There are a lot of ways to measure time in baseball. Box scores. Standings. Stat lines that stretch across generations. But for me, time has always been measured in moments — the kind that don’t show up anywhere except memory.
My story begins on a quiet spring evening in suburban Northern Virginia, long before I ever held a pen or knew what a byline was. My dad sat beside my mom, who was pregnant with me, listening to a Pittsburgh Pirates game on a portable radio. And because baseball was already part of the fabric of who he was, he did something that still feels almost mythological to me now: He placed an earphone gently against her stomach so I could “listen,” too.
Before I ever saw a baseball, I heard one.
About a year later, he tried again — this time with a television instead of a radio. He propped up his seven-month-old daughter in front of the screen on the night Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played record. Not because I would remember it in the traditional sense, but because one day, he wanted me to be able to say that I was there.
More than three decades later, I can do just that. It’s an anecdote that always gets a smile. But what it really represents is something much bigger: a father who understood that love — real love — is something you pass down.
When I got a little older, that love took shape in the form of a worn-in baseball glove and long evenings in the backyard. We’d play catch until the light disappeared and the ball became more guess than sight. Sometimes we turned it into something bigger — a full game, complete with soft underhand pitches, a plastic Fisher-Price bat and imaginary crowds. I’d sprint around makeshift bases, my Pirates cap flying off behind me, chasing a feeling I didn’t yet have words for.
Looking back now, I know exactly what it was. I was falling in love.
Opening Day will always be about more than baseball
The summer after third grade, my dad took me to my first Major League game at PNC Park. It felt like stepping into a different world — greener, louder, brighter than anything I had imagined. He handed me a scorecard, and without realizing it, handed me a ritual that would follow me for the rest of my life. To this day, I can’t sit through a game without keeping score. It’s not just habit. It’s connection.
Because baseball, for me, has never just been a sport. It’s been proof.
Proof that love looks like sitting through 11 innings in 35-degree wind and sleet, long after everyone else has left, just to watch your team lose. Proof that it looks like writing an 11-page high school paper about a single game because you can’t fit how you feel into anything shorter. Proof that it looks like showing up to a doubleheader on crutches, fresh off ankle surgery, because being there matters more than comfort ever could.
That kind of love doesn’t happen by accident. It’s taught.
Every year on Opening Day, no matter where life takes us, my dad and I keep our tradition alive. Hot dogs for dinner — just like always. Sometimes in the same room, sometimes over FaceTime, but always together in the way that matters most.
Because Opening Day isn’t just the start of a season. It’s the return of something familiar. Something inherited. Something built over years of backyard games, scorecards and shared moments that quietly shape who you become.
I didn’t just grow up loving baseball. I grew up understanding it. And more than that, I grew up understanding what it means to care deeply about something — to show up for it, to stay with it, to pass it on.
So today, as another Opening Day arrives, this isn’t just a celebration of the game. It’s a thank you to my dad — and to all the dads who share their passions, who take the time to place an earphone against possibility, who understand that the smallest moments can echo the longest.
Because of you, we don’t just watch the game.
We love it.
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Emma Lingan is an MLB Staff Writer for FanSided primarily covering the Pittsburgh Pirates. She has been covering baseball for more than a decade dating back to her time as a student at Wake Forest University, and she has won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. National Team delegation (2016 Pan-American Championships & 2017 World Baseball Classic). A native of Washington, D.C. and current resident of Nashville, Tenn., she is also entering her seventh season as a credentialed NHL media member and currently covers the NHL’s Nashville Predators for The Hockey News. When she's not watching hockey, baseball or football, she enjoys podcasting, reading, going to the gym, consuming large amounts of coffee and taking long walks with her dog, Minkah. You can follow her @Emma_lingan on Twitter and Instagram.