Today is the most special of days for a baseball fan, it’s Opening Day.

We aren’t going to wax poetic about it, that has been done by some of the great sportswriters who have ever put pen to paper.

However, if you are a baseball fan, you have Opening Day memories.  Some of them are great, and being born and raised in the Cleveland area, some of them are about freezing your butt off.

The opening of then Jacobs Field was an amazing day.  After a lifetime watching baseball in dilapidated Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the city had a new park for the Tribe.  It took several years for the feeling of newness to wear off.

Randy Johnson flirted with a no-hitter, carrying it into the 8th inning, before Sandy Alomar Jr. broke it up with a single, and rookie Manny Ramirez tied the game later that inning with a double.

Wayne Kirby, who will throw out the first pitch Monday in Cleveland on the 25th anniversary of the ballpark, won the game in the bottom of the 11th with a single.

With the passing of Frank Robinson this winter, our biggest memory is that of 1975, Robinson debut as the first African-American manager of a major league baseball team.  In his first at bat as a player-manager, Robinson homered off Doc Medich, while we sat in the lower deck between home plate and first base.

In 1973, we were one of the still Opening Day record of 74,420 in attendance to see Gaylord Perry outduel Mickey Lolich and the Tigers, 2-1, making a Chris Chambliss first inning two run homer stand.

The immortal Gomer Hodge sent us home happy in 1971 with a walk off single in the bottom of the ninth, beating Boston, 3-2.  Hodge had only 17 major league hits, but was a folk hero early in the season, collecting hits in his first four at bats.

He started his career going 6 for 10, mostly in a pinch-hitting role.  Unfortunately, he went 11 for 73 for the rest of his career.

Other games are memorable for another reason.

In 1986, newly acquired Phil Niekro seemingly went to 3-2 on every Detroit hitter on a very cold Friday afternoon, and the Indians went down to a 7-2 loss.  It may have been the most frigid game we had ever attended.

1992 saw the home opener go 19 innings, before a Tim Naehring homer gave Boston a 5-3 victory.  The game went six and a half hours, although most of the 65,000 who were there at the start of the game remained.

And of course, the 2007 opener in Cleveland featured the game that fell just short of being an Indians’ win because the falling snow made it impossible for players to see.  The snow didn’t stop, forcing the Tribe to play a series in against the Angels in Milwaukee because the field was unplayable.

We do have one more memory we would someday like to have.  That would be when the Indians players line up to get their World Championship rings and raise a banner commemorating a World Series title.

Perhaps next year can be that year.  All Indians’ fans can hope for that.

MW