Opening Day in Major League Baseball is the first day of the regular season, usually played in late March or early April each year. With a festive atmosphere and the country’s current president traditionally throwing out the first pitch at one of the day’s games, Opening Day coincides with the beginning of spring and is considered a time of rebirth for baseball fans who harbor World Series hopes for their favorite teams. The Cincinnati RedsThe first professional baseball franchise, had the honor of hosting the first of the opening games of every season from the late 1800s until 1989. In recent years, some major league teams have opened their seasons with games in Japan, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season has always been one of the most anticipated days of the year for sports fans, dating back to the 1800s, when professional teams began the season amidst pomp and renewed hopes of championships.
As the first professional baseball organization, the The Cincinnati Reds had the honor of hosting the opening game of the major league season starting in the 1870s. The day’s events in Cincinnati included an annual parade and other festivities, with city residents observing the early April day as an unofficial holiday each year.
While the first pitch (and first game) of each major league season traditionally took place in Cincinnati—from those early days until 1989—other major league teams included special events around their own season openers, drawing fans eager to celebrate the start of spring as well as their team’s prospects for success.
Some teams even began their seasons with doubleheaders in the early 20th century. The first such matchup was in April 1903, when the Boston Americans hosted the Philadelphia Athletics for two games, with Boston winning one of the games to please the home fans.
The hometown support turned dramatic during the New York Giants’ first game in 1907, when umpire Bill Klem made history by calling the only forfeit in home opener history. With snow from the previous day’s storm piled up along the edges of the Polo Grounds, some rowdy fans became upset when the Giants fell behind and began throwing snowballs onto the field. After Klem was hit by a snowball, he stopped the game in favor of the Phillies. A similar incident occurred five years later when Brooklyn home fans slowed play by running onto the field after their team fell behind the rival Giants, and the game was stopped due to darkness.
The tradition of the president throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day began with William Howard Taft in April 1910. Since then, 11 other sitting presidents have thrown out the ceremonial “first pitch” of the season.
Six years after throwing a three-hitter while pitching for the Red Sox in the 1917 opening game, Babe Ruth hit the first home run at the new Yankee Stadium on its opening day in 1923, leading the Yankees to a 4-1 victory over his former team.
In the 1926 Washington Senators’ opening game, pitcher Walter Johnson pitched all 15 innings of a 1–0 victory over Philadelphia. Johnson may have produced the most runs among pitchers in Opening Day performances, throwing a record 12 complete games and seven shutouts in 14 starts.
The only no-hitter ever pitched in an opening game occurred in the Cleveland Indians’ first game in 1940, when young ace Bob Feller outpitched Eddie Smith of the White Sox to go nine innings without allowing a hit.
In 1947 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson made history by breaking the color barrier in the team’s opening game against the Braves, playing first base in a 5-3 victory.
Hall of Famer Robin Roberts nearly matched Feller’s feat when he pitched 8 1/3 innings before giving up a hit to the Giants on Opening Day of the 1955 season. Roberts still holds the record for most consecutive Opening Day starts for one team, having started in each of the Philadelphia Phillies’ first games from 1950 to 1961.
When the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, the team’s first game in the new city – on Opening Day in 1966 – was a 3-2 loss in extra innings to the Pirates that featured five future Hall of Famers and two brothers (Felipe and Matt Alou) leading the opposing teams in batting.
One of those Hall of Famers, Henry Aaron, entered the 1974 season one home run shy of Babe Ruth’s record. With his first at-bat on Opening Day against the Reds at Riverfront Stadium, Aaron hit his 714th career home run to tie Ruth’s record before breaking the record four days later.
The following year, Frank Robinson hit the last of his eight career opening-game home runs. He did it in his first at-bat as a player/manager for the The Cleveland Indians — becoming the first African-American manager in major league history. (Ken Griffey Jr. eventually tied Robinson’s record for most opening day home runs, hitting one for the Seattle Mariners in 2009.)
George Bell of the Toronto Blue Jays was the first player in major league history to hit three home runs on Opening Day when he accomplished the feat against the Kansas City Royals in 1988. The record was tied six years later when Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes of the Chicago Cubs hit three home runs off Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets. And in April 2005, Dmitri Young of the Detroit Tigers He also hit three home runs in his team’s home opener against the Kansas City Royals.
After more than 100 years of hosting the “opening game” of every major league opener – with the exception of a few rain cancellations over the years – the Cincinnati Reds were finally scheduled to play their first away game of the season in 1990, in Houston.
The league’s Opening Day traditions soon gave way to more global concerns with opening games scheduled in foreign countries. The Estadio de Beisbol in Monterrey, Mexico, hosted the first MLB opening game on foreign soil in 1999, when the San Diego Padres were defeated by the Colorado Rockies8-2. And Japan has hosted season openers three times in the new century, including in 2008 when Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka started on the mound for the Boston Red Sox in the first of a two-game opening series against the Oakland A’s.
