Today is my high holy day.

This is my Easter, my Christmas, my Hanukkah and my Ramadan all rolled into one.

Today is the opening day of the Major League Baseball season and it is the best day of the year.

Yes, the defending World Series champion Anaheim Angels played the first game of the regular season Sunday night against the Texas Rangers, but that was opening night. Today is opening day.

Opening night is nothing like opening day. Its first problem is that it is played at night. Baseball was and is meant to be played during the day. Its second problem is it’s the only game being played. The only excuses for a single baseball game to be played on a certain day is the World Series or the All-Star Game when a sole game rightfully takes center stage.

Having a plethora of games to choose to watch is one of the greatest aspects of the baseball season. During the six months of the baseball season, there is a game to watch almost 12 hours day, ranging from a noon first pitch at Wrigley or late game on the west coast starting at 9 p.m. central time.

It has been said that baseball shouldn’t be America’s national pastime. Faster-paced sports like basketball and football are more exciting, but a well-played baseball game is vastly superior.

To most, an exciting game of baseball is when the two teams light up the scoreboard with scores in the double digits like Eastern’s baseball team did against Indian Purdue Fort Wayne Saturday. Fans today want to see sluggers like Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds send a ball 500 feet for a meaningless solo home run.

But a hard fought pitching duel is always more fun to watch. When runs come across home plate in bunches, the excitement is lost.

The excitement of a baseball game is in the tension when a pitcher is protecting a small lead or trying to keep the game tied until his offense can produce a run or two.

A great pitchers duel makes the offensive aspect of the game even more exciting. When one run separates two teams, one of those 500-foot solo home runs actually means something.

A single into one of the gaps suddenly becomes much more exciting when there is a runner on first and the team at bat is trying to overcome a one-run deficit.

Watching a pitcher like Randy Johnson frustrate batters while he protects a small lead is transformed from his usual dominance to a work of art.

There is no experience more satisfying in professional sports than watching a team

record the final out in a 1-0 win. Unlike basketball and football, when the ending of the game is anticlimactic because the clock determines the end of the game, the end of a baseball game can come whenever it wants to. The team at bat could be trying to rally when it hits into a game ending double play, or the pitcher clinging to a slim lead might blow away the final batter with three consecutive pitches in clocked in the triple digits.

Today is a very good day. The void in the day missing since October will be filled once again when one of the men in blue yell two of the most exciting words in the world of sport: “play ball!”