A little later today I'll be typing on a different laptop, enjoying a privilege my employer calls Work From Home. I don't ordinarily take advantage of WFH but will today for two reasons.
First (and most boring), I have a half-hour errand to run at 9:30.
Second (and only somewhat more convincing), today is Opening Day for the Cleveland Indians. My office is only a couple of blocks from the newly-named Progressive Field and usually Opening Day is a madhouse, even for us public transportation types. Add to that the piles of rotting snow, the ongoing (never-ending?) construction of the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project and we have a conspiracy to keep me home.
The Wall Street Journal ran an article on Friday titled Opening Day. It maps the story of the writer's truancy from school on many Opening Day events in the past.
Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs. My brief sojourn in Chicago (1992-1995) taught me that there was virtue in rooting for the Cubs. I had grown up with Nolan Ryan slinging no-hitters (during both of his careers) but didn't follow baseball religiously. My primary exposure to MLB was through the radio in the late `80's as the commercial-punching producer of the Houston Astros for a now-defunct (?) station in Kingsville, Texas. To this day, I'd rather listen to a game than watch it. Stephen Moore claims that "people who move away from Chicago almost always remain life-long Cubs fans" (with the noted exception of Hillary). There is virtue in rooting for the underdog that does its best. There is virtue in the simplicity and age (the grandeur?) of Wrigley Field that the lights have done little to diminish.
Jon Boyd and his brother travel the US each year for the First Pitch. He's recently had a life-changing event and I wondered to him if he'd be able to keep up the tradition this year.
So today is opening day. And while I'll be staying far away from it, I hope that Jon gets out to keep his tradition, if not today in Chicago, hopefully somewhere else.
