Opening Day

Editor's note: This story was originally published March 25, 2014. We are re-posting it here in honor of the Reds' Opening Day on March 30, 2018, as the story is as much a fan favorite as the pastime of baseball itself. 

Updated: March 28 at 5:45 p.m.

On Wednesday, the Reds announced it was postponing its 2018 Thursday home opener against the Washington Nationals due to weather. We wondered: Had this happened before? 

In a rare move, the Cincinnati Reds are postponing the season opener against the Washington Nationals that had been set for Thursday, March 29. 

Click here for pictures from this year's parade.

Let's face it: The threat of rain in the weather forecast for the 98th Findlay Market Opening Day Parade is not ideal, but that's not going to stop thousands of people from coming out who know they can't see anything like it anyplace else.

Monday, on the streets of Over-the-Rhine, at the party on the Banks, and, most importantly, in the packed stands of Great American Ball Park, thousands of memories will be made.

Memories for the young and the old – but mostly for the young. The kids who will be going to their first Opening Day and will carry with them memories that they will be able to recall to their children and grandchildren in vivid detail.

Juuusssst a bit outside!  Ten years ago, Mayor Mark Mallory uncorked the wildest Opening Day ceremonial first pitch in Reds history.

With Eric Davis standing behind home plate, and the sold-out crowd watching in Great American Ball Park, Mallory took the mound before the Reds-Cubs game on April 2, 2007.

Reds fans can watch 145 games on Fox Sports Ohio this season, plus four games on Fox Sports 1, according to the FSO schedule released Wednesday.

Opening Day is Cincinnati's favorite, unofficial holiday.

Ed. note: WVXU's politics reporter, Howard Wilkinson, is a life-long Reds fan. The following is his personal take on what Reds fans can expect from their ball club in 2016. 

Whether the team has won World Series rings the year before or finished dead last in the National League Central Division, Opening Day in Cincinnati is a very special day.

It is a day of celebration; the first day of summer in the true baseball fan's calendar.

Play ball! Fans get their first look at the new, young Reds when Fox Sports Ohio and WLW-AM broadcast the Reds spring opener 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 1, from Goodyear, Ariz.

FSO will televise the second game, also against the Cleveland Indians from Goodyear, at 3 p.m. Wednesday.  FSO will carry two more spring games: Reds-Royals 1 p.m. Tuesday March 15, and Reds-Rockies 4 p.m. Friday March 25, according to the Reds broadcast schedule.

Marty Brennaman and Jeff Brantley will do the opener on WLW-AM, and the Wednesday game on Fox Sports WSAI-AM (1360). 

Six weeks before the first spring training game,  Marty Brennaman remains uncertain whether this year will be his last as Reds Radio announcer.

Brennaman, 73, is starting the final year of his contract, his 43rd year in the Reds Radio booth.

“I’ll be back in 2016. And after that I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m conflicted,” Brennaman said at the sold-out Joe Nuxhall Memorial Sports Stag in Hamilton, presented by Knights of Columbus Father Butler Council 968.

Yes, this is a politics column.

That’s why it says “Politically Speaking,” right there in red, white and blue.

But let’s face it – tomorrow is Opening Day in Cincinnati, the beginning of another season of baseball for the game’s oldest professional team; and a holiday for those of us who love the game.

Not a day in this part of the world where your thoughts turn immediately to the ins-and-outs of politics.

Unless, that is, you happen to be running for office.