For baseball fans, it is not the elements but the schedule that tells us the season.

And the schedule says it’s Opening Day.

It’s a day that’s dipped in memories and dreams and dew on the grass and standing room only and hanging on every pitch as though it might hold some glimmer of meaning, some future-telling powers for the months ahead.

It’s a day for new faces, new fans, new jerseys, new hats, new players, new scoreboards, new menu, new netting, new contracts, new attitude, new expectations, new hunger, new opportunity to establish dominance at home.

It’s a day for a whole new generation to fall in love with the game for the first time.

It’s a day for live music, food from trucks, enormous and rambunctious crowds of people, packed LoDo bars, and those guys holding up signs that say “I need tickets” in one hand… holding 25 tickets in the other. It’s a day for pomp, circumstance, pageantry, awarding of hardware from a season ago, and Air Force flyovers.

It’s a day when the sounds of the game return to the streets around the ballpark. The roar of the crowd, the radio piping through the outdoor speakers, the people across the street erupting into spontaneous cheers. The crack of the bat and thump of the mitt and the bellows of the umpire and the stray sales pitch from the enthusiastic, sometimes singing, vendor and the booming voice of Reed Saunders and I don’t wanna lose your love, toniiiiiiight.

It’s a day for reintroductions. Welcome back, CarGo. Well, hello Mr. Blackmon, it seems you’ll be staying a while.

It’s a day that is held sacred—truly holy—in the hearts, minds, and souls of every kind of person; anyone of any age, race, gender, lifestyle, religion, political affiliation, or station in life can take this glorious day as their own. And as everyone’s. Across six continents and in nearly every country on Earth—and in Denver, Colorado—it is Opening Day.

It’s a magical day.

It’s a day for baseball. And baseball has come back to the Mile High City.