdom yielded only by the thinking person's sport, courtesy of one of its legendary managers about whom it could have been said that thinking was obscured often enough by temperament. "This ain't football," Earl Weaver liked to observe. "We do this every day."

For six wonderful months. Half the year plus. The other half? We'll worry about that come November.