Looking at 6 top Opening Day moments in Chicago Cubs history

Opening Day is held near and dear to the hearts of many baseball fans. It provides a sign of many things to come with the weather is warming up and summer coming around the corner. It reinvigorates life back into the neighborhood, filling sidewalks and streets with blue caps, shirts and pinstriped jerseys.

Some opt to play hooky from work and the excitement around the kick off to the season even led to Budweiser running a campaign to make Opening Day a national holiday in 2014. While some may argue that Cincinnati does this day best, Chicago Cubs fans still bring the noise whether the team plays at home or away.

There isn’t much quite like walking up the concourse steps for the first time of the season, taking in the breathtaking sight lines of Wrigley Field, the iconic organ bellowing throughout the park, and the smell of griddles charring hot dogs wafting through the air.

While the Cubs may have lost a couple of games in Japan against the Dodgers, there's no need to hit the panic button just yet. This year, the rest of the league's Opening Day can be seen as a reset.
It doesn't need to be proven, Opening Day just hits a little bit different on the North Side and the team provides its fair share of memories for all.

Tuffy Rhodes: April 4th, 1994

I’d be remiss to not leadoff with the obvious. On Opening Day in 1994 against the New York Mets, Tuffy Rhodes entered the season with only five career home runs to his name. Tasked with the challenge of leading off the Cubs’ half of the first against the former Rookie of the Year and Cy Young winner Dwight Gooden, Rhodes belted the full count delivery deep to the final row of the left-center field bleachers.

Only one player had a multi-home run game off Gooden prior, but sure enough, Rhodes would nearly replicate that swing again in the third and fifth innings. As is traditional fashion in hockey for a hat trick, the Wrigley Field fans threw their ball caps onto the field in celebration.

The Cubs would ultimately lose the game 12-8, but Rhodes etched his name into the history books as one of only four players to accomplish such a feat on Opening Day.