Regardless of your favorite sport or where you grew up, there’s a pretty good chance you always made time to catch one of the games on MLB’s Opening Day in one way or another.

Thursday’s slate of 13 games featured plenty of those compelling storylines unique to the sport of baseball that kept you interested all day long.  

Growing up in Buffalo, I didn’t have a hometown professional team to root for, but I still realized there was nothing quite like the sport. As I got older and had the choice of picking a team to cheer for, I had plenty of options. Both Cleveland and Pittsburgh were a little over three hours away, and Toronto was the closest with just a two-hour trip over the border. Then, of course, the in-state Yankees and Mets were taken into consideration. This part of the country is almost spoiled with the professional teams in various sports that are in such close proximity.

Nevertheless, as I got into high school and grew older, I made the decision to just become a fan of the game and to follow the most interesting storylines without much of a rooting interest. And while I have two professional teams in my hometown with the Buffalo Bills and Sabres that I’ve always been extremely passionate about, I’ve always felt a different kind of connection with baseball. That connection has taken me to seven ballparks and 26 games over the last 10 years, with the urge to plan more trips in the very near future.

With an 162-game season, it’s easy to get lost following the sport or to even become disinterested. However, there’s never a better time to get with the sport than its opening week.

Most of the 26 teams that suited up on Thursday played in conditions better suited for football, but if you ask any of the players in those games or the hundreds of thousands of fans who packed into the seats, I doubt you’d hear many complaints.

Come July, the teams will be playing in plenty of 85-degree games on weekend afternoons, but once the postseason begins in earnest in October, it’s back to brisk nights with precipitation in the forecast. It’s just another way that baseball is special, and has so many added elements that other sports just can’t provide.

On Thursday, you really had your pick of which games to watch that featured some very intriguing teams in 2018.

With the New York Yankees, you have one of the most lethal orders this century with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez. Rather fittingly, Stanton hit a two home runs and drove in four runs in his New York debut against the Blue Jays. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Yankees will most likely set plenty of offensive records in 2018, and should fill up every ballpark they travel to when they are on the road.

If you’re turned off by the Yanks and what their money can buy, you have plenty of other options this year. The Los Angeles Angels have Shohei Ohtani, who is going to attempt to become one of baseball’s very rare two-way stars, a player who will spend time in both the lineup and the rotation.

Against Oakland on Thursday, Ohtani batted eighth and was LA’s designated hitter. Before the game, Angels’ manager Mike Scioscia announced that the Japanese star would also get the start on Saturday against the A’s. Ohtani’s story is so rare, and it’s anyone’s guess how the Angels are going to utilize him the rest of the season and if the experiment will work.

Then, there’s the pitching. Despite the fact that the game’s sluggers set an MLB record for most home runs hit in a single season last year, the league has plenty of powerful aces. That couldn’t be any more evident than the rotation in Houston. With names like Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, and Dallas Keuchel in that rotation, it’s enough to strike fear in every opposing lineup. Verlander got the nod for the defending World Series Champions on Thursday, and promptly allowed just four hits and no runs over his six innings of work. Although it’s extremely rare to repeat in any sport in the modern era, I think Houston has the strongest chance of any team I can remember in recent history.

Those three storylines are just some of my early highlights on what is already shaping up to be a wild season. Most casual fans are disinterested in the sport until after the NHL and NBA playoffs die down, but if there is ever a year to flip the television to a Angels-Astros game or a Phillies-Mets game in the middle of April, this is it.