2026 Baseball is Back!

Baseball is back now in 2026. Yes, we had the World Baseball Classic (Korea had extreme ups and downs, which was thrilling), and the Cactus League. But this past Wednesday was the real return of baseball. The 2026 season opened with a single game, just one, between the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees at Oracle Park. No distractions, no parallel games, just one national season opener in the Bay Area. So I went.

The main sponsor and exclusive broadcaster of Opening Day was Netflix. Not just a host, it felt like the entire opening was imagined by Netflix. For a few hours, the Park felt like a crossover episode between baseball and a product launch. You could see it everywhere, but nowhere more clearly than in McCovey Cove. Normally, the kayaks float there like a loose community of hopefuls waiting for a splash hit. That day, they looked almost organized en masse. Branded, coordinated, unmistakably sponsored. It was as if even the water had a presenting partner.

Inside the park, there were smaller changes that caught my attention in a more grounded way. Chick-fil-A had claimed the foul poles and renamed them “Fowl Poles.” If a Giants player hit the pole, you could get free food through their app. Yep, it is always great to have this kind of promotion in a game.

Food, of course, is always part of the game attending. I had heard there were new options this year, and one name stuck with me: Bulgogi Rice. That alone was enough to make me curious. I found it at a stand that used to serve ramen, now rebranded for the season. The dish itself, however, was something else entirely. It leaned more Vietnamese than Korean, the main option seemed to be Banh-mi sandwich, and the Bulgogi Rice was closer to a deconstructed banh mi with rice than anything I would associate with the real Korean bulgogi rice (at least, they don't attach Korean on it). It was not what I expected, but it was… fine. Better than fine, actually good. Still, something about eating a rice dish without a hot soup on a breezy evening by the bay felt slightly off. I'll try something else next time.

The opening ceremony was where things shifted from mildly interesting to genuinely memorable. Players were introduced with iconic symbols of their cities, a Cable Car for San Francisco, Yellow Cabs for New York. It was theatrical, but it worked. Then came the national anthem.

I had heard there might be something special, but I didn't think much of it. I noticed a few (actually many, but hard to recognize them initially) drones hovering over the Cove, but they began to move, forming patterns, releasing smoke in precise coordination until the sky itself turned into a living flag: The The Star-Spangled Banner, written in drifting clouds.

Drone shows are common nowadays, but this felt different. It was happening in daylight, against the open sky, and it was just spectacular. The only unexpected side effect was the smell. A strong, unmistakable scent of gunpowder drifted through the air. Oddly enough, it felt nostalgic. It reminded me of my childhood, of small gunpowder toys. For a moment, everything clicked. The setting, the ceremony, the sense that something had officially begun.

And then the game started. It was only good for exactly one inning. In the second, Logan Webb gave up five runs. Not because of obvious errors, but because of something harder to define. Plays that felt just a bit too relaxed, decisions that lacked urgency. The kind of baseball that does not look broken, but does not feel sharp either. The offense was not much better. Three hits in total, swings that looked more like batting practice than real games. Pitching that was not terrible, just not enough to win. It felt familiar in a way I did not want it to. It was just 'mediocre.'

The next day (today) did not help either. One hit. Yes, the Yankees have strong pitching, but who are not in MLB? Still, it is only two games. That is what I tell myself. Tomorrow, I will be back at the park with my family. Baseball has a way of resetting itself, of offering a new story every day whether you deserve it or not. I am hoping the team decides to take that offer.

However, (almost) at the end of the game, one last thing caught my eye. The 50-50 raffle had passed 70K dollars. I had not seen numbers like that since around 2008 (at least when I was at the Park). It felt like a small but clear signal.

Baseball is back.