Good Morning A’s Nation, and welcome to Major League Baseball’s Opening Day 2026. Well, kinda sorta opening day. As I’ve mentioned in this column before, I’ve been a baseball fan since 1969 and not just a casual fan, but an ardent fan. I’m not ashamed to say that Opening Day is always one of my favorite days of the year. Anyone who follows me on social media can attest to the fact that rarely a year goes by that I don’t post something suggesting to the world that Opening Day should be a National Holiday. If I don’t attend a ball game on opening day, I watch multiple games on TV, listen on the radio during my commute and ensure that the family dinner consists of hot dogs, peanuts, chips and cold beer/cold soda, etc.
There is not much about our national pastime that I don’t love, but one of it’s most alluring aspects is the adherence to tradition. This is not going to be a rant about the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) or ghost runners or the three-batter rule for relievers, although I do have opinions on each of those recent rule updates (notice I referred to none of them as rule upgrades). What’s really hit me the wrong way is this year’s “Opening Day”. If you are a Yankees fan or a Giants fan, and subscribe to Netflix, then I guess yesterday was your Opening Day. Today, twenty-two of the remaining twenty-eight teams will start their season with all the pomp and circumstance that goes along with their opening day traditions. Granted, half of all teams open on the road and that is unavoidable. But there are still six teams, including our own Athletics team, which won’t start until Friday. Why is that?
It was not long ago that the unwritten rule of MLB was that the Cincinnati Reds, baseball’s first professional team, always started the season. While I’m not a huge Reds fan, I can appreciate the tradition. Since 1999, we’ve started the season in Monterrey, Mexico,Japan, Puerto Rico, Australia and Seoul, South Korea. I have never and will never be opposed to exploring international markets and playing games outside of the US and Canada. It’s good for baseball. But baseball’s fist pitch of the year should be in a time zone that allows young kids across the county to celebrate and watch, and it should not be limited to a streaming service, albeit one with 81 million US subscribers.
Don’t misunderstand me, I watched the game last night, and today I will don my favorite jersey and cap and enjoy baseball all day from the comfort of my living room. I’ll be covering the A’s game for A’s Nation on Friday and attending an “Opening Weekend” game in Sacramento a week from Saturday. Miscues such as Opening Day 2026 don’t ruin baseball for me and the bevy of traditional fans, they just fail to open the door for new fans to feel the way we do about a sport we love.
My suggestion to Rob Manfred and the MLB brass is that you don’t make baseball special by limiting the audience, you make it special by celebrating it with the masses. Play Ball!