Collage by Carlie Burton
It’s Opening Day 1939! Welcome to our traditional baseball-loving, fan-parading, school-skipping, merch-selling orgy! Cincinnati is once again overdoing what it has always overdone. For one glorious afternoon, troubles of a lingering Great Depression and looming world war do not exist. Only baseball matters, and what matters most is that our Cincinnati Reds, America’s first professional team, will once again stand at the center of the baseball universe by playing the day’s only game!
All of the other National League and American League teams have to wait until tomorrow, except for the Pittsburgh Pirates, this year’s opposition. It’s the world as it should be. This day isn’t for just anybody—this one belongs to the Reds.
Now, sadly, Cincinnati’s lock on the launch of baseball season is gone. The last time we had the day to ourselves was in 1994. First games happen mostly in other cities now, and sometimes even in other countries. This year’s opener, for example, was an interleague matchup of Yankees vs. Giants in San Francisco—a night game, just for spite. The next day, four games were already underway before the Reds got to throw their first pitch.
There’s a reason I’m throwing these gloomy facts at you. I’m hoping they will help you more readily absorb a much gloomier statistic I am about to drop. I trust that you’ll be able to withstand this historical truth and accept a much deeper, dimmer reality about our town’s beloved Opening Day.
Let’s start with the undeniably good part: It is absolutely true that the Reds, unlike any other MLB team, have long enjoyed the honor of playing their first game at home. Extremely rare exceptions have been due to Acts of God, Acts of Union Bosses, or Acts of Team Owners. You decide who was more powerful. The point is that our guys, our Reds, always started the season in our town. And they mostly still do, even if it isn’t always on the season’s first day any more.
But there’s something else. Somewhere back in time, an extra component was added to the Opening Day glory story. It says that the Reds not only started every season at home but that the game was the only game played that day. People may disagree about when the tradition of exclusivity ended, but the wide consensus is that it definitely existed back there somewhere.
Well, I’m sorry, but here comes the truth, with the numbers to back it up: The Cincinnati Reds almost never played the only baseball game on Opening Day. There is no long or short timespan anywhere of the team’s repeated exclusivity—not even two years in a row. If you weep over the loss of our stand-alone Opening Days, stop. The only reason we enjoyed the 1939 scenario I described above was because rain canceled a Yankees/Senators game in Washington, D.C.
I have closely researched every Opening Day since the year 1903, the first year of a World Series between recognizable American and National leagues. From that season until the final time in 1994, the Reds had Opening Day all to themselves a total of six times. That’s six out of 91. None of them were back to back. Three of them happened only because another game somewhere else got rained out. This means that Major League Baseball intentionally planned a standalone Opening Day game for the Cincinnati Reds a grand total of three times: 1973, 1981, and 1994.
I don’t know how the myth got started, and I don’t blame anyone for never questioning it. It’s powerful and comforting, like George Washington and the cherry tree. If you’re someone who always believed it, think of the contrary evidence you’ve had to ignore. You enjoyed a Reds-only day in 1981, but over the next 13 years did you not notice all the other Opening Day games played? There were 67 of them, all right there on the sports pages. Well, that just means our exclusivity was before 1981!
OK, let’s go to the previous Reds-only day in 1973 and check the years up to 1981. Hmm…the sports pages showed 14 other Opening Day games played, including 1978 when the Reds weren’t even on the roster. Well, that means our exclusivity was before 1973!
Sorry, no it wasn’t. I don’t want to rub your face in this, but you should also know that between 1903 and 1994, the baseball season started 17 times without the Reds at all. Most of those snubs were scheduled that way.
It’s hard to say when the myth took hold. I heard it when I moved here in the 1970s and had no reason to doubt it, which is surely true of Cincinnati natives who heard it in their youth. It fits the larger narrative so well, and it has support in print. Owner Marge Schott casually mentioned it in a 1992 interview. A semi-official book, Opening Day: Celebrating Cincinnati’s Baseball Holiday, by John Erardi and Greg Rhodes, makes the claim in its introduction: “The Reds are the only team that opens each season at home, and for many years Cincinnati had the day to itself.” That’s only true if “for many years” means six times out of almost 100, with three due to rainouts.
This is not a slam at John and Greg. Their book was published in 2004, when only some of the relevant data was online. They had to go to libraries, turn fragile pages in newspapers and books, and scroll through miles of microfilm. By 2026 I was able to retrieve most every piece of supporting information I needed while pushing away two cats at my desk.
Here’s why even an attentive historian could have missed things 20 years ago: The many websites featuring Opening Day details list the games that were played but not the ones that were called off. For instance, the year 1951 shows a Reds-exclusive game on Opening Day without noting yet another Yankees/Senators rainout in Washington, D.C. I discovered these important details by looking up sports pages from other cities. Cincinnati papers tended to bury such things in their orgasmic Opening Day sections. Back when John and Greg prepared their book, distant newspapers online with searchable text barely existed. In 2026, though, I found this stuff in my underwear.
Cincinnati lives with knowing that our peak years of national impact have passed. We were once America’s meat-packing capital. We were major players in brewing, machine tools, safes, toys, flags, printing, broadcasting, and numerous popular home products. Cincinnati built the first vaults protecting the gold at Ft. Knox and the Declaration of Independence in Washington. Our advances in firefighting and alarm systems saved countless lives. Our city launched, and then lost, companies like Kahn’s, Formica, Jergens, Baldwin, Billboard, Brunswick, and many others.
Cincinnati has faced, survived, and overcome wounds much more painful than losing the front of the line for Opening Day. The Reds still start every season at home, which I’m confident will continue. The popular view says this tradition began as an honor bestowed upon the nation’s first professional team, but as long as I’m going around debunking legends here’s another truth: The real reason was money. Almost all of a baseball team’s income back in the day came from ticket sales, with opposing teams sharing the take. Unlike other cities, Cincinnati’s unique mania over Opening Day guaranteed overflowing stands every year, so why change things? Season schedulers kept doing it. It became a habit. Eventually it was called a tradition.
That tiny truth is a less romantic one than the legend. Does it make Opening Day any less wonderful for you? Not me. I’m OK with Cincinnati’s loud and proud afternoon being exactly what it is instead of something it never was.
I didn’t discover the city’s love affair with Opening Day until I was an adult, and for me it’s been like a free extra childhood. Cincinnati will forever own this magical day, which isn’t for any other town or any other team. This one belongs to the Reds.
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