Cleveland Guardians<\/a> fans didn\u2019t need a final score to know how Friday was going.<\/p>\nFrom the first pitch to the pregame parties \u2014 Opening Day in Cleveland was already a win.<\/p>\n
Downtown Cleveland and surrounding neighborhoods filled up early \u2014 with thousands of fans packing into Market Square Park in Ohio City before heading to the game.<\/p>\n
According to organizers, the celebration featured an Opening Day cookout with local vendors and ballpark favorites, live music on the Rally Stage, craft beer, yard games, and family-friendly activities.<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s signature moment? A parade led by Guardians mascot Slider \u2014 making its way across the Hope Memorial Bridge to Progressive Field ahead of first pitch.<\/p>\n
Festivities started at 10 a.m., building up to the parade just before 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
For fans, the vibe was clear from the start.<\/p>\n
\u201cVibes are good, weather\u2019s good, beers are cold \u2014 we\u2019re ready to party,” one fan said.<\/p>\n
Ask around, and you\u2019ll hear the same thing \u2014 this isn\u2019t just baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a Cleveland holiday \u2014 it\u2019s one of those days you mark on the calendar,” John Hanel said.<\/p>\n
“Opening Day\u2019s like the Super Bowl it’s like one big party, everybody\u2019s in a good mood,” Jeremy Dibell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For many, Opening Day is personal \u2014 something passed down over generations.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a tradition in our family and in our lives,” Jerry Vydra said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the first pitch to the pregame parties \u2014 Opening Day in Cleveland was already a win. CLEVELAND…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-661594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-clevelandguardians","12":"tag-guardians","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116343035982274072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}