Scott Cunningham/Getty ImagesThen the Sox got seven shutout innings from Mark Buehrle to easily take down the Indians 6-0.
Okay, whatever, the bad teams won. But at 3:10 CST, it was time for all that really mattered. Okay, it's 3:10, here we go. And now it's 3:12, no Cubs game. 3:15. 3:20. With the Cubs game not broadcast locally (why on Earth did the Cubs give the all-important Opening Day game to WCIU? How is that possibly a reasonable decision?) and the Cardinals game running late, the Cubs game was blacked out on ESPN. An Opening Day nightmare. Finally, in the second inning, we've got a visual.
The Cubs already have three runs on the board. How'd that happen? It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's ... well, yeah, it's a Byrd. Marlon Byrd with a three-run bomb, the second straight year a Cub has homered in the first inning of the season.
Oh, that's right: Braves get to bat, too. 6-3 by the end of the first. 8-3 after two. Zambrano out. What the hell happened here? I guess Big Z didn't want to waste any time reminding Cubs fans that he's never going to be the ace that some think he is. I know it's just one start, but 1.1 IP and 8 runs? Show me a true staff ace who got lit up like that at any point last season, let alone on Opening Day.
And to top it all off, Duke just barely kept Butler from pulling off a semi-Cinderella upset and becoming the first mid-major team to win a national title since 1966.
So how was this not the worst Opening Day ever? The final score of the basketball game netted me $300 on my "squares" pool. If Duke was going to win, that was definitely the way to do it.
The Cubs get a day off today, which, sadly enough, it looks like they could use. They'll come back with Ryan Dempster on Wednesday in an effort to get their first win and wipe from our memories the debacle that was Opening Day.
It's sad that on opening day, I had to turn the game off and read a book....
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