When Is Opening Day For Baseball This Year?

Get pumped for baseball season with our guide to opening day for every team in MLB. Plus, find out which teams are playing on opening day this year!

Introduction

Baseball season is nearly upon us, and fans everywhere are wondering when their team will take the field. While most Opening Days will be in late March or early April, a few teams will start their season a little earlier. Here’s a look at when every team will play their first game of the 2019 season.

The History of Opening Day

Opening day for baseball is always a highly anticipated event, not just for fans but for teams as well. It’s a chance for a fresh start and for everyone to see how the team has changed since last year. Baseball has a long and storied history, and opening day is no exception.

Opening Day as a Holiday

March has been a month of celebration since ancient times. The vernal equinox, the day when day and night are of equal length, occurs around March 21. For many cultures, this was the start of the new year and was a time to celebrate the reborn sun and the end of winter.

March also marks the beginning of baseball season. Baseball may not seem like a particularly religious or spiritual activity, but for many Americans, it is a deeply meaningful tradition. Opening Day has long been considered a national holiday, and for some, it is a more important holiday than Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Opening Day always falls on a Monday, which means that many people have to take off from work or school in order to participate in the festivities. The first game of the season is typically played between the defending World Series champions and another team, and all other teams begin their seasons the following day.

Over the years, Opening Day has become more than just a day to watch baseball. It is now also a day to celebrate America’s pastime and to come together as a nation to enjoy a common love for the game.

The First Opening Day

Though baseball fans today celebrate the game’s rich history and tradition on Opening Day, the holiday as we know it is a relatively new phenomenon. The first Opening Day wasn’t even referred to as such—it was just the first day of the baseball season.

The first recorded professional baseball game took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 19, 1846. The “New York Nine” defeated the Knickerbockers, 23-1. But it wasn’t until 1876 that what we now recognize as Opening Day became an annual event.

On April 22, 1876, nearly 10,000 fans crammed into Cincinnati’s Union Grounds to watch the Reds take on the Louisville Grays. It was Cincinnati’s first year in the National League—the first professional baseball league in America—and Mayor James Gutchins decided to mark the occasion with a grand parade through downtown Cincinnati. Following the ceremony, he declared that henceforth April 22 would be known as “Cincinnati Baseball Day.”

It wasn’t just Cincinnati that celebrated baseball’s return that year; cities across America held parades and festivals to mark Opening Day. In St. Louis, Mayor Christopher J. Marine opened up a new ballpark with a speech declaring baseball “the best of all national games.”

The celebration of Opening Day as a national holiday began to lose steam at the turn of the century as teams began to open their seasons on random days throughout April and May. In response to fan outcry, major league baseball finally established a schedule in 1903 in which every team would open its season on the same day: April 15th.

When is Opening Day this Year?

Opening Day for baseball this year is on March 28th. This date is subject to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as of right now, Opening Day is still scheduled for March 28th.

The MLB Season

The Major League Baseball (MLB) season is underway! Opening day this year was Thursday, March 28. The first game of the season was between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics, with the Mariners winning 7-0.

162 regular season games are played throughout the summer and autumn months, from April to October. These games are primarily played on weekdays, although there are some games scheduled for Saturdays and Sundays. The league is divided into two sections, the American League (AL) and National League (NL), and each section has three divisions: East, West, and Central.

The MLB Postseason starts in October with the Wild Card Game, which is a single-elimination game between the two teams with the best record that did not win their division. The winner of that game goes on to play one of the division winners in a five-game Division Series. The winners of each Division Series then compete in a seven-game Championship Series to determine who will go to the World Series. The World Series is a best-of-seven series between the champions of the AL and NL.

The MLB regular season typically runs from late March/early April to late September/early October. Save the date for next year’s Opening Day: Thursday, April 1st, 2021!

Opening Day Games

Opening day is the traditional start of the Major League Baseball season. Although most teams start playing a few days before opening day, the official opening day is always the first Thursday in April, unless it falls on Easter, in which case it is pushed back to Friday.

This year’s Opening Day games will be held on April 2, 2020.

Conclusion

In short, the answer to the question “when is opening day for baseball this year” is that it depends on the league. For Major League Baseball, opening day is March 28th. For Minor League Baseball, opening day is April 4th.