Few things are as special as Opening Day of a brand new baseball season. After a long, cold winter, the new baseball season is a sign of the newness that Spring brings us. The pomp and circumstance that goes into that first game, that none of the other 161 games will get. There's an energy of playoffs. All players on both teams being announced and lining up along the base paths, giant American flags being stretched out over the entire field, military fly-by's, all taking place for just that first game.
I'm fortunate enough to be attending my 19th Opening Day of the Houston Astros in the last 20 years. It would have been 20 seasons in a row if not for COVID shutting the world down last year. And when sports did fire back up, MLB in late July, no fans were allowed. So last year's Opening Day was a ghost town in baseball stadiums all across the league.
As MLB starts the 2021 season, COVID is still having some effects, but almost all of the 30 Major League teams are allowing fans back to their stadiums. In the Astros case, they are allowing 50% capacity for the month of April. The official seating capacity of Minute Maid Park is 41,168. That means just 20,584 tickets are available to any home game the Astros play in April.
On a typical Opening Day, or in this case, a home opener, as the Astros started their 2021 campaign on the road in Oakland last week, that 1st game is always a sellout, meaning 41,000+ fans in attendance excited to get their 1st glance of the team since the previous fall. This time though, we're talking 2 Autumns ago. That's the case throughout the league. For some teams, Opening Day will be the largest crowd they have the entire season. That's just how special Opening Day is. Because there was no Opening Day for fans in 2020, Opening Day in 2021 is that much more special.
For me personally, I haven't attended a single sporting event since March 7, 2020. That event was the last game played by the XFL's Houston Roughnecks before COVID shut everything down. And of course, being that it was March meant that the Astros Opening Day was right around the corner. It would have been Opening Day #19 in a row for me, but over the next several days, the sports world had ceased all operations, including MLB, who were in the midst of Spring Training. In a matter of days, we went from baseball spring training, a startup football league, hockey, basketball, and March Madness about to start up, to no sports of any kind any where whatsoever.
As far as baseball was concerned, at first it was thought that the start of the season would be delayed a month, starting in May instead of April. Then that got pushed back to June. The realization finally hit that we may have no season at all. When sports finally did start getting back on the fields and courts, late July, they were going to be doing it in a strange new world.
NO FANS.
Last year the Astros had Opening Day on July 24th. Total attendance for that game - ZERO. In fact, the Astros, as did all teams, averaged 0 fans per game for the entire COVID shortened 60 game season.
As a new season gets underway, and even though it's limited capacity throughout the league, fans will be in the stands for 2021, and in baseball's case, it will be the 1st time fans have been in the stands since the 2019 season. In fact, the last Astros game I attended was in August of 2019.
So, as special as Opening Day already is, it's going to be even more so since we've gone a year without. This Opening Day will still have all of that pomp and circumstance that comes with any typical Opening Day, but this one will have the added emphasis of the world getting back to normal. Take me out to the ball game, baby!!
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