"THIS IS NEXT YEAR!" OPENING DAY!

Sidney Crosby celebrating winning the divisional title!

(photo by Gregory Shamus via Getty Images)

Boys, Autographs, and Opening Day 2007

PNC PARK on opening day 2007

The hometown good news this week is local sports. Earlier this week the Penguins won their first divisional title in a decade, and are now set for two home games first in the playoffs. Now the focus shifts to the Pirates as PNC Park greets the first game of the year, the official home park opening game. They have been on the road to start the season with quite the winning way coming home with them. The team has been overhauled with a new general manager, president, and coaches. This great start gives hope to the ending wishes of last season, “There is always next year!”

Opening day has always been quite the powerful tradition here in Pittsburgh. Baseball was the sport, but it was so much more, this tradition. This was the day when a boy and the old man would get to share a day … win or lose was a mere detail. If you got lucky you might get close enough to a player to get an autograph. Sitting in the upper deck seats with your feet stretched out, the sun on your face, as well as remnants of popcorn, cotton candy, and other various bellyache causing pleasures was a timeless special day. All that didn’t matter as you were on top of the mountain when the old man took you to the park for that first day, that first time, that remembrance to be forever indelibly burnt into your soul. Yes, that day was so much more than baseball.

I would love to see the fans start our new mantra, “This is next year!”

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You can believe that most folks when they see the flag and hear the national anthem start, will shed a fear tears for those who lost their lives in the sand of some place so far away they cannot fathom it. If they did think they had a handle on it from the comfort of being home would be disingenuous on their part. Most know that they do not know, only the ones who actually have to experience war, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make of sense of it, have any idea of what it is actually like. Sports give folks at home, and vets who have returned a little sense of normalcy in these times that seem lost of any common sense at all. Here’s to your attending Opening Day next year, where you can yell out at the top of your lungs, “Go Pirates! This is next year!”

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Keep your head down,

Henry Hill, Plum Pennsylvania