The Josh Innes Show - It's Opening Day!

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Today is the one day during the baseball season that matters... Enjoy it. Soak it up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Hello, lovers. Welcome in. All up in us on this opening day. That's right. It is opening day. That's right. It's opening day. It's incredible. It's a day that we play baseball. It's amazing. It is the one day of the baseball regular season that anyone gives a shit. And then tomorrow happens. I don't know if there's a greater drop-off in interest in something from one day to the next. Like today, every ticket's going to be like a billion dollars in every ballpark. No matter where you're going to be. you go. It's going to cost a ton to go to the game, whether it be in St. Louis or Cincinnati or wherever the hell the games are. The Tigers are playing in San Diego. I guarantee you the seats in San Diego, billion dollars for opening day. Next week, when the Tigers play here on their home opener, billion dollars per ticket. Then the next day happens. And then what you realize, when you blow all this money on opening day, and it's cool to say you were there, then the next day rolls around and those same tickets you bought for 250 bucks a pop are going for like $11.

And you're like, at the end of the day, all I did was paid $250 to watch a little pregame ceremony. And then after that, I watched a fucking baseball game, which no matter if it's played on opening day or the day after opening day is still a fucking baseball game. Let's play a couple commercials and continue. The thing that's interesting for me as it relates to baseball, and we've talked about this a lot, is that baseball forever was my favorite sport as a kid. diehard Cardinals fan when I was a young boy. And by the way, that was before they were good. You know, when I got into them, they had the one year in 96 when they went to the LCS and should have gone to the World Series. But when I was a kid, they stunk. And McGuire was hitting the home runs, but they stunk. Now, by the time I was 14, they got good and were good for almost two decades and went to the World Series four times and won twice.

And so, look, I am not, you know, some guy that is a tormented sports soul. Most of my teams that I have followed have done fairly well in the times that I followed them, right? Who are my teams? LSU. Well, it just so happened. I got to LSU in basically the golden era of LSU football, right? Who do I root for? The Saints. I root for the Saints in like the only good era of the Saints.

I root for the Cardinals. Now, the Cardinals had a lot of good eras. They're the second winning this team in terms of World Series in baseball history. They have the most in the National League. So it's not like they've been a shitty franchise. But, you know, I got to see. them be great for basically a decade and a half, really longer than that, because I had a couple of bouncebacks.

But either way, I'm a baseball guy. But you know how I feel about current baseball. It doesn't hold my interest. A lot of things don't hold my interest anymore. And I think I'm like a lot of people where, like, I think if you have a good team and you have a chance to win, I think that holds your interest more. I think it's simply put, diehard cardinal fan guy isn't as into the Cardinals or isn't into baseball because my baseball team has an over under of 69 and a half wins this year.

It's hard to be into that. And I think that's really anybody in any sport, right? When we were in Houston the first time, people weren't going to games. Why? Team was tanking. Didn't care about winning. So why would you go to the games? Were there the second time?

They go to the World Series twice. People go to the games and tickets are expensive. You know, that's any sport. But there is one thing to be said, though. And I will wax poetic a little bit about baseball to a degree. I've been to opening day, I guess, at three different ballparks, I think. I think that's what I've done. I've been to St. Louis a couple times, Houston a couple times.

I think I went to one opening day in Philadelphia, and it was like cold, and Ryan Braun hit three home runs against the Phillies. And I watched some guy like yell at this kid to throw the ball back onto the field and shit. And I think that's the extent of my opening day experiences. I don't think I've gone to any other. So I think I've been doing opening day like three times. Again, I would say do it. Just to say you did it once, especially if it's in a place where opening day is cool.

Like, I remember nothing significant about any opening days in Houston, right? Not everybody can do it as well as the Cardinals. And that's not being Homer guy here. Most places don't do it as well as St. Louis. They do it up big and you get the Clydesdales out and they ride around in the wagon and they play here comes the king and all the living legends right around and red convertibles around the warning track. It's a really cool deal.

It's a cool experience. A lot of places don't do it that well. And some don't even try. I couldn't tell you one significant thing the Astros do on opening day. I would imagine they're probably trying to create traditions and they give guys orange jackets and shit. And that's cool. But I don't recall anything significant in Philadelphia either. Like none of them are super special.

