BASEBALL’S OPENING DAY A RITE OF SPRING

Win or lose, Major League Baseball’s Opening Day is something to celebrate. From The San Diego Union-tribune, Friday, April 10, 1992:

Padres: Home Opener Fans gather for ritual of baseball

Every year they come back, filled again with wonder and celebration and the hope that maybe this year will be the Padres’ year.

Opening night at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium does that to people.

Yesterday, thousands of San Diego’s baseball fans f locked to their mecca for that annual rite of renewal.

They started arriving hours before the first pitch to set out lawn chairs, coolers and barbecues, basking under warm skies and the knowledge that baseball was back.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” said Woody Hayes, a Navy man and season-ticket holder who was clad in a Padres jersey with his name on the back.

All around him, people felt the same way. Many said they had been coming to opening days for more than a decade, and it’s as much a part of their annual schedule as Thanksgiving or Christmas.

“This is one of our holidays,” said Mary Williams, a retired secretary sitting with a group of family and friends under the awning of a recreational vehicle.

Her party was quietly sipping wine, but many of the gatherings were more boisterous. Several local radio stations set up stages for live music, attracting large crowds.

In between songs, there was a quieter sound in many pockets of the parking lot: the soft plop of a baseball hitting a glove. The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers grilling filled the air.

And so did talk of pennants. The Padres started the season with a successful road trip to Cincinnati, twice beating the pre-season favorite Reds.

That had San Diego fans believing that maybe the Padres can be serious contenders.

“I think we’re going places this year,” Hayes said.

Taking all this in for the first time was Lawrence Strickland, who had never been to a baseball game before last night.

Strickland, who was on board the reconnaissance ship Pueblo when it was captured by North Korea in 1968, was attending with a special gold-plated pass that enables the former prisoner of war to attend any majorleague game.

Sitting with his wife, Mimi, playing gin rummy at a table outside Gate H, Strickland said rheumatic fever kept him away from ballparks as a child.

“I figured it was time to come out and see what this was all about,” he said.

Curiosity wasn’t limited to the parking lot. When the gates into the stadium seating opened about 4:45 p.m., almost three hours before game time, hundreds of people streamed past the turnstiles to drink in the peculiar symmetry of the national pastime: the white lines, the green grass, the round bat trying to connect with the round ball.

They were greeted by ushers in tuxedos, a special touch for a special night.

Lee Suwyn took his son Jared, 6, into the stadium early so the boy could try to add to his autograph collection. Jared already has the signatures of some of his favorite Padres — Tony Gwynn and Andy Benes among them — on baseball cards and on his cap.

“This is our first opening night,” Lee Suwyn said, patting his son’s head. “He’s just that much more into it this year.”