Monday, March 23, 2020

Opening day

The 2020 MLB season would be opening this Thursday, if not for the postponement as a result of the global pandemic we are all experiencing right now.

Since we can't quite start to look forward to opening day just yet, I figured instead we could look back at opening day. Or rather, opening days.

From 1906 to 1915, George Gibson made 10 consecutive opening day starts at catcher.
In those contests, the Pirates went 7-3.


Curiously, they never opened at home. In fact, if you look at the whole chart (found here), they didn't open at home from 1894 until 1953. Surely there's a reason. I know that before Forbes Field was built, they often had Spring flooding issues at their park(s), but over 50 years of opening on the road? Wow.

In case you were wondering, George's 10-consecutive opening day starts still stands as a Pirates record.

Want another interesting opening day fact?

Here's one:

In light of opening day having been postponed, McFarland is offering up a pretty awesome deal. Order any of their baseball books between today and April 5th, and you can use the coupon code POSTPONED40 to save 40% off of your order!

Obviously I'm telling you this because I think you should order the newly released biography about George "Mooney" Gibson, but why stop there? McFarland has published some absolutely phenomenal baseball books, written by some excellent authors. This is a great opportunity to get a jump start on acquiring some books for your Summer reading list.

And I'm not just saying that. I put an order in for 5 books already, and might not be done yet!


Stay safe, everyone, and thanks for reading!

Richard.

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