I remember St. Louis because St. Louis is badass. I remember, I think I've been to three Cardinals opening days, two before I live there, and one, when I live there. I tried to go to the second year I lived there and I waited too long for tickets and by the time it all, you know, the tickets went down. It was the fifth inning. We didn't end up going. But there is something that is that you can't recreate with football or basketball because it's impossible. And that is the feeling of going to a baseball game. because I think that because there were so many baseball games,

even if you didn't live in a city with baseball, and really particularly if you didn't live in a city with baseball, when you got to go to a big league game as a young kid, it was obviously a huge fucking deal. Like that was it. So when I got to go to St. Louis, it was very rare. Up until I moved to Houston, I had probably only been to a handful of Major League Baseball games in my life.

I probably went to a handful of games at Bush Stadium and the Bush Stadium 2 in St. Louis, and I went to a couple of games at the new Bush Stadium, and that was the extent of that. Before I moved to Houston, I'd gone to one game in Houston. I had seen two Major League ballparks in my lifetime. So it's not like I got to go all the time. So when you got to go, it was a special feeling,

and it is a special feeling to go to a ballpark, especially for a young kid. I think it's easy for us, because I'm jaded. We're all jaded in some way, and it's impossible not to be when you're 39 years old, right? I think we all get jaded to some degree. But put yourself in the position of being a kid. And nowadays, I don't know how the kids look at things, but when I was a kid, you didn't have the internet and you didn't have Twitter, you didn't get to see this shit all the time.

Like it was unique. Like if you wanted to, if you're a young kid that lives in Des Moines, Iowa, but you want to know what's going on in St. Louis, you can watch every game. You can stream video. You can watch clips and highlights, probably real-time cameras, probably watching some fucking birds in a nest outside the stadium. you can see everything so you're not shocked when you see something right like you're like if you're like if you're some kid that's never been to st louis you could have seen the gateway arch a billion times on on the internet or whatever when i was a kid you got to see the gateway arch whenever the tv would show the gateway arch you'd see it in like a book or some shit so when you

drove into st louis from poplar bluff at the second you could see the arch off in the distance you'd say there's the arch i see the arch and like it meant something because it was significant Like, wow, I'm seeing this. This is a big deal. I don't know if kids view. This, the God's honest truth. I don't know if kids get excited about that kind of shit anymore. I don't know what kids get excited about.

I don't know what revs the engine of these kids and gets them locked in and ready for, like, what excites a kid. Probably, you know, buying some fucking video games online. Like, that's the kind of shit that gets kids going. I don't know if going to a ball game still matters to kids or not because I don't have kids. I'm never around kids. I assume that kids still get into it. But I don't know if it had the same impact as it did when I was a kid. But, man, you'd go to a ball game.

I went to one playoff game at the old Bush Stadium. And up to that point, it's the only playoff game I'd ever been to up until I went when the Cardinals were in the World Series in 06. But this was in 2000. And I think you can kind of replicate, especially in St. Louis, you can kind of replicate the vibes of opening day with a playoff game. A lot of times they'll bring the horses out there and they'll run around the track and the place is sold out. And this was in 2000.

So in 2000, they had just gotten good again. So they hadn't hit that point where I bet the Astros are now where you've been good for a decade. And people kind of come to expect it so they get kind of bored with being good, which sounds ridiculous, I know, but it gets boring being good. In St. Louis, they weren't at that point yet. They'd just gotten good again. And I flew there to meet my grandpa for a playoff game. It was game two of the division series with the Cardinals and the Braves. I think Tom Glavin started that game versus Rick Ankeel maybe.

Or no, who started that game for the Cardinals? I don't know if it was Ankeel or not. I don't think it was Ankeel. Might have been Darryl Kyle. I don't know. But I know that Glavin started that game. I'm pretty positive. And I got to see Will Clark hit a home run.

And the vibes were incredible. There's a picture somewhere of me at that game. And just the vibes were immaculate, you know. And I know I'd tell you guys this all the. time, but I guess on opening day for baseball season, this would be kind of the time to do it. There is nothing like this where you go to a ballpark. You don't really get to experience it even now because most of these ballparks are open concourses so you can see the field the second you walk into the stadium.

So like when you walk into the stadium, like let Minutemade be an example or Dakin Park, whatever it is. When you go to Minute May Park, Dakin Park, whatever, you walk in and you see. the playing field immediately. Basically, no matter where you walk in, unless you come in and like in kind of the outfield corners, you can't see the field, I don't think. But like if you walk in behind home plate, the second you walk in, you see the field. When you go to these old ballparks and I imagine the dome was like this, I never saw a game in the dome, so I don't know.

