48 degrees and roof open

That’s the word from Safeco Field in Seattle with game time a couple hours away. Chilly but sunny – which is more than you can say at Wrigley in Chicago where they’ve had at least one rain delay.

Opening Day is a right of passage for our family. This will be our ninth straight at Safeco since moving out from Wisconsin in 1999. With Colin and Ainsley in college our crew has shrunk to 5 this afternoon. But fun nonetheless.

And each opening day with all the fanfare, highlights on the big board, and grass so green it hurts your eyes, it’s hard not to remember James Earl Jones’ in the Field of Dreams telling us of baseball being the one constant in America.

And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in short sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh