Opening Day

Don't adjust your dial. That snow you will be seeing on the screen over the next two weeks is the real thing. And it is beautiful. CBS is off to a roaring start with its Winter Olympics coverage. Saturday night's prime-time show was tremendous, complete with "hat cams," French-style bungee jumping and more. The bungee-jumping was an amazing aerial ballet, with performers 50 feet above the ground. It was part of the fascinating pageant that followed the parade of nations.

Opening Day is special. Opening Day is when 50,000 people come to a game without the lure of beach towels or Beach Boys. Opening Day is when the governor comes. Opening Day is when you have to arrive four hours early or park at Mission San Diego, Mission Valley Center or Mission Viejo . . . and walk. Opening Day is when teams like the Padres, Rangers and Indians get to use that red, white and blue bunting that teams like the Athletics, Mets and Red Sox get to use in October.

Eastern Sierra campgrounds, motels and condominiums began filling up with trout fishermen Friday, and Crowley Lake officials braced for another huge opening-day mob today. Lake and stream fishing sites from Lone Pine to Bridgeport along the Eastern Sierra normally draw 40,000 to 50,000 fishermen for the opening weekend. A record 18,825 showed up on opening day at Crowley last year. High Sierra areas such as Mammoth Lakes were buffeted by wind and snow showers Friday morning and early afternoon.

The Angels immortalized their opening day starting lineup. On the brick baseball diamond at the entrance to Edison Field, the Angels inscribed the name of each player included in an opening day lineup on a separate brick. They grouped the players by position and promised to add a brick for each future opening day starter. "There's a certain amount of pride in being able to say you started opening day for a big league team," shortstop Gary DiSarcina said.

Although negotiators are guessing that baseball's lockout must end early this week to ensure a normal opening day, the Dodgers' 1989 opening-day pitcher said that in some ways, it is already too late. "They could end the lockout immediately, and the regularly scheduled first two weeks of the season are already changed," said Tim Belcher, Dodger player representative. "If we start on April 2, our opening-day pitcher is going to be able to go five innings. At the most.

Cincinnati's traditional parade for the opening day of the baseball season was called off today because of the uncertainty created by the contract dispute between owners and players. "This would have been our 70th consecutive parade," said chairman Tony Bare of the sponsoring Findlay Market Assn. "We're just going to have to postpone it until the next time." "I hate to see something like this scrubbed," said Bare, a meat merchant at the Findlay Market, a street market near downtown Cincinnati.

Barry Bonds expects to be ready for San Francisco's season opener April 5, and the Giants asked the commissioner's office for permission to use a designated hitter during spring training home games to ease him into the exhibition season. "I've never missed an opening day," Bonds said Tuesday. "Being announced before your fans on opening day is great.... When you can play every game in the major leagues for nine innings, that's recovery. Nobody is ever ready to completely play on opening day.

Of all the 72 smartly dressed and impeccably maintained boats on exhibit for inspection last Sunday at Newport Harbor Yacht Club's 69th annual Opening Day, a little, old steam launch caught my fancy most intensely. The wooden hull of the S.L. Stoked, resting on trailer chocks at dockside, reaches back to the year 1910, while her steam engine dates back to circa 1906, according to her owner Steve Eadie of Newport Beach.

On an opening day of upsets, Due To The King justified his favorite's role by coming from behind to beat Candyman Bee by a head in the $53,850 Foothill Stakes at Fairplex Park. Caught in tight quarters around the first turn, Due To The King moved between horses into the far turn and collared pace-setting Candyman Bee in the final strides of Thursday's 6 1/2-furlong feature for 3-year-old thoroughbreds.