49 Fun Facts About Baseball Opening Day

Which rule change debuted on Opening Day 1973, when the Yankees' Ron Blomberg walked with the bases loaded?

The designated hitter. The first DH ever to bat did not get a hit that time up, yet the bat Blomberg carried to the plate went to the Hall of Fame anyway.

What is the name of the annual parade that precedes the Reds' home opener in Cincinnati?

Findlay Market. Its shopkeepers joined the Opening Day festivities as a rooters' group in 1920 and kept marching after the other groups faded; the city's pre-game parades date to the 1890s.

Which rookie, an emergency Opening Day starter in 1981, pitched a shutout that set off a craze named after him?

Fernando Valenzuela. The 20-year-old got the ball only because Jerry Reuss strained a calf the day before; he blanked Houston 2–0, won his first eight starts, and Fernandomania was born.

Who was the first US president to throw out a ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day, in 1910?

William Howard Taft. Umpire Billy Evans handed him a new ball before the Senators' home opener, and the president made a strong throw from his box seat, then stayed for the whole game.

Which president threw Opening Day first pitches with both his right and his left arm?

Harry S. Truman. Ambidextrous, he kept crowds guessing which arm he would use, and he was the first president to throw out a first ball left-handed.

Which president threw the ceremonial first pitch at the first game in Cleveland's Jacobs Field?

Bill Clinton. In an Indians cap and warm-up jacket he threw a strike to Sandy Alomar; Cleveland then won in the 11th after Seattle's starter had held them hitless for seven innings.

Which president, a keen softball pitcher, never threw out an Opening Day first pitch while in office?

Jimmy Carter. He never opened a season as president but did close one: his only first pitch in office came before Game 7 of the 1979 World Series.

Who threw the American League's only Opening Day no-hitter, in 1940?

Bob Feller. Just 21, he beat the White Sox 1–0, and the no-hitter survived its last out only because second baseman Ray Mack dived to knock down a grounder, whirled and threw.

Which Hall of Famer holds the record for most Opening Day starts by a pitcher, with 16?

Tom Seaver. Traded away by his first club in 1977, he came back to start one more opener for them in 1983, then made his last two for the White Sox in his forties.

Which 38-year-old ace won a 15-inning 1–0 pitching duel on Opening Day 1926?

Walter Johnson. He blanked Connie Mack's Athletics for all 15 innings and won only when three straight Senators hits in the last finally got to Eddie Rommel.

Whose 714th home run, hit on Opening Day 1974, tied baseball's all-time career record?

Hank Aaron. He connected in Cincinnati with his very first swing of the season; four days later, back home in Atlanta, he hit number 715 and the record was his alone.

Which Red Sox great hit .449 across his Opening Day games, with at least one hit in all 14?

Ted Williams. Even three years away on wartime service did not break the run: in his first game back, on Opening Day 1946, he homered into the centre-field bleachers in Washington.

Who hit three home runs on Opening Day 1994 for the Cubs, a National League first?

Tuffy Rhodes. All three came off Dwight Gooden, yet the Cubs still lost 12–8; two years later he left for Japan, where he went on to tie the single-season home run record.

Who was the first player to hit three home runs on Opening Day, in 1988?

George Bell. The reigning AL MVP had spent the spring feuding with his own club about losing his place in left field, then took it out on Bret Saberhagen, who gave up all three.

Which Cleveland player-manager homered in his first at-bat on Opening Day 1975, his debut as MLB's first Black manager?

Frank Robinson. He wrote his own name into the lineup, then drove a pitch from the Yankees' Doc Medich over the wall in the first inning of his first game in charge.

Which Japanese star made his MLB debut on Opening Day 2001, then won both Rookie of the Year and MVP that season?

Ichiro Suzuki. Many, some of his new teammates included, doubted he would hit in the majors; two late hits won that opener, and he ended the year with a rookie-record 242.

