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In the grand scheme of things, how much does Opening Day actually matter for an MLB team's season? Once the nine innings (or more) are played, there are still 161 games remaining in the year, which is just a boatload of opportunities to flip any bad or good Opening Day play on its head.
Still, there's no denying the day is a tone-setter and a vibe-check for a given fan base, player or team — and it can mean quite a lot.
So a player's ability to come out of spring training and dominate on Opening Day, while not the end-all, be-all, absolutely matters. If you were looking back at all of MLB history and building the best team based on Opening Day performance — with a sprinkle of historic greatness and importance in there as well — who would be in your lineup?
That's the journey we set out on, and with input from current MLB players, ultimately landed on this: The best All-Opening Day team in baseball history.
Starting pitcher: Bob Gibson
When you have the opportunity to put one of the most dominant pitchers of all time on the bump, you have to do it. So let's give Bob Gibson the ball to start off our MLB All-Opening Day team and not think too much about it.
Gibson holds the St. Louis Cardinals' record for Opening Day starts, making 10 total appearances for the Redbirds to begin the season in his career. What was even more impressive was some of the dominance he put on display in those games.
In 1967, Gibson pitched a complete game shutout against the Giants, a team with Willie Mays and Willie McCovey in the lineup, allowing only five hits and striking out 13 in the 6-0 victory. And even though he and the Cardinals lost an epic 1971 Opening Day showdown with Fergie Jenkins, Gibson went 9.1 innings and allowed just two runs on seven hits.
That's why current Giants flamethrower Jordan Hicks made it clear that Gibson would be his choice for any Opening Day roster.
"He’s a dawg. I met him before he passed away. You could tell he’s intense," says Hicks, who spoke with FanSided's MLB insider Robert Murray. "I can only imagine what it was like when he was on the field. They moved the mound back because of him. Just watching him pitch and how he went about it, that’s the main reason."
All good points, Jordan. We'll take him too.
Catcher: Yogi Berra
You can observe a lot by just watching, and if you watched Yogi Berra play for the New York Yankees on Opening Day or just simply know what he was able to do on the first day of the season, it's pretty clear that he's the obvious choice for catcher on this team.
For starters, until Opening Day 2024, Berra was tied for the most consecutive Opening Day games with a home run, doing so in the heart of his career four straight times from 1955-58. He ended up totaling five career homers on Opening Day, adding another beyond the streak, and also had a pretty impressive 21 career RBI on Opening Day.
Adding to his prowess in that capacity, Berra seemed to always come up big on Opening Day, producing a single-game OPS of 1.000 or better in 11 separate Opening Day matchups while donning the Pinstripes. Moreover, despite playing on 19 different occasions, he only failed to get on base in four of those games.
First base: Dmitri Young
There are only four players in MLB history who have put together a three-home run game on Opening Day: George Bell with Toronto in 1988, Tuffy Rhodes for the Cubbies in 1994, Matt Davidson on the Southside of Chicago in 2018 and Dmitri Young for the Detroit Tigers in 2005. However, Young's performance while achieving that feat stands out a bit more than the others.
Young didn't just sock the triumvirate of dingers in that game, but he's the only player to reach that milestone while also recording another hit on Opening Day in the same game. In an absolute shellacking of the Royals, Young went 4-for-4 with the three homers and five RBI while also reaching base on his fifth plate appearance of the day with a hit-by-pitch. It's just about as perfect of a day at the dish as you could possibly ask for.
In total, Young finished his career with five home runs on Opening Day, going yard in two other affairs in his career. Combine that type of otherworldly excellence in a moment in time with the fact that he also had eight Opening Day games with an OPS of 1.000 or higher and had five multi-hit games on Opening Day, give me the big man at first base.
Second base: Jeff Kent
The career for Jeff Kent might be better than some people remember it for. He finished his career winning the 2000 NL MVP while hitting .290 for his career with an .855 OPS. At second base and over a career that spanned from 1992-2008, that shouldn't be overlooked as to how dominant he was at a position where we don't routinely see that type of production at the plate. He was even more dominant on Opening Day, though.
One of the distinctions that Kent holds is that he's tied with Adrian Gonzalez and Gabby Hartnett for the highest career batting average on Opening Day with an eye-popping .467, nearly getting a hit in half of his at-bats on Opening Day. What's more, Kent didn't just slap singles all over the ballpark alone as he also racked up five career dingers on Opening Day as well and came through with 10 separate games to begin the season where he posted a single-game OPS over 1.000.
At a position that's exceptionally difficult to find elite hitting production from, the way Kent performed on Opening Day and overall at second makes him a shoo-in for this lineup.
Short stop: Troy Tulowitzki
If we're being completely honest, there haven't been a ton of historical feats coming out of the shortstop position on Opening Day historically. However, this does give us a great opportunity to talk about a dude that it's really a shame just couldn't stay healthy, Troy Tulowitzki.
Throughout his career, staying off the disabled list/injury list was a struggle for Tulowitzki but he was a phenomenal player, particularly at the dish, whenever he was healthy. That shone through on Opening Day as well as the longtime Rockies star as Tulo belted four home runs to begin the season in his career, the most of any shortstop on Opening Day in MLB history. That also doesn't include a blistering Opening Day performance with Colorado in 2015 when he went 3-for-5 with two doubles, an RBI and three runs scored.
