AP Photo Courtesy Getty Images by Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The day has finally arrived! Well, unless you’re from Japan or a Washington Nationals’ fan, most baseball games will officially get underway later today on Opening Day!!!!!

What baseball fan doesn’t love Opening Day? The ceremonial first pitch. The national anthem which brings this country closer together. Baseballs thrown with a purpose. Batting practice. The crack of the bat. A hustling player laying it all out on the line to make a diving catch for a web gem to be seen on still baseball’s best show on ESPN, Baseball Tonight. Hey. As a former Bristol Connecticut employee, I get on them plenty but that’s one show they’ve always gotten right even if they sometimes overhaul key personnel way too much.

Today’s a day for baseball fans across America to rejoice because even if you’re a Pirates fan or Omaha Royals one, the records all are an identical 0-0 with 162 exciting (well they hope anyway) ballgames to play.

As someone who covers minor league ball, I am definitely ready to go! Only another nine or so weeks until the Staten Island Yankees open up!!!!! I’m also going to put in for some Trenton Thunder games and see if I can catch any former players I covered a la Francisco Cervelli and Colin Curtis. Josh Schmidt should also be there as well.

Speaking of Cervelli, the former NY-Penn League All-Star backstop had a little write-up in Sunday’s NY Post about Yankee brass being high on him. We’ll see how he fares in Double-A when he returns from a broken left wrist due to that infamous home plate collision with Tampa’s Elliot Johnson. Expect Cervelli to be back sometime in May.

As far as other former Baby Bombers to follow, Mitch Hilligoss certainly should be one as he’ll likely start down in Tampa looking to continue his upswing after a great second pro season with Charleston which featured a South Atlantic record 38-game hit streak.

Keep a watchful eye on George Kontos, Jonathan Hovis, Seth Fortenberry, Justin Snyder, Damon Sublett, Dellin Betances, Zach McAllister, Taylor Holiday, Mark Melanchon and speedy outfielder Brett Gardner, who will be with Triple A Wilkes Barre/Scranton but could be a September call-up.

Wishing the very best to all the players we covered including Nick Peterson, who gave us a great in depth interview a couple of months ago.

As for last night’s ESPN debut game between the visiting Braves and host Nats at the new $611 million Nationals Park, what a way to start it off as Washington’s best player and most clutch (18 GW RBI’s in 2007) third baseman Ryan Zimmerman walked off against Atlanta with a two out solo blast clearing the 377 foot sign in left center to give his team an exciting and memorable 3-2 home win.

I love Zimmerman. He’s got some David Wright in him, who btw like many other baseball observers I like to win NL MVP. I think Wright’s going to build off last season. He’s the leader of that Met team and won’t tolerate any losing after last September’s epic collapse.

We’re going to have more on the Mets and other baseball teams at some point. I’ll maybe even get to the rest of my predictions. Sorry I haven’t gotten to them as I’ve been very bust lately at work.

Still, we’ll make some picks later on today. So keep an eye on it and most importantly, enjoy the baseball!