The pandemic-shortened Major League Baseball season finally started Thursday night, with zero fans, Nationals star Juan Soto sidelined by COVID-19 and a 4-1 storm-halted victory for the New York Yankees over reigning champ Washington behind Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge.

Opening day, at last.

Under different circumstances, Rick Rizzs would have been bubbling with enthusiasm Thursday – turned up to an even higher boil than normal from a man who thrives on undisguised zeal.

To baseball fans, opening day is an annual rite of spring that evokes great anticipation and warm memories.

There will be empty ballparks on what was supposed to be Major League Baseball’s opening day

The Legislature opened its 2020 season on a historic note with Tacoma attorney Laurie Jinkins, a five-term legislator, sworn in as the first woman and first lesbian to be elected as speaker of the House of Representatives.

The 2020 Major League Baseball season will open March 26, the earliest big league opening day. The Texas Rangers announced Friday they will play the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition on Monday, March 23 as the first game involving major league teams at Globe Life Field, their new ballpark with a retractable roof. A person familiar with the schedule then said the season will open on Thursday, March 26. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement was authorized.

As spring training neared its conclusion, a reporter mentioned to Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez that Max Scherzer was not precisely on schedule to start on opening day. “He’s going to be lined up,” Martinez said with a laugh. “Come Thursday at 1:05, he’ll be on the mound.”

Whether they stayed up into the early-morning hours to watch or decided to catch the highlights, Marco Gonzales’ former coaches at Gonzaga saw a familiar scene when the southpaw took the mound Wednesday at Japan’s Tokyo Dome.

At about 1 p.m., the Tokyo Dome’s outside concourse was abuzz with baseball fans avoiding their jobs and responsibility – an opening-day tradition that can be found even in Japan’s work-first culture.

Former Gonzaga standout will earn his first start on opening day.

Hans Crouse will tell you – he be can be a little, well, quirky on the mound. “I talk to myself out there quite a bit,” Crouse, 19, said on Thursday in the Avista Stadium dugout which will be his home away from home for the summer.

Saturday’s 2018 opening day for lowland trout fishing was a success, despite rainy and foggy weather statewide, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Felix Hernandez pitched shutout ball into the sixth inning, Nelson Cruz hit a two-run home run in the first inning and the Seattle Mariners opened the season with a 2-1 win over the Cleveland Indians on Thursday night.

Matt Davidson became the fourth player in major league history to homer three times on opening day, and the White Sox homered six times total against the Kansas City Royals.

The Seattle Mariners embark on the 2018 season in an effort to bring to a halt the longest postseason drought in the four major sports.

The baseball season began with a bang.

Talk about carrying some baggage into the season. Kansas City will be without Salvador Perez for up to six week after the star catcher sprained the medial collateral in his left knee while carrying a suitcase up some stairs in his home.

It was like he’d never left. Well, there are a few more grays in his close-cropped hair now. But there was an odd feeling of deja vu, watching Ichiro sit in front of the same locker in the home clubhouse Safeco Field, meticulously preparing each of a cadre of shiny black baseball bats in anticipation for the 2018 season and his return to the team where he became a star.