Get excited, spring is officially here.

Walking into a baseball stadium yesterday with temperatures around 40 degrees didn’t scream “spring,” but the fact that I was there for Opening Day baseball said otherwise.

For the second consecutive year, I saw the Washington Nationals open their season along with my brother Pat. For those of you who don’t know him, he looks like this:

It’s possible that’s not the most representative picture. Lucky for him, this year our mom was around for the game too:

Oh, and I guess I was there:

The weather was far from ideal. At one point I had to resort to taking my arms out of the sleeves of my coat and having my brother zip me up like I was in a straight jacket in order to get my hands warms again.

But there are few better days this time of year than Opening Day. That’s when even Nationals fans can pretend our team has a chance. Mathematically, it’s fun to watch all of the percentage-based statistics like batting average and earned run average that can swing so wildly with such a limited data set.

Plus there’s just something right about sitting among a crowd, eating a hot dog and watching some baseball.

I brought along my flip-style camera with the intention of taking lots of video. Due to the frozen nature of my hands, I didn’t get anything past the first inning. But again, with Opening Day there’s a lot said in those first six outs:

The Atlanta Braves ending up beating the Nationals 2-0, so it was a respectable showing. And at least this year there weren’t legions of annoying Phillies fans around.

One last comical moment. This game was played in March 2011 — not April — but someone forgot to tell the graphics guy at the stadium: