On Opening Day, the World is All Future and No Past.

2018's baby owls

2016's owls

Baseball's arrival means spring is here. In Ephrata, where I live, we welcome spring with our baby owls, which are located down at the EPAC center. You park, walk over, set up your tripods, and wait. It's very publicized, and it can get packed.

Literally, people just shoot photos across the creek to the 2nd tree from the right.

But yes, it's spring, and it's Opening Day, and theoretically, everyone should have a chance, but teams are just playing and paying to be there and hold out for the future via rebuilding. Nevertheless, it wasn't always like this, so with that, I leave you with my 25 favorite baseball memories from current and historical footage as well as the message that today can be your opening day. Last year doesn't matter. Play to win for this season!

1)       Lou Gehrig’s Luckiest Man speech

2)      Mark McGwire hit number seventy in 1998.

3)      Jackie Robinson integrated baseball.

4)      Roger Maris’s quest for 61 in 1961.

5)      Chris Chambliss hit that walk-off homerun and got mobbed by fans.

6)      Pete Rose ended Ray Fosse in that All-Star game slide.

7)      Hank Aaron hit number 715 with snipers positioned on the roof to protect him. Then he got mobbed with love by those 2 guys who ran out to congratulate him.

8)      Walter Johnson’s wild delivery.

9)      Bob Feller’s class and pitching excellence.

10)   Carlton Fisk waving it fair in a game for the ages.

11)    Buck O’Neil speaking truth and love for the heroes of the Negro Leagues.

12)   Roberto Clemente’s pride and final hit, his 3000^th, before his death by airplane crash in 1972.

13)   Rollie Fingers’ mustache.

14)   Brooks Robinson sucking up sure hits with his glove and leaving hitters dead to right with his arm.

15)   Kirk Gibson’s home run in game one of the 1988 World Series.

16)   Pedro Martinez’s sense of humor, smack talk, and his 1997-2003 run, including 2000, which may have been the best season in baseball history.

17)   Bob Gibson’s sheer dominance on the mound in 1968 by making baseball into a confrontation.

18)   Ty Cobb turning baseball into a war.

19)   Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak.

20)  Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941.

21)   The Pine Tar incident.

22)   Dave Roberts takes second in the 2004 ALCS game 4.

23)   Albert Pujols jacks a homer off of Brad Lidge in 2005’s NLCS.

24)   When I called Big Papi’s homer off Fausto Carmona.

The final day of 2011’s baseball’s get into the playoffs excitement ends with Jonathan Papelbon blowing it for the Red Sox prior to them sending him on his way to Philadelphia.