Baseball fans have been eagerly awaiting the start of baseball season. Opening Day is Monday!  My hometown team, the Washington Nationals will play the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field.

As is an annual tradition, to celebrate Opening Day, here are my 50 favorite things (not in order) about the start of the baseball season.

1. Um, baseball begins!!!
2. The beginning of MASN HD broadcasts so I can watch real, live games, not Nats Classics
3. The family DVR will stop recording all my parents’ shows
4. Fluffy Thoughts cupcakes and cookies!
5. The sounds of baseball – “crack!” of the bat. “whoomup!” of the ball hitting a glove. “peanuts! cracker jack!” shouting vendors.
6. Dusty Baker is the new manager
7. The high pop fly getting lost in the starry night of DC
8. Listening to DC Washington (who has a pretty awesome name) sing the Star Spangled Banner
9. Seeing how players deal with the new sliding rule.
10. Welcoming Shawn Kelley, Daniel Murphy, Yusmeiro Petit, and Ben Revere to the team
11. Waving your caps for the troops in the 3rd inning
12. Quick Pitch is on MLB Network. It is my main source for games I can’t stay up to watch
13. 6-4-3 doubleplays!
14. Scoring the games
15. Inside Pitches
16. Opening of the new kids area at the ballpark – I can’t wait to try the carnival games
17. Seeing the train scoreboard in the Norfolk Southern Club in action again
18. Nats-Mets nail-biters
19. Counting down days until the Bryce Harper Chia Pet giveaway
20. Now that I’m older I get to stay up later to watch more of the night games
21. We’re season ticket holders again!
22. JINX JINX JINXY JINX – all of the major sports magazines have the Mets winning the NL East
23. Finding out what song will play at Nats Park during the seventh-inning stretch
24. I can’t wait to try the new Pinch Dumplings at Nats Park
25. Sometimes missing school for games
26. Pups in the Park and Werth with Magnus giveaway
27. Commemorative bobbleheads to collect this year (I can’t wait for the Scherzer bobbleheads!)
28. Lots of new things to write about on MattsBats.com
29. Dealing with the “grind” of the Fantasy baseball season
30. Constantly looking at the Out-of-Town scoreboard
31. Waiting for summer to officially begin
32. Baseball games that actually count
33. Watching rookies like Trea Turner and possibly Lucas Giolito play in the Majors
34. Baseball vacations later in the year to Oakland and maybe Seattle
35. Reading articles by some of my favorite reporters like James Wagner and Chelsea Janes
36. “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack”
37. Bob and FP on TV, and Charlie and Dave on the radio
38. Ryan will hit homers to Zim-bomb-we
39. Watching the games with my friends
40. It’s my baseball season too!
41. Listening to baseball on the radio during car trips and while going to bed
42. Lots and lots of cheering Nats fans at each game
43. The only time I can bug my parents for a soda and actually get it
44. I might get my 1,600th Twitter follower this season
45. Nats Dogs
46. The possibility of the Nationals announcing their new sponsor for the stadium
47. Turning twelve!
48. Getting the chance to meet more Matt’s Bats readers and Twitter followers at “tweet-ups”
49. Baseball almost every day until at least September and hopefully October
50. Charlie Slowes saying, “Bang! Zoom! Another Curly W is in the books!”

What are your favorite things about the start of the baseball season? Leave a comment or tweet me at @MattsBats.

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