It's the most wonderful time of the year

Thursday was Opening Day. The Cubs played the Marlins in Miami. At 12:35 PM (EST), it had the earliest start time of any game in the league. When the Marlins' pitcher made his first pitch at 12:43, it was the first pitch of the 2018 MLB season.

When Cubs' lead off man Ian Happ hit it out of the park, it was the first homerun of the 2018 MLB season.

How perfect is that? A Cub player got a homerun on the first pitch of the year!

Amazingly, it got more perfect from there. My favorite-most Cub, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, is a Florida native. A graduate of Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the deadly Valentine's Day school shooting. After the tragic event, he left spring training to spend time with the traumatized students of his alma mater. And on Opening Day, to show support for the kids, he persuaded the Cubs players to wear official Stoneman Douglas t-shirts on the field during warm-up.

He also earned the ire of The Breitbart Crowd with his support of the activist students. "I think it's amazing these kids are standing up for what they believe in. They are motivating everyone to register to vote, which is amazing. That's a powerful way to get your voice heard, to go out and vote. They're holding the throttle down on all those politicians, holding them accountable. It's just unbelievable how the entire nation is rallying around them." Naturally, the gun fetishists attacked him in the comments section.

I bet Rizz knows better than to look at it. But if he did, he answered them perfectly. 

With a homer of his own.

I love when life imitates art, and a baseball game is like a scene out of The Natural.