Jackie Robinson is remembered as a second baseman, but which position did he play in his 1947 Opening Day debut?

First base. Brooklyn had Eddie Stanky entrenched at second, so the rookie spent the spring learning a new position; he moved across in 1948, once Stanky had been traded.

Who hit the first home run at Yankee Stadium on its opening day, April 18, 1923?

Babe Ruth. His three-run homer off Howard Ehmke sank his former team, the Red Sox, 4–1, and a sportswriter soon named the new park the House That Ruth Built.

At the New York Giants' snowy 1907 home opener, what did the umpire do after fans swarmed the field and threw snowballs?

Declared a forfeit. With almost no police inside the Polo Grounds, the lone umpire gave the home team 15 minutes to clear the field, watch in hand, then handed the Phillies a 9–0 win.

MLB pushed its 1968 openers back until the day after whose funeral?

Martin Luther King Jr. He was buried on April 9, and with cities in turmoil after his assassination, both leagues held their first games back until the following afternoon.

Which Dodgers pitcher hit his first career home run on Opening Day 2013 and threw a shutout in the same game?

Clayton Kershaw. His eighth-inning homer broke a scoreless tie; the last pitcher to homer and throw a shutout on Opening Day had been Cleveland's Bob Lemon, 60 years earlier.

Which team played its first-ever game in the snow at its home opener in April 1977?

Toronto Blue Jays. A Zamboni borrowed from hockey's Maple Leafs cleared the field, and first baseman Doug Ault warmed the crowd with the franchise's first two home runs.

Which pitching statistic became official on Opening Day 1969, when reliever Bill Singer was credited with the very first?

The save. Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman had devised it ten years earlier to measure how well relievers did their job; Singer earned the first with three shutout innings.

Which team's ten straight Opening Day wins from 2013 to 2022 tied the Boston Beaneaters' record?

Houston Astros. The streak was started by the 2013 team that went on to lose 111 games, and it ended in 2023 with a 3–2 defeat to the White Sox.

Which team had MLB's best all-time Opening Day winning percentage (.646) through 2026?

New York Mets. They lost their first eight openers after joining the league in 1962, then turned into the best Opening Day team of all: 42–23 after winning their 2026 opener.

Which Hall of Famer launched a 2014 White House petition, backed by Anheuser-Busch, to make Opening Day a holiday?

Ozzie Smith. He argued that millions already played hooky for the opener, so it was an unofficial holiday anyway; he needed 100,000 signatures in 30 days to earn a White House reply.

Which Washington Post columnist titled a 1984 book Why Time Begins on Opening Day?

Thomas Boswell. He joined the Post as a copy aide in 1969 and never left, and along the way he invented a batting statistic of his own, total average.

Which ballpark, opened on Opening Day 1992, set off a wave of retro-style stadiums across the majors?

Camden Yards. With an old brick railroad warehouse looming beyond right field in downtown Baltimore, it made new parks want to look old; Rick Sutcliffe opened it with a 2–0 shutout.

In 2000, the first MLB games ever played outside North America opened the season at which stadium?

Tokyo Dome. Some 55,000 watched the opener, and the second game of the series was settled by Benny Agbayani's pinch-hit grand slam in the 11th inning.

Which expansion team drew more than 80,000 fans to its first home opener, then a record crowd for an opener?

Colorado Rockies. Exactly 80,227 filled Denver's football stadium, and Eric Young sent them wild at once, leading off the home first with a home run in an 11–4 win over Montreal.

The Dodgers and Diamondbacks opened MLB's 2014 season at a famous cricket ground in which city?

Sydney. It was not baseball's first visit: these first regular-season games in Australia came 100 years after two touring big-league clubs played exhibitions on the same ground.

Who threw the ceremonial first pitch when the pandemic-delayed 2020 MLB season finally opened in July?

Anthony Fauci. The government's top infectious-disease doctor, then 79, threw from the mound and sent it well wide; the season, delayed by four months, ran only 60 games.

