I also feel strongly about opening day and see it as tradition and a win-win situation for most of us. There will always be a few naysayers and elitists who bad mouth it basically out of jealousy(other reasons are promoted but I think they are thinly veiled to intelligent people). One of the things I missed while overseas was both opening days and looked forward to my father's narrative of those days activities. So many great chilhood memories of those mornings and almost sleeepless nights that preceeded them.