Why Time Begins on Opening Day

Why Time Begins on Opening Day is a book by Thomas Boswell, originally published in 1984. The book consists of a collection of baseball articles from Boswell's columns in the Washington Post and Inside Sports magazine, as well as one article which appeared originally in Playboy" ("Palmer vs. Palmer").

The following articles make up the book:

1. "Ballpark Wanderer", about ballparks
2. "Bred to a Harder Thing Than Triumph", about the 1982 Baltimore Orioles
3. "Trader Jack, Whitey the Rat and Other Good Ideas", about Jack McKeon and Whitey Herzog
4. "Of Dice and Men", about tabletop baseball
5. "From Little Napoleons to Tall Tacticians", about managers
6. "Lives of Noisy Desperation", about umpires
7. "How to Control the Arms Race", about pitching coaches
8. "Seasons of the Hill", profiles of various pitchers: Fernando Valenzuela, Mark Fidrych, J.R. Richard, Tom Seaver, Gaylord Perry and Warren Spahn
9. "Half Guru, Half Beast of Burden", about catchers
10. "The Importance of Being Third", about third basemen
11. "Myths", about (wrong) conventional wisdom in baseball
12. "Smoky's Children", about pinch-hitters
13. "Grand Illusion", about the College World Series
14. "The Best of All Time", about Mike Schmidt
15. "Palmer vs. Palmer", about Jim Palmer
16. "Nine Against One", about fielding
17. "The Fourth Dimension: Baseball and Memory", about the Hall of Fame
18. "The Ripken Team", about Cal Ripken, Billy Ripken and Cal Ripken Sr.
19. "Indecent Exposure", about the 1981 Postseason
20. "Why Time Begins on Opening Day", on the author's love of baseball