I would imagine that the vet in Philadelphia was like this. I would imagine that Three Rivers Park was like this. I would imagine Qualcomm Stadium was like this. I would imagine that Riverfront Stadium was like this. a lot of the concrete donuts of that era, is you couldn't see the playing field until you walked through the tunnel. And that would also be the case for even some of the older ballparks that weren't concrete donuts. Like I would imagine Tiger Stadium in Detroit was like that. Like you had to walk in and walk through a concourse and then walk through a pathway to get to the ballpark.

When I tell you, and again, I'm waxing poetic like a lame ass right now. Like I like to show you that every now and that I'm not just a total asshole that's jaded about everything. There are certain things that are still resonate with me that are beautiful. Now I sound like this American beauty. Why are you filming that bag? Because it's beautiful. But I will always remember this. The feeling of walking through a tunnel to get to your seats and you go from this darkness.

Like all the tunnels were dark inside. I mean, that's just how they were. It might get a little bit of sunlight. They would kind of beam in. But they were in these concrete donuts. So you were in a dark tunnel, right? It wasn't like pitch black, but it was just. dark. So when you'd walk through the tunnel and go to where the seats were, you'd be instantly

blinded by the green grass and the sunshine and it would just blast you in the face. And you'd never seen grass as green as that. And you never will. Like you could look at your buddy's yard or whatever as a kid. None of it will ever be that close. That grass, it's that green and that sky is that blue, and it just pummles you. And like I talk about trying to replicate experiences. Like people talk about chasing the first high you ever got of some sort, right? Like that's why people get addicted to shit, because heroin's great, but the problem is, then you do heroin one time and you can't get the same high.

Or you take pills, and you can't just stick with taking pills because those don't get you high anymore. So then you move to heroin, and then eventually you're fucked, right? I there's no way you could ever replicate that feeling of the first time you went to a ballpark and you walked out of the tunnel through the concourse up to a tunnel to where your seats were and you were just blasted in the face with green grass blue sky sounds are just like heightened the popping of the mitts bats cracks all that and you can never do it again and that's one of the and I will hold that forever. There's no way you can ever replicate that.

And no other sport can do that. Like when you walk into a football stadium, it's not like that. When you walk into a basketball arena, it's not like that. Hockey's kind of like that because of the ice, because it's in a stadium. So, like, there are tunnels and you walk out in the – and the ice is so white and, like, it blinds you kind of in that way the first time you do it. But baseball is that, right?

Like, you just don't get that. And it happens that one time, man. And then you can never get that same high from it again. Doesn't mean you don't love it, don't mean it doesn't mean you don't like going. But man, when you get blasted in the face that first time by the ballpark. And I guarantee if you're in Philly, you know this. If you're in Houston who grew up going to games in the dome, I would imagine it was very similar to that. Although it was turf and so was a little bit different.

But so I guess so was the vet for most of its existence too. So I guess it's a little bit different because in those stadiums you were dealing with AstroTurf a lot of the time. When I went to St. Louis, they had already retrofit the ballpark and gotten rid of the turf. So it was just this beautiful baseball park. I mean, it was a concrete donut. But they had gone in and retrofit the whole thing, gotten rid of some upper deck seats in the outfield, put in new scoreboards that were manually operated. And it looked cool. They did as good as you could do making a concrete donut relic of the 1960s look like a modern ballpark.

And that ballpark lasted for how many years was that ballpark around 50? I think it was in 1966 at close in 05. So yeah, it was 50 or 40 years. And it was just you can't do, you just can't replicate it. And that's that, this is that one time that you have a chance to do that as opening day. Now, once you get past the pomp and circumstance and holy shit, baseball's back, then it's just a baseball game. And tomorrow, that baseball game will be $100 cheaper to attend. But opening day, there's something.

And if you ever get a chance to do it, I would do. it. If you ever have a chance to go to a ballgame on opening day, wherever the city is, go. At least experience it one time because it does kick ass to say you did it and to be part of it. And as bitter as I am about a lot of shit, and if you listen to this, I get that I'm an angry, curmudgety person about a lot of shit and I try to be in a better mood and whatever. You know, look, we're all kind of bitter and jaded based on all the shit we see and read. Now, I get it. Try to put yourself in the position of being a kid going to a ball and.

game for the first time in a professional ballpark and what that felt like. You can't replicate it. And it doesn't happen for football, basketball, any other sport. But baseball, it does. More to come.