EXTRA: Opening Day too early? Nah!

Spring training is ovah! It’s time for the 2019 regular season to begin.

Future super-dooper star? Or a dud?

Sure enough, the Chicago White Sox began their season Thursday (their attempt to redeem themselves from last year’s 100-loss debacle) in Kansas City (where the Royals were even worse in 2018), while the Chicago Cubs were in suburban Dallas/Ft. Worth to take on the Texas Rangers.

FROM HERE ON in, the ballgames count for something. We’ll get to see if that prediction of the Cubs finishing in fifth place this year has any legitimacy to it, while the White Sox’ so-called youthful talents will have the chance to show they really will be stars who can take the Sout’ Side to a championship.

Of course, there are some people who are grousing over the date – this is the earliest that Major League Baseball has even begun its season, which will allow for more off-days during the regular season. But some fans are complaining about the weather.

As though they believe baseball is solely a warm weather sport that should only be played in California or in the Deep South.

So perhaps the Cubs playing in Arlington, Texas isn’t too abhorrent to them. But Kansas City (where the noon-hour temperature was 63 degrees and cloudy skies)? No amount of quality barbecue could make up for the less-than-ideal weather.

PERSONALLY, IT DOESN’T bother me. Mostly because I find the game itself more intriguing than that of any other sport. Particularly the very factor of the pitcher vs. hitter – the constant duel to see which one comes out on top.

Recalling past Sox memories

No amount of football tackles or basketballs being stuffed into hoops overhead can match up to it.

And as for the chill in the air? Well that’s just the reality of weather in the Midwestern U.S. or the East Coast. In short, the places where baseball is a long-standing factor and traditions are built. Unlike places like Phoenix or San Diego, where Major League baseball almost has a fake feel to it.

I’ll take a good White Sox/Royals brawl on Thursday, as two teams are desperate to show they’re not as worthless as some fans would try to dismiss them as. Particularly those Chicago Cubs fans who just can’t handle the thought that anybody root, root, roots for anybody other than the Cubbies.

ANYWAY, IT’S SPRINGTIME (it became official last week). And the first game to be played in Chicago comes April 4 – with the White Sox taking on the Seattle Mariners.

Wrigley faithful to convene again for 2019. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

With Chicagoans getting their first chance to see the alleged youthful star Eloy Jimenez playing in left field. We’ll get to see if he’s worth the six-year (with two option years) contract worth just over $70 million – more than any other ballplayer has ever received before even playing his first major league game.

We’ll have to wait a few days longer before the Wrigley Field faithful can pack their way into the ballpark – for which they’ll grossly overpay for the privilege of tickets to the ol’ ball game.

For as the old Harry Simone Songsters told us all those years ago, “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame.” Even if the temperatures Thursday were only in the mid-50s.

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EXTRA: 94 days ‘til Opening Day

Since we’re no longer counting down shopping days ‘til Christmas (unless you’ve waited until the absolute last minute – which case the count is “zero”), we now set the clock for a new target.

Some people began countdown to Opening Day before old season ended

As in only 94 more days ‘til Opening Day. For baseball in Chicago, that is.

THE COMING OF the major league baseball season is the symbolic arrival of springtime – even if those first couple of weeks of baseball in April are likely to be chilly and some fans are bound to be as heavily dressed as they are now for winter.

Anyway, it’s only 94 more days until the Chicago White Sox take on the Seattle Mariners to begin the 2019 season.

And for those of you deluded enough to spend time watching the Chicago Cubs, it’s 98 more days ‘til the Opening Day at Wrigley Field – with the Cubs taking on the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Enjoy!

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One more time!

Wolf Lake on the city's far Southeast corner will not be as drab and dreary as it did earlier this month once springtime weather arrives. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

It’s the last day of winter, and perhaps we should reflect a bit on what could be the weirdest weather spiel I can recall.

We went for so long without any notable snowfall that it was likely we would set some sort of record that would NEVER be topped. Or should I say reduced?

YET I COULDN’T help but notice a Weather Channel broadcast recently that did a special segment about the Chicago winter, which when all is said and done will come in at about average in terms of the amount of snow we got.

Because once it started snowing in late January, it started coming down at heavier-than-usual rates. We even got the heaviest snowfall in two years with that last storm we were hit with just over a week ago – the one that dumped just over 9 inches officially, but gave certain parts of the metropolitan area more than a foot in one shot.

It seems that our snowfall total for this winter is about 1 ½ inches less than the average for a Chicago winter, according to the Weather Channel (yes, I’m inclined to watch those national weather forecasts in the early morning hours when I’m still trying to wrest myself from sleep).

A typical Chicago winter usually has one intense storm, and some steady snowfall all throughout the season so that we’re perpetually aware of the fact that we live in the Midwestern U.S.

IT’S AT THE point where I know that winter is over and spring has arrived when the landscape around me is no longer a slushy, muddy off-white of snow that has been driven through so many times and is instead the drab brown of dead grass that has yet to return to life.

That bright green is the real sign that winter is over – not the mere fact that the calendar on Wednesday will tell us that spring has officially arrived.

So what should we think on this final official day of winter (although I won’t be the least bit surprised if we get one last snow-fall along the shores of southwestern Lake Michigan)?

Personally, the cold temperatures of winter don’t bother me. It’s the slop of the snow and its potential for creating hazards (due to some people who persist in trying to whiz right through it while driving) that gets to me – and makes me grateful that we’re at least at the offend end-point of winter.

BUT I’M THANKFUL to realize that we really didn’t have it all that bad. Like I already wrote, we got hit with that one 9-inch storm – which I remember as the day I was lucky enough to be able to do some work from home.

It was one of those times that I experienced the “joys” of a freelance writer – being able to set work hours to my convenience.

By the next day, public works crews all across the Chicago area by-and-large had the streets cleared. Life resumed.

We didn’t get anything close to resembling the storm of Feb. 2, 2011 – the one that dumped nearly two feet of snow in one shot and actually turned Lake Shore Drive into a parking lot.

A LOT THAT people eventually had to return to with a shovel in order to dig out their cars.

But it is the split in the winter season that will be memorable – the fact that we went through December and the bulk of January with hardly any snow, and a February and early March in which the entity that is Mother Nature (no Chiffon jokes, please) seemed determined to make up for her early-season slacking off.

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