You can read all the opening day impressions here.

Nathan Canby also attended the Dodger game.

The beginning and end of the story of any game at Dodger Stadium is traffic. Remarkably I sailed through town and arrived at the gates of the parking lot with an hour and fifteen minutes to spare. It took about 40 minutes before I could park. Once I made it to a parking spot I went ahead and parked further on, to be closer to the gate for easy exit. This proved to be a mistake, as I learned first of all when I got to the turnstile and realized I’d left my tickets in the glove compartment, and learned secondly after the game when my car was surrounded by others trying to leave, and was immobile for another 40 minutes.

But while I was surveying each inch of the parking lot, twice, the gray cloud cover lifted, to reveal blue skies and sunshine. The Navy fighters roared overhead and the doves were released _ a potentially unfortunate combination but one that worked out this time—just as I entered the stadium. I was sitting in the upper deck, which I love at Dodger Stadium. We all know the idea that baseball exists outside the clock and in a green place set apart from the world around it. From up high in Dodger Stadium, with the flowered hills and palms trees as a backdrop to the green field, the idea has the most force for me.

The Opening Day crowd was un-Dodger-fan-like. They were ready to boo the Dodgers from the first inning, they booed Shawn Green for striking out in the first inning, and Glenn Hoffman for not sending the runner in the third. The 30 year-old guy next to me was decked out in Twins gear, and was cheering for the Padres. He had never seen anyone score a game before, and asked me about it. His girlfriend, however, had been taught to score by her father, and told him all about it. On the other side of me was a guy originally from Pittsburgh with a shirt that read F--- All Dodger Haters, which struck me as an interestingly nuanced sort of double negative.

The new Dodgers acquitted themselves well at the bat, and those with new positions fielded them well, though Dave Roberts looked tentative on one ball in the corner. The lineup scoreboard was incapable of putting up Milton Bradley’s name - there was simply a blank in the third spot all game. I thought it was that he was too new, but they managed to put up Jason Werth's name as a pinch-hitter, who has barely been with the team longer, and who was, after all, a pinch hitter. So I figure: must be a trademark issue. Bradley earned well-deserved cheers for running down towards first each time he came up.
It’s hard to tell from the karmic signs where the Dodger season is headed: does one focus on the 2 meager runs, or the 15 hits? On Shawn Green’s long homerun, or the fact that it came in his only time at bat no one was on base? The Padres, on the other hand, look good - at least until Nevin hurts himself again and can’t be counted on for any more grand slams.