Opening Day

The words Opening Day could mean different things to different people. But whenever I have heard those words they have only meant one thing to me. Baseball. You see the game of baseball isn't just a game to me. It is a part of my life. It has been a part of me since I was a child. I will always think of baseball as the best part of my relationship with my father. He taught me how to play this game and the game taught me how to become an adult.

There is a quote from Jim Bouton a former big leaguer and I may not get this exactly correct, but as I know it to be goes like this....."I spent most of my life gripping a baseball, but I realize that it has been baseball gripping me."

We hold on so tightly to this game, but it is this game that has ended up teaching us the most important lessons in life.

It is widely known that the hardest thing in sports is to hit a round ball with a round bat. A Hall of Fame hitter fails to do this 70% of the time. Life can be so similar.

We try as friends, parents, spouses and all the roles we portray in life to be 100%, but in reality if we succeed 30% of the time we are actually accomplishing our goals. The best baseball players learn to overcome their failures. Understanding that overcoming adversity defines our character can make or break the way we live we our lives. We need to realize life is rough. No one can be perfect. Only through our failures will we be able to grow and learn.

I spent the day today with my friends Bryan and Shaun. They both took the day off work so they could watch opening day baseball with me. As we watched the games today, I couldn't help but think what a great thing Opening Day is. There aren't too many other days in the year when we can get together and just be. Baseball brought us together today. If for no other reason, baseball can be a good reason. We experienced that today.

As a husband and parent, time spent with a couple of friends can be increasingly difficult to come by. Baseball got us over that hump today. I'm happy it did.

Not only does Opening Day signify the beginning of the season, the beginning of good weather(for us in Chicago, not so much) and a feeling of rebirth, it also gives us, if nothing else, a good excuse to blow off our wives and hang out with the guys and just be.