5 Great Moments In Major League Baseball Opening Day History

We've finally made it: Opening Day of the 2019 Major League Baseball campaign! Excluding the two kickoff games played last week in the Tokyo Dome between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics, it's been a long time since we've enjoyed baseball games that actually count. To be specific, the last time was Game 5 of the 2018 World Series, just before Halloween, in which the Boston Red Sox celebrated their ninth World Series victory, and fourth of the new millennium, at Dodger Stadium. It's five months later, and here we go once again!

As every baseball fan knows, all MLB seasons are marathons, not sprints, so a win or loss on Opening Day only has so much effect on how the rest of the season will go for a ball club. But there's just something special in the air when it comes to Opening Day. Perhaps because it's finally time for us fans to let out our pent-up excitement. Maybe it's because it's a milestone date signifying that better weather is on the way. Whatever the reason, it's a special day. To celebrate, let's look back on some special baseball moments that happened to take place on Opening Day.

1. Hank Aaron Ties Babe Ruth (1974)

This is arguably the most famous of Opening Day moments. In 1973, at age 39, Hammerin' Hank Aaron continued to post the type of crooked numbers that any player would sign up for in their 20s (a .301/.402/.643 slash line with 40 home runs).
After hitting his 40th and final homer of 1973 on the season's penultimate day, Aaron went into 1974 with 713 career home runs, just one behind the game's all-time leader at the time, Babe Ruth. It did not take Aaron long to tie the Colossus.
In the first inning of Atlanta's first Opening Day game, at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Aaron mashed Reds starter Jack Billingham's 3-1 offering way over the leftfield wall for a three-run homer. The shot gave the Braves a 3-0 lead they'd eventually cough up, with the Reds winning this Opening Day battle in 11 innings. But much more important, the home run bumped Aaron up to the top spot of the all-time home run hitter leaderboard. Four days later, Aaron homered off L.A. Dodger lefthander Al Downing, and sole possession of the record was his.

2. Bob Feller's No-Hitter (1940)

Bob Feller truly had a remarkable career. Nicknamed "The Heater from Van Meter," Feller was around before the invention of the radar gun, but it was said he threw as hard as 120 miles per hour. Whether that's true or not we'll never know; but we do know Feller led all of baseball in strikeouts over seven seasons, and led the American League in wins six times. The eight-time All-Star won 266 career games and likely would have cruised past the 300-win marker had he not lost three years to World War II.
Looking back, Feller's finest season may have been his age-21 season of 1940, during which he won the pitcher's version of the Triple Crown, leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts. Another noteworthy achievement from his 1940 season: He threw baseball's first—and still only—Opening Day no-hitter! As if it were a sign Feller would have a season for the ages, he held a skinny 1-0 lead thanks to a Rollie Hemsley RBI triple, and made it stand up. Bob Feller finished his Opening Day masterpiece with zero hits allowed, five walks, and eight strikeouts.

3. Welcome to Coors Field (1995)

Coming off the notorious 1994 MLB work stoppage, people were distrustful when play resumed the following season. However, for fans of the Colorado Rockies, the delayed Opening Day (April 26) was the first opportunity to check out their new home ballpark, Coors Field. More than 47,000 people packed the stadium to witness one of the wilder Opening Day ballgames in recent memory.
The Rockies blew a 5-1 lead to the New York Mets thanks to a Todd Hundley grand slam. The Mets later had leads in the 9th inning (couldn't hold it) and the 13th inning (couldn't hold that one either). Would the third time be the charm in the 14th inning? Well, no. This day belonged to the Coloradans, celebrating the return of baseball and their new ballpark.
Entering the bottom of the 14th, with the Rockies trailing the Mets 9-8, Colorado's Dante Bichette sent the fans home happy with a walk-off 3-run home run off of New York reliever Mike Remlinger. This not only set the tone for the Rockies first playoff spot-clinching season, but also the wild nature of more or less every game played at Coors Field.

4. Kershaw Does It All (2013)

If you've been a baseball fan over the past decade or so, you know Clayton Kershaw. Arguably the best pitcher of the present generation, the career-long Dodger could retire tomorrow and waltz into Cooperstown on his first try. In 2011, he took home the pitcher's Triple Crown and his first National League Cy Young Award. After losing the Cy Young in 2012, in somewhat-controversial fashion to the Mets' R.A. Dickey, Kershaw entered the 2013 campaign wanting to right this supposed wrong. So what did Kershaw do on Opening Day 2013 at Dodger Stadium? More or less everything!
After tossing eight shutout innings in a scoreless tie against the San Francisco Giants, Kershaw was the first to bat in the bottom of the eighth, and the first to face reliever George Kontos. Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly declined to send up a pinch hitter to get a little offense going, and left Kershaw up to bat. Risky, but defendable given the way Kershaw was dealing. The move made Mattingly look like a genius: Kershaw took the very first pitch over the centerfield wall to finally break the 0-0 tie. L.A. tacked on three more runs for insurance, and Kershaw threw a scoreless ninth inning for a memorable Opening Day complete game shutout in which he did it all! 

5. Ichiro's First Game (2001)

We can think of Opening Day of the 2001 season as Ichiro Suzuki's first game, but not his first professional game, of course. Prior to his Major League Baseball debut, Ichiro spent nine seasons in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, racking up 1,278 hits. When he finally called it a career last week, during the 2019 season's opening series at the Tokyo Dome, Ichiro amassed 3,089 more hits as a Major Leaguer, wrapping up an amazing career of 4,367 total knocks between the two leagues.
It's unfathomable that Ichiro would end up with than 3,000 hits here in the States after starting out as a 27-year old rookie—but a 27-year-old rookie was exactly what he was in Seattle Mariners debut on Opening Day 2001. And what a day it was. Not only did Ichiro kick off his odyssey in America, but the M's collected their first of their eventual 116 wins, a record-setter for the American League, and record-tying number for baseball overall. Ichiro contributed to the day without question: The first two of his MLB hits came in this contest, and he scored a key run as the Mariners edged out the Oakland Athletics, 5-4 being your final score. 
 

For more books on the beautiful game of baseball, please check out the NYPL catalog's extensive baseball offerings. Enjoy Opening Day!