For fans of the All-American sport, Opening Day is almost like Christmas. Now there’s a push to officially make it a national holiday, too.
Less than a month ago, the petition to “Declare Major League Baseball’s Opening Day a national holiday” made it onto the White House website, where it was followed by an ad campaign from Budweiser and Hall of Fame player Ozzie Smith to collect the 100,000 signatures needed for a White House response. Over the weekend, the petition won the attention of just enough baseball fans and crossed the threshold before a 30-day deadline. More than 101,000 have signed as Monday.
“It’s an American tradition, and it deserves to be recognized as an American holiday,” the petition’s creator wrote.
The White House has a 60-day window to respond to the petition, but Opening Day is coming up quickly on March 31, requiring a speedy response for the movement to achieve its goal before the 2014 season gets fully underway. Tom Kraus, director of Budweiser Brand Marketing, told the MLB that they are working with the White House to get a quicker response than usual.
“Once we get a quicker notification, we will share that info with our Facebook friends and all the folks who have been engaged in this movement with us,” he said.
In the meantime, diehards of the nation’s pastime will have to wait and hope for the best.
“The more than 100,000 people who signed the petition are just a fraction of the 1.3 million who will attend Opening Day games this year,” Ozzie Smith told the MLB. “The day is already an unofficial holiday, but now it’s time to make it official.”