Tulowitzki isn't bound for the Hall of Fame and his career ended in 2019 as injuries continued to plague him after he left Colorado. But man, with those numbers on Opening Day in his career combined with the fact that he was quietly a career .290 hitter, I love getting him in the mix with this.
Third base: Jim Presley
Somewhat in the same vein as Dmitri Young at first base, Jim Presley makes this team not because of an overall body of work on Opening Day, but because of one of the single best Opening Day performances that the game of baseball has ever seen.
Suiting up for the Seattle Mariners to begin the 1986 season, Presley started the matchup against the then-California Angels going 2-for-3 but with the M's trailing. The third baseman changed that with one swing of the bat in the ninth inning, though, belting a two-run blast that tied the game up at 4-4 and ultimately forced extra innings.
Presley wasn't done with his hero act, however. In the 10th inning when he came up to bat with the bases loaded, he made sure Opening Day didn't last any longer in Seattle as he socked a walk-off grand slam to secure the Mariners victory, only one of three players in MLB history to walk an Opening Day game off with a grand slam.
Those were the only Opening Day home runs of his career and Presley accounted for six of his eight career Opening Day RBI in that contest as well. That one day is more than enough to get this spot at the hot corner.
Left field: Ted Williams
As a Boston Red Sox fan, there's a good chance that I would probably try to shoehorn one of the franchise's legends onto this MLB All-Opening Day Team. The good news is that Ted Williams didn't make that necessary because few players have truly dominated the first game of the season in the way that Teddy Ballgame did throughout his illustrious career.
Over 14 career Opening Day outings, Williams slashed .449/.550/.816/1.336, which is just patently absurd in its own right. He also added three home runs and 14 RBI over that span as well. Perhaps his most impressive accomplishment in this realm, though, was that he was never held hitless on Opening Day in all 14 appearances. Having a sure thing of that nature is something that you could never discount the importance of.
Given that he's one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game, a member of the 500 home run club despite missing the early prime of his career while serving in World War II, and the last player to hit .400 in a season. You're going to tell me you don't want him in this lineup?
Center field: Ken Griffey Jr.
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone of a certain age who didn't at one point (or maybe even still doesn't) consider Ken Griffey Jr. one of their baseball idols. He was the epitome of cool on the diamond and then had the game that might've even been more eye-popping. For as phenomenal of a career as he enjoyed, though, he might've been even better on Opening Day.
Griffey is tied for the most career home runs on Opening Day with eight in his illustrious career. Perhaps just as impressive, he did so across seven different games, only registering one multi-homer game on Opening Day across that run. That also doesn't mention the consistency of his production either. The Kid played on Opening Day 22 times and only failed to get on base in three of those games.
San Francisco Giants utility player Jake Lamb affirmed all of that by telling FanSided's Robert Murray that Griffey would be his selection if he had one player to put in an Opening Day lineup.
"He’s the reason I play baseball," Lamb said. "Watching the Mariners in the 90s, they were a good team, and Griffey was borderline the face of the sport. Backward hat, swing, shoes, everything. He was cool. Baseball was cool.
"I played with Seattle and I met him. He was in the batting cage and I had to double-take when I saw him down there. I took a deep breath and thought, 'All right. He’s just one of us.' He was my childhood idol."
Griffey is far too cool to not have on this team.
Right field: Tyler O’Neill
Tyler O'Neill might seem like the most out-of-place inclusion on the MLB All-Opening Day team and, in the annals of baseball history, that's probably true. O'Neill has had a fun career to this point, but to put him among Hall-of-Famers and in an outfield that features Teddy Ballgame and The Kid, he doesn't exactly fit the same mold.
The Canadian muscle factory, however, is here for a very specific reason. Last year with the Red Sox, O'Neill homered on Opening Day. That's always fun in itself — but it was also the fifth consecutive Opening Day that O'Neill had gone yard, giving him the MLB record for that feat. It's also worth mentioning that he broke a tie with a couple of quite memorable names in doing so who had four straight Opening Day home runs, the aforementioned Berra, Gary Carter and Todd Hundley.
For the 2025 season and as the only active player on this team, O'Neill has a chance to extend his streak to potentially unmatchable levels in his first season with the Baltimore Orioles. We'll see just how strong that Opening Day mojo really is.
DH: Barry Bonds
I'm not going to overcomplicate things when it comes to the designated hitter spot to finish up the All-Opening Day team. We're going with the greatest hitter of all time, Barry Bonds. His Opening Day accolades are certainly good, hitting six home runs to open the season in his career, including a three-hit, two-homer game in 2002. However, it's a bit easier than that.
He's Barry freakin' Bonds.
New Giants catcher Lou Trivino told FanSided's Robert Murray that Bonds would be his pick for any Opening Day lineup, and his answer pretty much summed up why he's a no-brainer inclusion to get a bat in his hands.
"I want guys in the lineup who are raking, man," Trivino said. "It’s gotta be him. Watched him a ton growing up. That swing? Gotta be him."
While Bonds' career is marred in the eyes of many due to PED use, let's not forget that he was already a three-time NL MVP before he ever got to the Giants and before the effects of PEDs became apparent (He also went on to win four more thereafter). The thing about Bonds is that he'd have been a Hall of Famer without his checkered history with steroids or PEDs, which speaks to how he was able to break record after record during that time when none of his peers could reach those heights.