A Cold Day In 9th Inning Hell

It's been officially meteorological Spring since March but who counts that? No, my (and your's dammit) first day of Spring coincides with MLB's Opening Day. Even if you're not a baseball fan you have to admit there's a certain allure to the first day of baseball. Whether it's simply the excitement of those around you who do like baseball, or just that March 23rd never feels that warm, there is definitely something to it. I for one think Opening Day should be an official sports holiday. That, along with the Superbowl and the first rounds of March Madness. Keep in mind that I also refuse to swim in large bodies of water. Why? Because there's dead bodies in there, that's why. I'm pretty sure every large body of water in the world has a dead body in it at every moment of the day. I refuse to swim in dead body juice. This irrational belief tends to sully my other seemingly sane ideas so if you could keep this just between us that'd be great.

Woah... What happened here? Baseball, Baseball...

I'm very fortunate to have gotten tickets to the Cardinals Opening Day. It's a highly sought after ticket here in the Lou. I saw tickets going for over a $100 a piece for just okay tickets at best. I bought mine with my half season ticket package. They weren't my regular seats but they were face value and only 15 rows behind them. It didn't matter to me where they were I just wanted to experience the magic of it all. And then Mother Nature finally decided to pay me back for all those times I cleverly wondered aloud if she hit menopause whenever it went from cold to hot overnight. Hot flashes! Get it? Ha? Okay, so maybe I deserved it.

38 degrees... A high of 38 degrees. It was far from ideal but I layered up and headed to the game. I arrived at the game a little later than originally planned. Mostly because I had planned for 65 degrees and bikini-clad section mates. In fact, it was too cold to watch the opening ceremonies. So cold, that I didn't feel like I missed anything. I sat down right as the first pitches were thrown. After and inning or two it was time for a new beer and I headed off to the only place Bouly Wheat is available in the entire stadium, the Casino Queen section. I had brought my good friend Dave and he knew some folks who had some great seats down by third base. We decided to go say hi to them and, wouldn't you know it, there were a few seats open right next to them. We ended up sitting there for the rest of the game. I know... Awesome. Awesome indeed.

The game was great for the most part. We were up going into the ninth. 4 runs allowed later and the game was over. Blown save number 1 this season. Too bad too because I think the cold weather would have been much more forgivable with a Cards win. Meh.

Still, I don't want to downplay how excited I am for this season. I just hope game 7 of the World Series is super nice in October. I don't want to have too many layers on when I'm doing fake cartwheels in the streets. You owe me Mother Nature. You've been so moody lately. I wonder why...