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It was five months ago to the day – exactly 151 days ago – that the last major league game was played at Dodger Stadium. It was Game-5 of the 2018 World Series, and we all know how that one ended.
The result was seemingly the longest off-season of all time for true, dyed-in-the-wool Dodger fans and, truthfully, every baseball fan on the planet.
But then came Spring Training – 42 total days and 32 exhibition games – resulting in a 14-15-3 record for the Dodgers.
And today, all is anew.
It’s Opening Day 2019.
Today our National Pastime, as baseball has been called since Major League Baseball officially began in 1869, kicks off it’s 150th season. Today is, unofficially or otherwise, a true National Holiday; one which should have officially been deemed as such many many years ago.
Yes, you can argue that the 2019 baseball season technically began last week when the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics played two (exhibition-ish) games at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. But let’s be real here – how many people actually got up at 2 A.M. (PT) to watch two of the worst teams in the game play one another, tributes to the immortal Ichiro Suzuki not withstanding?
But baseball is back … TODAY!
For the Dodgers, it’s their season and home opener against their division-rival Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium, with first pitch set for 1:10 P.M. (PT).
Baseball is BACK!!!
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“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.” – A. Bartlett Giamatti
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Yep, here we go again. The Dodgers are about to embark on another grueling schedule inroute to what we all hope to be another shot at a World Championship.
Maybe this is the year.