Today is Opening Day for Major League Baseball.

Opening Day really isn’t about the baseball game. It’s about literally everything else.

Because baseball is a 162 game season the first game isn’t that important in the overall grand scheme of things. If you look at football you only have 16 games so it is pretty important to have that win at the beginning of the season. But because 1 in 162 is less than 1% of the games you play in a season it’s about so much more.

The beginning of the season is where hope springs eternal. When people say there is always next year, this is the day they talk about. Nobody has any wins, nobody has any loses. It’s a clean slate.

But even more so in baseball it means that summer is close. We have been waiting all winter for warm weather and the first baseball game of the year is that sign that summer is right around the corner. The first game of the year isn’t about celebrating a new season, it’s a celebration and our first chance of the year to do the summer activities that we can’t wait for.

Miller Park was packed today with people drinking at 8 am, tailgating in the parking lot, playing yard games and going to a baseball game. This is happening on a Monday. But once the summer comes around it’s going to be happening whenever that first summer vacation rolls around.

Opening Day isn’t about baseball it’s about opening up the doors and going outside. The game takes a backseat to people getting back together after possibly not seing each other all winter, getting together, having a few beers and being happy that Summer is right around the corner.

The Brewers lost today, but no one is going to remember that in the long run. They are going to remember everything before and after the game.

I went to the home opener for the Brewers in 2010 and it was so much different than any other game I went to in my life. I have gone to an NLCS playoff game in Milwaukee and that was tame compared to opening day. Opening Day is tailgating turned up to 11.

When we went to opening day we waited almost 45 minutes just to park our car. We arrived about an hour before the parking lots were even going to open, but because of the build-up of cars they opened the lots early. When we finally parked our car we were still almost near the back of the lot.

All the grills were going, the beer was flowing, and all the private port-a-pottys were in use. Something they changed right after this Opening Day was that you are now not allowed to bring your own port-a-potty to the game. My response to that is they should be prepared with more port-a-pottys.

Our seats for the game were in the last possible row, but the buzz was there, it was exciting. The roof was open on the stadium the first time ever for a home opener in Miller Park history. It was fun for everyone. It was for the people who loved baseball and for the people who loved to party, and also that small intersection where people loved baseball and loved to party.

Here are some pictures of my Opening Day fun.

The Brewers were losing but I still cheered them on as loud as I could from the last row of the stadium.