Opening Day

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. . . .It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

--Annie Savoy, Bull Durham.

As a baseball Annie, Susan Sarandon's character had, shall we say, her own way of demonstrating her devotion, but that's a great movie and a great quote. And really, I'm not sure there's any other way to describe Opening Day at Busch Stadium than as a worship service: today, no foolin', is Opening Day.

Nothing should be easier than making fun of an event that features 50,000 red-clad people cheering for a beer wagon, but given how annoyed I am that my brother chose to gouge a coworker instead of his own flesh and highly-pressured blood when he sold his tickets for tonight's game, it's clear I don't have it in me. Given the opportunity, I'd have been clapping along to the Budweiser jingle, too.


If the rest of the game looks like the first four innings, there won't be much else to clap for, but that's really not the point. The best part of tonight happened long before Carpenter's first pitch (which was, for the record, a ball). There's something about a parade of convertibles and a gathering of old ballplayers and a lot of talk about tradition that's really just so much hooey that makes me smile despite myself. What can I say? I've drunk the Kool-Aid, and it is Cardinal Red.

I do draw the line somewhere, but it's not straight. The music that was played when the championship banner was hoisted above the stadium was so reverential as to be ridiculous, but except for the "we're afraid you won't live through the season" subtext, those same strains almost seemed fitting when they accompanied Stan Musial's motorized entrance onto the field. After all, if a church has gathered in that stadium tonight, he's certainly the pope. I'm not sure how many of the current players quite appreciate who "baseball's perfect warrior" is, but at least they knew--or followed directions well-- enough to shake his too-frail hand as they entered the field. Kiss his ring, boys; maybe something will rub off.

And that's the heart of the Cardinal Nation appeal. Musial is an icon, and for good reason. He's as respected off the field as he was on, and he's been off the field for forty-three years, longer than even Lonnie has been alive. Seeing him, along with Schoendienst and Gibson , Herzog and Andujar interact with today's team is the main reason I wish I were there. Somehow the representatives of '42, and '67, and '82 make '07 seem to be, for a moment, more than overpaid athletes, if champion overpaid athletes at that. It's a trick of time and memory, of course. None of those aging men were ever more than ballplayers, but each has been made larger than life by the fun-house mirror of a generation's adulation. Out on the field, they're more symbols than individuals, sport-jacketed repositories of millions of memories.

It's as if winning only once every twenty-plus years was precisely calculated to snag one generation and then the next, making each feel a part of something bigger while magnifying the importance of a handful of players. If it were a marketing strategy, it'd be genius. Everyone in the stands has someone to claim as her own, but there aren't so many revered players that their names won't fit on a banner or plaque or outfield wall. Explicating why anybody really cares would require more psychoanalysis than I can muster, but today I'm content to take the value of this enterprise on faith. I'll save my doubts and complaints for another time; today is Opening Day.