Today Should Have Been Opening Day And Baseball Fans Are Distraught
Today should have been opening day for MLB, but it's not due to unforeseen circumstances. I wasn't sure how I'd handle waking up today, but I am truly sad. Looking across my Twitter timeline and everyone is tweeting Luis Robert clips and pictures of them tailgating in Lot B and shit like that and it truly brings me down. This was supposed to be our year! The year the White Sox and their fans rose from the ashes, like a Phoenix from Arizona!!! Now the whole season is in this weird limbo state and it fucking sucks.
I fired up the bat signal to see what all of White Sox (and baseball Twitter in general) is going to miss the most about today. I figured why not commiserate in sadness together.
We're going to start with my good friend Beef Loaf from @fromthe108:
I would have been one of those people you were chiding, Beef. It sucks that I'm not. But one day, maybe years from now, we'll get a picture of that classic view again:
Next we'll kick it over to resident "everything is miserable" (because it is) expert KFC. It's also opening day for our #SonsOfUribeFam too, so let's see how they're doing:
Not weird whatsoever. Part of being a Mets fan is expecting the team to fuck up the season from the very first pitch. It's as much a part of their soul as hating the Yankees is.
I'm sorry for your loss Kevin. Even though the Mets would have given you nothing but blue balls this summer before inevitably falling short of whatever goal you had in mind for them.
But back to the White Sox specifically. I received this response a lot:
I don't really know if it's a somewhat new thing or if I just don't remember it from years past, but Lot B has sort of become the congregation ground for White Sox twitter the last 3ish seasons. If you're reading this and a fan of another team, White Sox Twitter is EXTREMELY tight knit. Like… we all know each other for the most part at this point and it's because we'll all meet up in Lot B and get fucked up prior to games. Sox on 35th, On Tap Sports Net, the 108 Gang, and anyone who follows those sites have made Lot B their ipso facto home during baseball season. It was going to be BUMPING this summer. Tailgates, music, boozing. FUCK THIS VIRUS!!! I cannot wait to be in Lot B ASAP.
KenWo nailed this one. This is every last one of our dads…. motherfucking the TV, the starting pitcher for giving up a dinger, overanalyzing the 0-4 game out of Moncada and generally just freaking out… all when there's 161 games left to be played. I guess years of mediocrity will cause any brain on earth to be conditioned that way.
I always made it a point to take off opening day every year so I could go, but not everyone can do that. But in the games that followed opening day I'd google MLB Reddit Streams on work computers, rolling the dice if I infected my work desktop with a virus or not, and check out for the day by making a few fake phone calls here and there. I don't have to do that anymore, but if you're a cube rat just know you're not alone. Work can wait, baseball can't.
This one hit home the most for me and would have been my answer. To me, this smell is as great as the sound of the crack of a bat. I have said it 1 million times, if there's one thing the Sox don't consistently fuck up it's their food, which is 10000% near or at the very top of stadium food for MLB. I don't need to go to every other ballpark to know that, it's that good. When you get into those hallowed grounds from the ramp and the grilled onions smell wafts in your face as you enter the concourse, it's truly magical. I can smell it as I blog this from my bed. I am going to miss the FUCK out of that smell. It sucks that we're not getting it today and makes me fucking SAD.
This was a perfect answer, and hits home with ANY baseball fan. Come the top of the 7th, you're already DRUNK. Not just buzzed, you're drunk drunk. Like, you've had 5-6 at the tailgate and probably passed a bottle of Jameson around a circle, had a few before 1st pitch once you entered the stadium, and another 4-5 through the first 6 innings. You know you're inevitably about to get cut off so you go and get 2 more, set them at your seat, and beeline it to get another round. 4 more for the game and you'll be set, right? Right. But you're so drunk you probably spill one because you forgot you set it by your foot, but fuck it, the White Sox just edged out a 3-2 victory against a shitty Royals' team. Great times!
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Oh and then you go right back to Lot B to drink more. Goddamnit that would have been all of us today…
Gene Honda. The song bird of our generation. If you don't know who he is, he's this super short dude who is the PA announcer for the Sox and sometimes Bulls and even Hawks (I think). He chain smokes cigarettes and the dude has PIPES!
Yes. Yes I will miss you Gene. Even though you told Carl and I to fuck ourselves at Soxfest a few years ago.
Oh how I will miss this. Drunken assholes packed into a heated bathroom in 37 degree weather pissing their brains out, chanting and talking shit about the Cubs. An opening day experience as important as any. My Sox Summer of The 108 broke down proper bathroom etiquette here, and here's his diagram of how to properly execute a trip to drain your main vein:
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But back to what we're going to miss!
Yup. 100%. Even though nobody will admit they're wrong:
Jason is our Australian friend who drives in from Iowa on opening day. The trip up 55 has got to last a lifetime knowing how much fun that is about to ensue for him. Wish he was en route to 35th and Shields as we speak. Cheers mate! And Mr. Hand's response goes back to Lot B… just congregating with everyone you yucked it up with on Twitter all winter, but finally seeing their (probably slightly fatter) faces again just hits different. It SUCKS we're not getting that today. Sucks sucks sucks.
Rico nails this one. Inevitably you'll get so drunk on opening day that you'll start throwing money around on NCAA games that you have no business betting, but it doesn't matter. You did it when you were drunk so it doesn't really count.
I'd imagine today's lineup would have gone:
1 Anderson SS
2. Moncada 3B
3. Abreu 1B
4. Grandal C
5. Eloy LF
6. Encarnacion DH
7. Robert CF
8. Mazara RF
9. Leury 2B
That lineup FUCKS!!! Oh and if you think it doesn't? Well that would have been my reaction, your reaction and any baseball fan on the planet's reaction to the unveiling of your team's lineup on opening day. Doesn't matter what year it is, what Vegas' O/U is, or what Fangraphs says. You see each name and you rationalize in your dumb brain how the lineup is pretty good. Good enough to make a playoff run even. Irrational hope is just part of a baseball fan's blood and thought process.
The Sox were about to bankrupt the Snelious family this year!!!
There were 125 responses to this tweet as I constructed this blog. The moral of the story is this: today was supposed to be one of the best days of the year for a LOT of people. Not just Sox fans, but baseball fans in general. And this stupid FUCKING virus ripped it away from us.
I have no idea when they're going to start again. Hopefully soon, but I'm preparing for the worst and hoping for the best at this point. Who knows when it's going to be. But do know that I am so fucking sad that it's not today.
This virus is the worst thing to ever happen to me. White Sox fans can NOT have nice things.
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