Globe Life Field didn’t open as scheduled, but Rangers hoping home opener comes soon
The first game at Globe Life Field was supposed to be March 23, an exhibition but still a game with two teams in different uniforms, umpires who make mostly correct calls and fans fawning over the Texas Rangers’ new baseball home.
The first regular-season game, the one that counted and every Rangers fan wanted to attend, was scheduled for Tuesday. The only day better in the regular season than Opening Day is the home opener, but the lid-lifter in the $1.2 billion ballpark might have trumped the season opener.
None of the above happened because of the coronavirus pandemic that has delayed the start of the 2020 MLB season and is threatening to cancel the entire season. The hope is games are played in June.
As Andy Dufresne once wrote, hope is good thing, maybe the best of things.
That was the message from the Rangers on Tuesday, as Globe Life Field was dark and baseball was held in limbo.
“I’m bummed as much as you are about not playing our home opener today,” Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos said on Twitter. “But, hey, we will all get through this together and have quite a kickoff at the new ballpark when this is over with.”
The Rangers’ social media team was busy pumping optimism. They started the day posting a picture of Globe Life Field, roof open and baseball-ready.
Their message was simple: “They say good things come to those who wait.”
The Rangers also tweeted a video of Opening Day highlights, beginning with the last time the club opened a new ballpark in 1994. An iconic National Anthem was performed that day by Van Cliburn, the famed pianist who called Fort Worth home.
It is considered one of the finest memories in Globe Life Park history.
Even Rangers PR guru John Blake got into the act, posting the temperature at what would have been first pitch — 64 degrees and party cloudy. He speculated that the roof would have been open.
The Rangers would have worn their new home whites, Blake said, but the cap color was unavailable because the starting pitcher had yet to be determined.
Veteran scribe T.R. Sullivan said that he missed his 32nd home opener as a beat man, many of those for the Star-Telegram before he jumped to mlb.com. But, he assured, No. 32 is coming from the new press box at Globe Life Field.
“This would have been my 32nd Opening Day covering the Rangers ... Not counting the ones in college at Candlestick Park, including 1981 when I skipped a mid-term exam in Econ 4,” Sullivan said. “Not sure which is my seat in the new press box. I will see a 32nd Opening Day ... just not today.”
Shortstop Elvis Andrus, speaking Monday to local writers, echoed Chirinos. Yes, not christening Globe Life Field on Tuesday was a disappointment, but Andrus expects that the 2020 home opener will have more enthusiasm because fans will be so eager to see baseball.
He hopes.
“This time we are going through, the excitement and energy is going to be double, even triple,” Andrus said. “The fans will be there and the energy will be crazy, hopefully something close to what it was in the World Series.”