The Dodgers' first home opener in Los Angeles, in 1958, drew 78,672 fans to which stadium?

The Coliseum. The home team won 6–5, and only because a visiting rookie missed third base in the ninth and was called out on appeal, wiping out what would have been the tying run.

From 2023 through 2025, MLB set its Opening Day for which slot in the calendar?

The last Thursday of March. A labor deal that took effect in 2018 added off days to every team's schedule, so the season now starts a weekend earlier than the traditional Monday opener.

Which Washington star homered in his first two at-bats on Opening Day 2013?

Bryce Harper. Only 20, he supplied every run of a 2–0 win over Miami on his own, and no younger player has ever hit two home runs on Opening Day.

MLB's 2024 season began in Seoul, South Korea, with the Dodgers playing which team?

San Diego Padres. It was Shohei Ohtani's first game as a Dodger, and within hours the club had fired his interpreter, who was later jailed for stealing millions from him.

In 2025 the Dodgers again opened the MLB season abroad, in Japan, against which team?

Chicago Cubs. For two of their Japanese players it was a homecoming, one of them raised in the host city itself, yet the Dodgers won both games.

MLB's 2026 season opened with a stand-alone night game between the visiting New York Yankees and which team?

San Francisco Giants. It was the first game for manager Tony Vitello, hired straight from college baseball with no professional coaching experience, and the Yankees swept the series.

The 2022 season's Opening Day was delayed a week to April 7 because of what?

An owners' lockout. It lasted 99 days, baseball's first work stoppage since the 1994–95 strike, yet a late deal still rescued a full schedule by starting the season a week behind.

Which Giants ace became the first pitcher ever to hit two home runs on Opening Day, in 2017?

Madison Bumgarner. He was perfect through five innings and struck out 11 as well, yet his bullpen gave the lead away and Arizona won 6–5 on a ninth-inning single.

Which president took heat for playing golf at Augusta National on the day of the Senators' opener?

Dwight D. Eisenhower. The weather rescued him: the 1953 opener was postponed, so he was back in Washington in time to throw out the first ball at the rescheduled game.

Which streaming service showed MLB's stand-alone Opening Night game in 2026, the evening before the full Opening Day slate?

Netflix. The game came out of a renegotiation of ESPN's baseball rights, which also handed the streamer the Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game.

Which wartime team gave one-armed outfielder Pete Gray his major league debut on Opening Day 1945?

St. Louis Browns. Gray, who lost his right arm in a childhood accident, would catch the ball, tuck the glove under his stump and throw in one motion; he singled in a 7–1 win.

George W. Bush threw the first pitch to inaugurate which ballpark in 2008?

Nationals Park. Its first game ended in storybook fashion when Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to beat Atlanta 3–2.

Why did MLB's 2011 season begin several days earlier than usual?

To end the World Series in October. A committee advising commissioner Bud Selig redrew the calendar so the postseason would not run on into colder weeks, and the regular season finished on a Wednesday in September.

The Reds traditionally open at home, so why did they start their 1966 schedule in Philadelphia?

Rain. The whole three-game home series that should have begun the season was washed out, so the first game Cincinnati actually played that year was on the road.

Which team won its first-ever game on Opening Day 1969, then moved to Milwaukee after a single season?

Seattle Pilots. They beat the Angels 4–3 that night, but by the following spring the club was insolvent, and a group led by car dealer Bud Selig bought it and moved it at once.

Which hometown star made his major league debut for the Twins on Opening Day 2004?

Joe Mauer. The St. Paul native drew a standing ovation in his first at-bat, wrecked his knee the very next day, and still came back to win three batting titles as a catcher.

Which club's 1954 home opener returned the American League to a city it had left half a century earlier?

Baltimore Orioles. The newcomers had lost 100 games in another city the year before and would lose 100 again, yet they won this first home game 3–1.