To start, and going against all the advice I give my students about constructing effective persuasive arguments, feel free to disregard this idea from the jump. Tony Vitello already has. I can hear his disembodied voice, sounding suddenly a lot like Graham Chapman, tutting in my ear as I write this: Stop that, it’s too silly.
Yes, having Heliot Ramos anywhere but left field in the Opening Day roster would be a silly thing to do, especially if the sole reason for doing so is to maintain the San Francisco Giants’ freak-streak of starting a different Opening Day left fielder every year since Barry Bonds in 2007.
Yet it is late March. Baseball blooms. The days widen. Flowers throw color from their petals, and I remember Nori Aoki.
The Streak lives — at least, for one more day. And while I believe that the list of left fielders, repeated enough, becomes a poem, a mantra, tied to a breath, a reliquary, its names cupped around a sacred pearl, I don’t believe in the cosmic jinx. Ramos is penciled in as the Giants’ starter for Wednesday’s Opening Day, and no soliloquy or ode or incantation will change that.
Roberts…Lewis…DeRosa…
Parker…Pence…Joe…
Each successive name represents the un-fillable void. Physical manifestations of the player to be named at the last minute, the who-cares? At some point, the surnames should’ve been struck from the back of their jerseys. Instead: Not Bonds. Nearly two decades later, with Cy Youngs and an MVP award won, division crowns, three World Series Championships, a franchise regular season win-record, among other club accolades, Barry’s absence is still felt to this day.
One more day.
Is this streak a living tribute to the best there ever was? A memorial? Or is it a dubious log of ineptitude? A curse, with its true consequences finally rearing its ugly head?
As Bryan points out, the Giants stand at the threshold of franchise notoriety, with four non-winning seasons under their belt. Are they about to start a fifth? One could certainly argue now is the time to exorcize some demons and end the streak at 19 with Ramos. Willy Adames’s 30 home runs in 2025 slayed another weird franchise bogeyman, and with it brought some perspective: It’s better when players hit 30 home runs than not. It stands to reason a consistent left fielder rather than a carousel of players is better too. Change should be invited by a club with one foot so often stuck in the mud of nostalgia. This, I suppose, is a problem for many franchises. We want the glorification of a successful past to boomerang fans to thinking about a successful present. Check this out: One unbroken line of winning by winners. But for so many, the “remember those guys!” celebrations serve as a distraction from the uncomfortable “who are these guys?” populating the field now.
Time to slash through these tired and tarnished artifacts that were so burdensome yet felt oddly comforting.
Yes, it’s possible I’m reading too much in the meter of Dickerson and Slater // Pederson and Sabol. Sometimes the only way we can exert some semblance of control over these weights on our backs is to make them heavier with meaning.
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